Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/161

Rh and workshops there stands an institution from which our system of labor derives its inspirations; that is our school-house, where our free laborers are educated. On your plantation-fields there stands another institution from which your system of labor derives its inspirations; and that is your school-house, where your slaves are flogged. And you speak of establishing the commercial and industrial independence of the slaveholding States! Do you not see that, in order to do this, you must adapt your system of labor to that purpose, by making the laborer intelligent, respectable, and at the same time aspiring? But if, by making the laborer intelligent, respectable, and aspiring, you attempt to force industrial enterprise, in a large measure, upon the Slave States, do you not see that your system of slave labor must yield? To foster commerce and industry in the Slave States for the purpose of protecting slavery! Would it not be like letting the sunlight into a room which you want to keep dark? Hence, the Slave States can never become commercially and industrially independent as long as they remain Slave States. They will always be obliged to buy from others, and others will do their carrying trade. At present they do their business with friends, who are united with them by the bonds of Union. They speak of dissolving that Union; then, as now, they will be obliged to transact the same business with us, their nearest neighbors; for if they could do otherwise, they would have done so long ago. Would they prefer, by the dissolution of the Union, to make enemies of those on whom they will always be commercially and industrially dependent?

Thus, you see, would the dissolution of the Union, in all points of dispute, defeat the very objects for which the South might feel inclined to attempt it. It would effect just the contrary of what it was intended for, and, indeed, if there is a party that can logically and consist-