Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/502

468 men whose avowed purpose is to reopen the questions which have so long been disturbing our repose, to continue the wild agitations which so long have been prostrating credit, confidence and prosperity, and to make the South again, for years to come, the theater of desolating civil commotions? Can you be crazy enough to embark your fortunes on a sea of uncertainty like this, the whole sky overhung with threatening storm-clouds? And if you belonged to those whose patriotism is tied up in their pockets, and whose hearts have never been warmed by generous emotions, remember—and the most selfish of you should write it in indelible letters upon your strong box—you cannot endanger the peace of the country without plotting your own ruin.

Democrats of the North, a last appeal to you. Not for ourselves will I speak, but to you I will say a word for the poor South, whose friends you profess to be. Did you ever consider what your friendship has made of that unfortunate country? For more than a generation you have excited and stimulated the worst pro-slavery passions in the Southern people. You, children of the free North, could not love slavery for its own sake; you could not believe that so flagrant an abomination could success fully resist the progressive spirit of the nineteenth century, and yet did you not encourage that insane resistance—resistance to the last—with your insidious acclamations and your promises of aid? Is it not true that, but for that artful encouragement the Southern people would have recognized the impossibility of perpetuating slavery, and that, abandoning their false hopes, they might have long ago commenced, by a gradual and peaceable reform, to accomplish that which has now been accomplished by the terrors of revolution and war? That the peaceable and salutary course of reform was not commenced in time, you, Northern Democrats, you are responsible for it. But