Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/366

346 upon the people of the North, with the haughty contempt of self-asserting superiority. When their pretensions to rule us all were first successfully disputed, they resolved to destroy this Republic, and to build up on the corner-stone of slavery an empire of their own in which they could hold absolute sway. They made the attempt with the most overweeningly confident expectation of certain victory. Then came the civil war, and after four years of struggle their whole power and pride lay shivered to atoms at our feet; their sons dead by tens of thousands on the battlefields of this country; their fields and their homes devastated; their fortunes destroyed; and more than that, the whole social system in which they had their very being, with all their hopes and pride, utterly wiped out; slavery forever abolished, and the slaves themselves created a political power before which they had to bow their heads; and they, broken, ruined, helpless and hopeless in the dust before those upon whom they had so haughtily looked down as their vassals and inferiors. Sir, can it be said that the rebellion has gone entirely unpunished?

You may object that the loyal people, too, were subjected to terrible sufferings; that their sons, too, were slaughtered by tens of thousands; that the mourning of countless widows and orphans is still darkening our land; that we are groaning under terrible burdens which the rebellion has loaded upon us, and that therefore part of the punishment has fallen upon the innocent. And it is certainly true.

But look at the difference. We issued from this great conflict as conquerors; upon the graves of our slain we could lay the wreath of victory; our widows and orphans, while mourning the loss of their dearest, still remember with proud exultation that the blood of their husbands and fathers was not spilled in vain; that it flowed for the