Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/208

198 And there are those who dare to call the man who proposed to inaugurate such a system of policy a “great statesman.” To the honor of Southern men be it said, in both cases, as well when he proposed to confer the war-making power upon the President as when he introduced the new sedition law, he had the mortification of being put down by a slaveholder. It was, in both cases, Jefferson Davis, the leader of the fire-eaters, who had the spirit to vindicate our republican institutions against the disgusting schemes of the Northern demagogue. [Applause.]

But a Northern man, also, was listening with indignant astonishment to Douglas's speech in favor of the new sedition law; that was the brave John Hickman of Pennsylvania [loud cheers], the Anti-Lecompton Democrat who believed in what he said. And when he left the Senate Chamber, he broke out in the words, “On thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat, all the days of thy life.” [Applause.]

And well might he say so, for the proposition whispered into the ears of the first of our kind by the serpent of Paradise was hardly more infamous and infernal than the proposition Douglas whispered in the ears of the present generation. [Loud applause.]

Where did Mr. Douglas learn these doctrines? He has been in Europe. Unable to comprehend the means by which liberty is to be preserved in this country, he seems to have studied the means by which people are enslaved there. Not in England, but in France and Russia, he found much to admire. (I do not know whether he visited Austria and Naples.) He basked in the sunshine of the smiles of the Czar Nicholas. The smiles of a despot sank deeply into his heart, and this conspiracy bill grew out of it. [Applause.]

And this is your “greatest of living statesmen!” If this is the ruling statesmanship of our days, then