Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/109

Rh Why was it not profitable there? Simply for the reason that the conditions and circumstances of labor and production in the North were not congenial to slavery, and naturally developed a public sentiment and a social system hostile to the degradation of labor.

Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question?

Certainly.

I ask the Senator if he is not conscious now that he is restating the arguments which were made in behalf of slavery in the Southern States for fifty years before its abolition?

No, sir; I am not conscious of that.

Yes, the precise arguments.

I am not repeating arguments at all, but I am stating historical facts which the Senator from Indiana is conscious of not being able to deny. I state them for the purpose of showing what dangerous elements and tendencies we shall have to deal with in San Domingo and other tropical possessions. While slavery could not maintain itself at the North why did it maintain itself at the South? Simply because in a hotter climate natural causes developed those passions and propensities of human nature which, in the gratification of its appetites, lead to the arbitrary employment of force in preference to a just recognition of the rights of others. That was the reason of it. Thus slavery was after all not the primary, it was only an intermediate cause of the difference that existed between Northern and Southern society. That primary cause lies deeper, and you will see in future developments that that primary cause is working still.

I will not go into a disquisition on the political events which brought on our great civil war. But I may say without fear of refutation that our civil war was not a mere historical accident, but a conflict between two different