Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/275

Rh cases in which we do not know what to admire most—the towering impudence of the imposters, or the unfathomable stupidity of the victims. Let those who go into the open trap of the jugglers glory in the reputation of the folly. But a man of sense cannot permit himself to be gulled by so transparent an absurdity without despising himself. I call upon you to vindicate the fair fame of the Americans, as an intelligent people!

But it would be unfair to presume that those who raised the artful cry have merely done so for the purpose of setting a trap for political idiots. There is really something which they do want to restore, and there they are in earnest. They really do mean to revive one feature of the old Union; not that fidelity to the eternal principles of justice and liberty, which in the early times of this Republic was the admiration of mankind, but another thing, which has become an object of disgust to every patriotic heart, and has succeeded in creating doubts in the practicability of democratic institutions. I have spoken of the demoralizing principle: “To the victors belong the spoils”; and how, during the most disgraceful period of our history, victory with the spoils could only be obtained by abject subserviency to the slave aristocracy. And now what they mean to restore is slavery to its former power. Again the South is to be a unit for the interests of slavery; again the united Southern vote, with a few Northern States, is to command our elections; again the knife of secession is to be flourished over the head of the Nation; again our legislators and the people are to be terrorized with the cry: “Do what our Southern brethren want you to do, or they will dissolve the Union once more!” and the terrors of the past are to be used as a powerful means of intimidation for the future. Again this great Nation is to be swayed not by reason but by fear; and again the interests and the virtue of the people are to be traded away