Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/44

18 baffled the statesmanship of expedients, for it was more than a mere conflict of opinion and interest. It was a conflict grounded deep in the moral nature of men—the slavery question.

Many a time had it appeared on the surface during the period I have described, threatening to overthrow all that had been ingeniously built up, and to break asunder all that had been laboriously cemented together. In their anxiety to avert every danger threatening the Union, they attempted to repress the slavery question by compromise, and, apparently, with success, at least for a while.

But however firmly those compromises seemed to stand, there was a force of nature at work which, like a restless flood, silently but unceasingly and irresistibly washed their foundation away, until at last the towering structure toppled down.

The anti-slavery movement is now one of the great chapters of our past history. The passions of the struggle having been buried in thousands of graves, and the victory of Universal Freedom standing as firm and unquestionable as the eternal hills, we may now look back upon that history with an impartial eye. It may be hoped that even the people of the South, if they do not yet appreciate the spirit which created and guided the anti-slavery movement, will not much longer misunderstand it. Indeed, they grievously misunderstood it at the time. They looked upon it as the offspring of a wanton desire to meddle with other people's affairs, or as the product of hypocritical selfishness assuming the mask and cant of philanthropy, merely to rob the South and to enrich New England; or as an insidious contrivance of criminally reckless political ambition, striving to grasp and monopolize power at the risk of destroying a part of the country or even the whole.