Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/135

Rh a sensible man in this country who will in any way feel frightened by that spectre of foreign interference which is so artfully held up before us.

What else, then, is urged? “Manifest destiny.” “Manifest destiny” is a great cry; and that cry has played a sinister part in the history of the world before this. “Manifest destiny” is written upon some of the saddest pages of the history of nations. And I might here recall some of the memories which will crowd upon the minds of those who have sprung from the nation of which I am a son. It is one of the most remarkable pathological phenomena in the history of the world that northern nations are so frequently haunted by a romantic longing for the south. And how often has that vague dream brought forth deplorable disaster! You have read the history of Germany in the Middle Ages. There was the great power of what might then be called the civilized world; and that power abandoning itself to the fatal dream of southern dominion. It was on the beautiful plains of Italy that the German empire spent its strength. It was in hunting after southern shadows that it frittered away its great opportunities of home consolidation. It was, so to say, in the embraces of that beautiful southern siren that the German empire lost its manhood.

That was “manifest destiny,” if you will call it so. And here now stands the American Republic; so vigorous, so beautiful, so great, so hopeful on the ground of her strength; and she, too, is to be seduced with the treacherous charm! And the cry of “manifest destiny” is raised by the thoughtless spirit of adventure hurrying her on to take the fatal leap into a region far more dangerous than Italy, where her very vitality, perhaps, would meet with deadly contamination.

Sir, if that were manifest destiny, then I should be seriously tempted to call it manifest doom. But is it,