Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/243

Rh voices try to make up for the failing strength of their cause? There is not, and perhaps there never was, a man in this country, who has addressed as great a number of his countrymen as Mr. Douglas; and I venture to say there hardly ever was a man who with greater dexterity and perseverance used the watchwords of liberty in the advocacy of slavery. And yet it does not appear that his prodigiously meandering electioneering journeys [laughter and applause] made many converts for his cause. Malicious people even go so far as to pretend that he would have received more votes if fewer people had heard his eloquent voice. [Applause.]

But examples still more striking are crowding upon my memory. It is said that the eloquent Caleb Cushing is laboriously engaged in the delivery of a speech, which he commenced at a time out of men's memory, and which he means to continue to a time out of men's endurance [continued laughter]; a speech in which he has proved, is proving, and will still further prove, that the people of the North have speedily to abandon the principles contained in the Republican platform, or this young and hopeful Republic will sink to the bottom of the unfathomable ocean, never to rise again. And yet I am informed that the moral convictions of the people are successfully enduring this most unearthly of trials. The New York Tribune even asserts that this speech has created a panic in the good town of Newburyport, and that the citizens are rapidly moving their families to Plum Island [laughter], in order to escape the infliction, thus rather abandoning their old and dear firesides than yielding their consciences to Caleb Cushing's oratory. This, however, I do not believe. I think the report is exaggerated. For, although