Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/162

152 ently advocate the dissolution of the Union, it is the party of extreme abolitionists who desire to extinguish slavery and to punish the South by a sudden and violent crisis. But as to the Slave States, as long as they have sense enough to understand their interests and to appreciate their situation, they may thank their good fortune if they are suffered to stay in the Union with confederates who are, indeed, not willing to sacrifice their own principles and interests to slavery, but, by the radiating influence of their own growth and energy, will at least draw the Southern States also upon the road of progressive development.

But we are told that the people of the Slave States are a warlike race, and that they will gain by force what we are unwilling peacefully to concede. War? What a charm there is in that word for a people of colonels and generals! Well, since that old German monk invented that significant black powder, which blew the strongholds of feudalism into the air, war falls more and more under the head of the mathematical sciences. Don Quixote, who, undoubtedly, would have been a hero in the ninth century, would certainly be the most egregious fool in the nineteenth. I have nothing to say about the bravery of the Southern people; for aught I care, they may be braver than they pretend to be; but I invite them candidly to open their eyes, like sensible men.

I will not compare the resources of the South, in men and money, with those of the North, although statistical statements would demonstrate the overwhelming superiority of the latter. We can afford to be liberal and, for argument 's sake, admit that the South will equal the North in numbers, and, if they insist upon it, excel us in martial spirit. But it requires very little knowledge of military matters to understand that, aside from numbers, equipment, courage and discipline, the strength of an army consists