Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/215

Rh terial out of which the necessary variety was made, without which our liberty cannot exist. If they had not done so, then all the States would be free; if all the States were free there would be uniformity, and we would all be slaves! [Laughter.] What nonsense to abolish the slave trade! The more slaves, the more variety—the more variety, the more freedom. [Continued laughter.]

How we must pity the unfortunate nations that have no slavery among them! for they have no variety of institutions; and having no variety of institutions, they can have no liberty. Poor people that have no slaves among them! they can never be free. [Peals of laughter.]

It is a little surprising, however, that this great and luminous doctrine of “variety” should have been so little known about the time when our Government was organized, and the Constitution framed. There were two individuals living then who enjoyed some little reputation for statesmanship, one of whom said, “I trust we shall have a Confederacy of Free States;” and the other said, “Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than that those people (meaning the slaves) are to be free.” And they were called statesmen! What an immense progress we have made in these seventy years! They would be called simpletons or traitors now; for they either knew nothing of the great doctrine of “variety”—which was very foolish—or, if they knew it, they plotted the destruction of popular freedom by advocating uniformity—which certainly was very treasonable. By the way, the name of one was George Washington, and the name of the other Thomas Jefferson. [Bursts of laughter.] You will be obliged to confess that you were very much mistaken in those two men. What a pity Judge Douglas did not live in those days! How he would have knocked his great doctrine of variety about their ears! How he