Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/491

Rh I have often asked myself which of the memories of my somewhat eventful life I should most wish to preserve and which I could most readily spare, and I have always come to the conclusion that the recollections of the period of 1848 are among my dearest and most precious. I would not give them up at any price.

It has become the fashion in certain quarters in Germany to scoff at the year '48 as the “mad year.” That is such a foolish, yes, such an almost childish, view, of which only those are capable who cannot or will not grasp great historic facts in their true significance. It was in 1848 that the ruling German Powers so completely broke the bonds of absolutism that a return to the old form of government was made impossible. All the constitutional development they have had they owe to that period.

In 1848, for the first time, a sense of German national unity was felt and consciously developed with a life-giving force.

I was born on the left bank of the Rhine, and I distinctly remember how strong French traditions and French sympathies were among the people there in the days of my boyhood. Many of them were not sure that they did not prefer to be French rather than Prussian. The year '48 forever completely put an end to such an unsettled state of mind and in its place awakened in every heart the mighty longing for national unity which grew to be an irresistible moral impulse, until at last came the great consummation.

To us youths, however, the period of '48 was something even more than that. I have always been glad that I took part in such a movement in my early youth. Whoever has had a similar experience knows what it means to have been one of a numerous body who dedicated themselves to a cause, which to them was a noble and sacred one; who, with the boundless devotion of youth and with