Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/261

Rh is resounding to-day, and do we not all know that if the motive of the greed of power and money were taken out of the imperialistic movement, it would speedily collapse?

Now let the popular mind in this democracy be well saturated with such teachings which shatter all our traditional principles and popular beliefs and ideals of right and justice and liberty—that is, the whole moral basis of our democracy, and substitute for all this the doctrine that might is right—and what will be the consequence? A demoralization of public sentiment more than ever fatal to public justice and eventually to public order and peace; unscrupulous struggles for the possession of power to be used in the exploitation of opportunities without regard to the rights of the defeated—that is, alternating despotisms.

It is often said that an imperialistic policy has long been carried on in England without producing such effects in a very dangerous degree, and that England is a democracy too. This is a grave error. England is not a democracy like ours. England is a monarchy with democratic tendencies, but with very powerful aristocratic institutions and traditions. There is a world of difference between it and a democracy working through universal suffrage. And I cannot repeat too often that a monarchy or an aristocracy can do many things and remain a strong monarchy or aristocracy, which a democracy cannot do and remain a true democracy; and one of those things is to rule other people with substantially arbitrary power. The vital principle of a democracy is self-government of the people. It cannot rule another people without denying the very reason of its being.

It is amazing with what lightness of mind our imperialists scoff at the most fundamental principle of democracy, which is that “governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” They flippantly talk