Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/47

Rh with devotion always fresh; nourished by nothing but a profound sense of right; encouraged by nothing but the cheering sympathy of liberty-loving mankind the world over, and by the hope that some day the conscience of the American people would be quickened by a full understanding of the dangers which the existence of the great wrong would bring upon the Republic. No scramble for the spoils of office then, no expectation of a speedy conquest of power,—nothing but that conviction, that enthusiasm, that faith in the breasts of a small band of men, and the prospect of new uncertain struggles and trials.

At the time when Mr. Sumner entered the Senate, the hope of final victory appeared as distant as ever; but it only appeared so. The statesmen of the past period had just succeeded in building up that compromise which admitted California as a free State, and imposed upon the Republic the fugitive-slave law. That compromise, like all its predecessors, was considered and called a final settlement. The two great political parties accepted it as such. In whatever they might differ, as to this they solemnly proclaimed their agreement. Fidelity to it was looked upon as a test of true patriotism, and as a qualification necessary for the possession of political power. Opposition to it was denounced as factious, unpatriotic, revolutionary demagogism, little short of treason. An overwhelming majority of the American people acquiesced in it. Material interest looked upon it with satisfaction, as a promise of repose; timid and sanguine patriots greeted it as a new bond of union; politicians hailed it as an assurance that the fight for the public plunder might be carried on without the disturbing intrusion of a moral principle in politics. But, deep down, man's conscience like a volcanic fire was restless, ready for a new outbreak as soon as the thin crust of compromise should crack.