Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/102

82 and his very labor is encouraged and facilitated by the atmosphere surrounding him. That is the experience which we gather all around us. The exigencies of life render it necessary that the different elements and forms of society should coöperate together for common interests. They strengthen the desire for social order, they quicken the spirit of organization. The necessity of fixed and permanent rules to govern the movements of society becomes apparent; the popular mind accustoms itself easily to the idea that, while the individual must maintain his independence in his immediate sphere, the opinion of the few must, in the management of common affairs and for the good of society, yield to the opinion of the many, and constitutional government, based upon the general acquiescence in laws which are brought forth and modified from time to time by the peaceable and patient conflict of opinions, is the natural result. And this result has in its highest development been brought forth and put in successful operation by our race on this continent under natural influences most favorable to its essential conditions.

Let us now examine our historical experience in tropical latitudes. Wherever man has to struggle with nature, with an encouraging promise of reward, there he grows great. Wherever that reward is denied him, or wherever nature is so bountiful as to render constant labor superfluous, there man has, as far as our observations go, always degenerated. While the temperate climate stimulates the exercise of reason and the sense of order, the tropical sun inflames the imagination to inordinate activity and develops the government of the passions. The consequences are natural: there is a tendency to government by force instead of by argument; revolutions are of chronic occurrence, like volcanic outbreaks, and you will find political life continually oscillating between two