Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/262

252 bility. [Cheers.] But the rebellion, which placed slavery in a direct practical antagonism with the institutions most dear to us, has prodigiously hastened this development. I said already, that I do not deem another victory of slavery over the national conscience impossible; but this reaction will produce new struggles, with passions more fierce, with resentments more acrimonious and reckless, and dangerous to our democratic institutions, and violent in their nature; but as to slavery, radical and conclusive in their results. [Applause.] This rebellion has uprooted the very foundations of the system, and slavery is not far from its death. [Cheers.] It will die, and if you would, you could not prevent it. [Applause.] And thus, as an anti-slavery man, I might wait and look on with equanimity.

But what I do not want to see is, that slavery, in its death struggle, should involve the best institutions that ever made a nation great and happy. It shall not entangle the Union in its downfall, and, therefore, the Union must deliver itself of its pernicious embrace. [Great applause, long-continued, and huzzas.] And now listen to what I have to say of the third possible result of the revolution through which we are passing, the only result which will restore the Union and save the spirit of its democratic institutions. The ambition, the aspirations of men grow from the circumstances in which they live. As these circumstances change, these aspirations will take a corresponding direction. A slaveholding population, wedded to the peculiar interests of their peculiar institution will, in their aspirations and political action, be governed by the demands of those interests. If those interests are incompatible with loyalty to a certain established form of government, that population will be disloyal in its aspirations. Their way of thinking, their logic, their imagination, their habits, are so affected and controlled by their circumstances,