Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/49

Rh logic of its existence; the slave masters were only the slaves of the necessities of slavery and all their seeming exactions and usurpations were merely a struggle for its life.

Many of their demands had been satisfied, on the part of the North, by submission or compromise. The Northern people, although with reluctant conscience, had acquiesced in the contrivances of politicians, for the sake of peace. But when the slave-power went so far as to demand for slavery the great domain of the Nation which had been held sacred for freedom forever, then the people of the North suddenly understood that the necessities of slavery demanded what they could not yield. Then the conscience of the masses was relieved of the doubts and fears which had held it so long in check; their moral impulses were quickened by practical perceptions; the moral idea became a practical force, and the final struggle began. It was made inevitable by the necessities of slavery; it was indeed an irrepressible conflict.

These things were impending when Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, the architects of the last compromise, left the Senate. Had they, with all their far-seeing statesmanship, never understood this logic of things? When they made their compromises, did they desire only to postpone the final struggle until they should be gone, so that they might not witness the terrible concussion? Or had their great and manifold achievements with the statesmanship of organization and expediency so deluded their minds that they really hoped a compromise which only ignored, but did not settle, the great moral question, could furnish an enduring basis for future developments?

One thing they and their contemporaries had indeed accomplished: under their care the Republic had grown so great and strong, its vitality had become so tough, that it could endure the final struggle without falling to pieces under its shocks.