Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/236

226 gorgeously illuminated, in his honor burned in every human brain around me the inextinguishable light of free thought, shining out in full utterance. [Applause.]

It was a grand spectacle—grand in its simplicity; grander still for the fact that it was the regular exhibition of every day life. This shows, on a small scale, the whole tendency of New England life. Here, then, is a great exchange market of ideas, where every man, whose brain is active, offers the thoughts he has conceived for the thoughts that have sprung up in the brains of others, on every subject within the circle of his interests, on every problem within the reach of the human understanding; every idea weighed as to its value with scrutinizing curiosity; what is wrong, and dangerous, condemned; what is valueless, thrown aside; what is good and useful, accepted; but nothing condemned, nothing thrown aside, nothing accepted, before it is tried in the high court of a free and enlightened public opinion.

There is, then, a people, where every man thinks and is fond of thinking, because his mental activity is stimulated by the thoughts of others; where every man gives utterance to his thoughts, and thereby modifies the thoughts of others; where every man receives from others, and elaborates within himself to new forms what he has received. This is the freedom of thought made fruitful by the freedom of speech.

What son of Massachusetts will deny that this uninterrupted, boundless, universal traffic of ideas, is the source of her rapid and universal intellectual and material progress? Who will pretend that limits could be set to the freedom of utterance, without crippling the productive power of the freedom of thought?

But let us give the arguments of those who, from time to time, see fit to put down free speech, a candid and serious consideration. You tell me that there are certain