Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/273

Rh in this crisis, if you appreciated the importance of your position—if you would cast off the small ambition which governs so many of you! To maintain a point in controversy, just because you have asserted it, to say: We can do this if we please, and nobody shall hinder us, and therefore we will do it; or, we have slavery, and nobody has a right to interfere with it, and therefore we will maintain it—how small an ambition is this! How much greater, how infinitely nobler would it be, if you would boldly place yourself at the head of the movement, and say to us: We grow up in the habits of slaveholding society, and our interests were long identified with the institution, and we think also that you cannot lawfully deprive us of it; but since we see that it is the great disturbing element in this Republic, we voluntarily sacrifice it to the peace of the nation, we immolate it as a patriotic offering on the altar of the country! [Loud cheers.] Where are the hearts large enough for so great and exalted an ambition? Ah, if some man of a powerful will and lofty devotion would rise up among you; if an Andrew Johnson would go among his people [great applause], and tell them how noble it is to sacrifice for the good of the country, not only one's blood, but also one's prejudices and false pride [cheers], he would be greater than the generals who fight our battles, greater than the statesmen who direct our affairs, and coming generations would gratefully remember him as the true pacificator of his country. [Applause.] He would stand above those that are first in war; he would be the true hero of peace; he would not be second in the hearts of his countrymen.” [Great cheering.] Thus I would speak to the Union men of the South.

But whatever they may do, or not do our duty remains the same. We cannot wait one for another; the develop-