Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/135

Rh or hope may cause a terrible conflagration. The torch of free speech and press, which gives light to the house of Liberty, is very apt to set on fire the house of Slavery. What is more natural than that the torch should be extinguished where there is such an abundance of explosive material?

It is true that in a slaveholding community the strictest subordination must be enforced, that the maintenance of established order requires the most rigorous preventive and repressive measures, which will not always allow of a strict observance of the rules of legal process; it is equally true that the making and the execution of the laws can be safely intrusted only to those who, by their position, are bound to the ruling interest; true, that popular education is dangerous to the exclusive rule of an exclusive class; true, that men must be kept stupid in order to be kept obedient. What is more consistent, therefore, than that the fundamental liberties should be disregarded whenever they become dangerous; that the safeguards of human rights in the administration of justice should be set aside whenever the emergency calls for prompt and energetic action; that the masses should be left uneducated, in order to give the slaveholding oligarchy an undisputed sway? In one word, that the rights, the liberties, and the security of the individual should have to yield to the paramount consideration of the safety of the ruling interest? All this is true; and accepting the premises, all these necessities exist. You seem startled at this proposition, and ask, What is the institution that demands for its protection such measures? The Slave States are by no means original in this respect. Look at the kingdom of Naples, where the ruling power is governed by similar exclusive interests, and acts on the same instinct of self-preservation. Does it not resort to the same means? You tell me that the principles under-