Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/114

104 ples, in which the strongest motive powers of human nature were the true combatants.

There is the slavery question; not a mere occasional quarrel between the two sections of country divided by a geographical line; not a mere contest between two economical interests for the preponderance; not a mere wrangle between two political parties for power and spoils; but the great struggle between two antagonistic systems of social organization; between advancing civilization and retreating barbarism; between the human conscience and a burning wrong. [Cheers.] In vain will our impotent mock giants endeavor to make the test-question of our age turn on a ridiculous logical quibble, or a paltry legal technicality. [Applause.] In vain will they invent small dodges and call them “great principles”; in vain will they attempt to drag down the all-absorbing contest to the level of a mere pothouse quarrel between two rival candidates for a Presidential nomination. [Applause.] The wheel of progressing events will crush them to atoms, as it has crushed so many abnormities. [Cheers.] And a future generation will perhaps read on Mr. Douglas's tombstone the inscription: “Here lies the queer sort of a statesman, who, when the great battle of slavery was fought, pretended to say that he did not care whether slavery be voted up or down.” [Cheers.]

But as long as the moral vitality of this nation is not entirely exhausted, Mr. Douglas, and men like him, will in vain endeavor to reduce the people to that disgusting state of moral indifference which he himself is not ashamed to boast of. I solemnly protest that the American people are not to be measured by Mr. Douglas's self-made moral standard. However degraded some of our politicians may be, the progress of the struggle will show that the popular conscience is still alive, and that the people ! [Long-continued applause.]