Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/263

Rh will know that revolutionary movements run in a certain determined direction; that the point from which they start may be ascertained, but that you cannot tell beforehand how far they will go. The extent of their progress depends upon the strength of the opposition they meet; if the opposition is weak and short, the revolution will stop short also; but if the opposition is strong and stubborn, the movement will roll on until every opposing element in its path is trodden down and crushed.

I invite our opponents to look back upon the war of the Revolution. Was the Revolution commenced for the achievement of independence from Great Britain? No; it was commenced in opposition to the arbitrary acts of the British Government; it was commenced for the redress of specified grievances, and in vindication of colonial rights and liberties. Far-reaching minds may have foreseen the ultimate development, but it is well known that some of the most energetic Revolutionary characters disclaimed most emphatically all intention to make the colonies independent not long before independence was actually declared. And how did they come to divert the Revolutionary War from its original object? The process was simple. They permitted themselves to be controlled by events. In the course of the struggle they came to the conclusion that the rights and liberties of the colonies would not be secure as long as the British Government had the power to enforce arbitrary measures in this country; they saw that British dominion was incompatible with American liberty. Then independence was declared. It was decreed by the logic of events; it was recorded by Jefferson; it was enforced by Washington.

This was the way in which a struggle for a mere redress of grievances was “perverted” into a struggle for the abolition of British dominion. Is there anybody, to-day,