Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/536

512 it can decently claim. Its counsel will be sought, and the position so gained will enable it to exercise a potent influence for the maintenance of the world's peace. It will have given “the government of the people, by the people, for the people” the greatest triumph in its history. It will have commended republican government and democratic institutions to the respect and confidence of mankind as they have never been commended before. It will thus have gloriously recognized its responsibility and served its mission as the great republican power of the world. There will be no prouder title than that of being an American—far prouder than the most powerful and costly armaments and the largest conquests can make it.

And now we are told that not this, but the other course is imposed upon this Republic by “manifest destiny” and “the decree of Providence, against which it is useless to struggle.” The American people may well pause before accepting a counsel which, in seeking to unload upon Providence the responsibility for schemes of reckless ambition involving a palpable breach of faith, falls little short of downright blasphemy.

This is not the first time that such catchwords have resounded in this country. Some of us are old enough to remember the days when “manifest destiny” and “the irresistible decree of Providence” were with similar assurance invoked in behalf of what was called “extending the area of freedom," which then really meant the acquisition of more territory for the multiplication of slave States. The moral instinct and sound sense of the American people then resisted the seductive cry and silenced it, thus proving that it was neither “destiny” nor “Providence,” but only a hollow sound. We may hope that the same moral instinct and sound sense will now resist and silence the same cry, when it means the complete abandonment