Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/216

206 would have taught Washington what the foundation of our Federal system is! How he would have told Jefferson what the great safeguards of liberty are! [Continued merriment.]

But, alas! statesmen like Douglas are sometimes born not only out of season, but also out of place. [Laughter.] What a pity Judge Douglas does not live in Switzerland, the oldest Republic now extant. Those benighted people, the Swiss, have been for centuries indulging in the foolish delusion that they were free, and that they had a Federal system of government. Why, there is no slavery in Switzerland—there is not the necessary variety of institutions there. Their States are all free States. There is uniformity there. How can they have Federal institutions with uniformity? How can there be liberty without variety? Impossible. Poor, innocent souls! they think they are free, and have no slaves! Let the Judge go at once on a missionary expedition to liberate the Swiss. He will have an opportunity to try that other great original idea of his, that “any political creed must be radically wrong which cannot be proclaimed everywhere.” I venture to predict that every honest Swiss boot will lift itself, and kick the great variety apostle respectfully from Alp to Alp. [Shouts of laughter.]

Now, look at the strange consequences into which his variety doctrine inevitably leads him. The necessity of preserving slavery for the sake of liberty—that is, of preserving the variety of institutions—was the principal ground upon which he placed the necessity of passing his conspiracy bill. The same man who tells us that slavery must be preserved because its extinction would bring about uniformity, which, in its turn, would produce a consolidated despotic Government—the same man advocates the passage of a measure investing the Government