Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/86

62 in their sense of security while in an unarmed condition. There was really no danger to threaten us, unless we ourselves provoked it. Even the warning which we heard now and then among ourselves, that our foreign commerce would not be safe without being protected by a larger war fleet, was groundless. For it is a matter of history that even before those demonstrations of our strength in the civil war, when we had with our sailing ships a very large part of the carrying trade of the world, without any navy worth speaking of for its protection, our foreign commerce proved as safe as that of any other nation having ever so many guns afloat. In fact, ever since the war of 1812, we have not had a single difference with any European Power that could not be settled on fair terms without our having any ready armament to enforce our will. The proof of this is in the historical fact that they were so settled. It is a matter of speculation whether they would all have been settled so peaceably if we had possessed an armed force ready and itching for a fray.

Thus the policy of this Republic was in entire harmony with that democratic instinct which abhors large standing armaments, and our position among the nations of the world was singularly favorable to the maintenance of that policy. None of those anxieties arising from the possible hostility of powerful neighbors, which keep European nations in a heavily armed state, existed here. Absolutely nothing to alarm us. Neither was there any reason for apprehending that those happy conditions would change, unless we ourselves desired to change them. There has indeed, of late, been much talk about the necessity of enlarging the field of our foreign commerce, and of increased armaments and even of the acquisition of foreign territory to sustain our commercial interests in foreign quarters. But while that talk was going on,