Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/520

496 mankind, and then devote its energies to the task of reaching the highest possible degree of that usefulness.

The peculiar responsibility resting upon the American people cannot be more strikingly and impressively defined than it was by Abraham Lincoln in his famous Gettysburg speech:

Our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. . ..

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion;. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

In other words, it is the first and highest duty of the American people, involving their first and gravest responsibility, so to conduct their foreign as well as their domestic concerns that the problem of democratic government on a large scale be successfully solved in this Republic, not only for the benefit of the inhabitants of this country alone, but for the benefit of mankind. If the American people fail in this, they will fail in discharging their gravest responsibility and in fulfilling their highest mission, whatever else they may accomplish.

I do not mean to say that a due regard to that responsibility and fidelity to that mission would preclude any other effort to further the cause of popular government and of civilization outside of our own limits. But it can hardly be questioned that whenever such efforts are made in a manner apt to undermine democratic government at home, such efforts must, as to the true responsibility and mission of the American people, be regarded as dangerous;