Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/35

Rh find it stated, “not with remarkable success in a financial point of view.” That I readily believe. The financial point of view was never to him a fruitful source of inspiration. Again he devoted himself to the more congenial task of teaching at the Cambridge Law School, and of editing an American edition of Vesey's Reports, in twenty volumes, with elaborate notes contributed by himself.

But now the time had come when a new field of action was to open itself to him. On the 4th of July, 1845, he delivered before the city authorities of Boston an address on “The True Grandeur of Nations.” So far he had been only a student—a deep and arduous one, and a writer and a teacher, but nothing more. On that day his public career commenced. And his first public address disclosed at once the peculiar impulse and inspirations of his heart, and the tendencies of his mind. It was a plea for universal peace,—a poetic rhapsody on the wrongs and horrors of war, and the beauties of concord; not, indeed, without solid argument, but that argument clothed in all the gorgeousness of historical illustration, classic imagery and fervid effusion, rising high above the level of existing conditions, and picturing an ideal future—the universal reign of justice and charity—not far off to his own imagination, but far beyond the conceptions of living society; but to that society he addressed the urgent summons, to go forth at once in pursuit of this ideal consummation; to transform all swords into ploughshares, and all warships into peaceful merchantmen, without delay; believing that thus the Nation would rise to a greatness never known before, which it could accomplish if it only willed it.

And this speech he delivered while the citizen soldiery of Boston in festive array were standing before him, and while the very air was stirred by the premonitory mutterings of an approaching war.