Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/147

Rh conflict is to ignore it. [Laughter.] Ignore it! Ignore it, when attempts are made to plunge the country into war and disgrace, for the purpose of slavery extension! Ignore it, when slavery and free labor wage their fierce war about the possession of the national domain! Ignore it, when the liberties of speech and press are attacked! Ignore it, when the actual settler claims the virgin soil, and the slaveholding capitalists claim it also! Ignore it, when the planting interest seeks to establish and maintain its exclusive supremacy in our economical policy! Ignore it, indeed! Ignore the fire that consumes the corner posts of your house! Ignore the storm that breaks the rudder and tears to tatters the sails of your ship! Conjure the revolted elements with a meek Mount Vernon lecture! Pour upon the furious waves the placid oil of a quotation from Washington's farewell address! [Cheers and laughter.]

It is true they tell us they will enforce the laws and the Constitution. Well enough! But what laws? Those that free labor demands or those that slavery gives us? What Constitution? That of Washington and Madison, or that of Slidell, Douglas and Taney! [Loud and long-continued cheering.]

The conflict stands there with the stubborn, brutal force of reality. However severely it may disturb the nerves of timid gentlemen, there it stands and speaks the hard, stern language of fact. I understand well that great problems and responsibilities should be approached with care and caution. But times like these demand the firm action of men who know what they will, and will it, not that eunuch policy, which, conscious of its own unproductiveness, invites us blandly to settle down into the imbecile contentment of general impotency. They cannot ignore the conflict if they would, but have not nerve enough to decide it if they could. [Applause.]