Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/102

92 inalienable rights, and among them were enumerated life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Declaration of Independence was adopted merely for the purpose of justifying the colonists in the eyes of the civilized world in withdrawing their allegiance from the British crown and dissolving their connection with the mother country.”

What? Is that all? Is that little heap of quicksand the whole substructure on which a new organization of society was to be built? The whole foundation upon which the proud and ponderous edifice of the United States rests? They did, then, not mean all men, when they said all men. They intended, perhaps, even to disfranchise those free blacks who, in five of the original thirteen colonies, enjoyed the right of voting. They meant but the white race. Oh no! by no means the whole white race; not the Germans, not the French, not the Scandinavians; they meant but British subjects: “British subjects on this continent being equal to British subjects born and residing on the other side of the great water!” [Laughter and applause.]

There is your Declaration of Independence, a diplomatic dodge, adopted merely for the purpose of excusing the rebellious colonies in the eyes of civilized mankind. There is your Declaration of Independence, no longer the sacred code of the rights of man, but a hypocritical piece of special pleading, drawn up by a batch of artful pettifoggers, who, when speaking of the rights of man, meant but the privileges of a set of aristocratic slaveholders, but styled it “the rights of man,” in order to throw dust into the eyes of the world, and to inveigle noble-hearted fools into lending them aid and assistance. [Applause.] These are your boasted Revolutionary Sires, no longer heroes and sages, but accomplished humbuggers and hypocrites, who said one thing and meant another;