Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/190

164 into all those depths of moral and material bankruptcy and ruin, which, as all history demonstrates, never, fail to follow a course so utterly demented in its wickedness.

The advocates of inflation in this State, as they themselves give us to understand, expect, if the people of Ohio by the election of the Democratic candidates declare their approbation of that financial policy, that the inflation fever will, under the stimulus of such success, sweep like wildfire over the Western and Southern States, overwhelm and subjugate the Democratic National Convention next year, dictate its policy and its candidates, and in 1876 put an inflation party into the field strong enough to defy opposition. I candidly confess I see good reason to apprehend such consequences. I do indeed not undervalue the importance of the manly, honorable and patriotic condemnation pronounced by the Democratic convention of New York upon the doctrines preached by their Democratic brethren here. It was an act deserving the grateful applause of every good citizen. But I doubt very seriously whether that act will stem the flood, if the inflationists in Ohio are successful. Pennsylvania has already followed them. It is but too probable that the sectional feeling which the inflation movement strives to excite in the West and South against the Northeast will be inflamed to more intense bitterness, and that the financial question will be used as a new agency to revive the curse of sectional warfare in our politics.

Let us indulge in no delusion. The success of the inflation party in Ohio will be the signal for a general charge along the whole line to submerge the best principles and leave helpless in the rear the best leaders of the Democratic party, and, spurred on by a reckless demagogism, to capture the national power by a tumultuous rush. This is no matter of mere local concern as some weakly pretend to believe. It is a national danger, which all