Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/274

240 freedom to their former state of subjection; and you can not do this without inaugurating the most sweeping, the most violent and bloody reaction against justice and liberty the world ever witnessed. And you cannot provoke that reaction without provoking another revolution on its heels. And now you speak of restoring the Union “as it was”!

Such things have been tried before, and we find the consequences on the records of history. England had her restoration of the Stuart dynasty, and it led to the revolution of 1688. France had her restoration of the Bourbon dynasty, and it led to the revolution of 1830. And why these revolutions? Because the Stuarts tried a reaction against the principles sealed with English blood at Naseby; because the Bourbons tried a reaction against the principles sealed with French blood at the Bastile, and on a hundred battlefields. Might not America profit by the example? You think you can restore the cotton dynasty without provoking reaction and another revolution?

But for our opponents, it seems, history has no intelligible voice. We have only to shake hands with the rebels, and the past is blotted out. We have only to act as if nothing had happened, and all will be as it was before something did happen. This is their promise. I appeal to the people. If your leaders promised you to revive all those fallen in battle, and to gather up the blood spilt on so many fields, and to infuse it into the veins of the resurrected, the presumption upon your credulity could not be more extravagant. Are you so devoid of pride, are you so completely without self-respect, as to permit so gross an imposition to be presented to you, as if you were capable of being trapped by it? Will you suffer them to insult your understanding, and to stamp you as incorrigible fools, with impunity? This, indeed, is one of the