Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/138

128 may seem somewhat tyrannical, but is it not eminently consistent? [Applause.]

But in order to succeed in this, slavery needs a controlling power in the General Government. It cannot expect to persuade us, so it must try to subdue and rule us. Hear the slaveholder: “It is impossible that we should consider our interests safe in this Union, unless the political equilibrium between the Free and the Slave States be restored. If the Free States are permitted to increase and the Slave States stand still, we shall be completely at the mercy of a hostile majority. We are therefore obliged to demand accessions of territory, out of which new Slave States can be formed, so as to increase our representation in Congress, and to restore the equilibrium of power.” Nothing more sensible. The acquisition of foreign countries, such as Cuba and the northern States of Mexico, is demanded; and, if they cannot be obtained by fair purchase and diplomatic transaction, war must be resorted to; and, if the majority of the people are not inclined to go to war, our international relations must be disturbed by filibustering expeditions, precipitating, if possible, this country into wars, thus forcing the peaceable or cheating the enthusiastic into subserviency to the plans of the slave power. You may call this piracy, disgracing us in the eyes of the civilized world. But can you deny that slavery needs power, and that it cannot obtain that power except by extension?

So, pressed by its necessities, it lays its hand upon our national Territories. Time-honored compacts, hemming in slavery, must be abrogated. The Constitution must be so construed as to give slavery unlimited sway over our national domain. Hence your Nebraska Bills and Dred Scott decisions and slave-code platforms. You may call that atrocious, but can you deny its consistency?

“But,” adds the slaveholder, “of what use to us is the