Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/28

18 But now we stand before that awful, perplexing question: How is that conflict of contradictory principles to be appeased? How is the slavery question to be settled? There are, indeed, some persons, Democrats, affecting to be philosophers, who reason thus: “Let slavery spread wherever the slaveholders wish to carry it; let it conform the laws of the land to its principles, and adapt them to the sole purpose of its protection, nevertheless time, the natural process of development, and the spirit of the age, will do away with it.” Ah! time and the spirit of the age may do wonderful things. They have even laid the Atlantic Cable; but, by the by, it required Cyrus W. Field to start the movement, and keep it going, Mr. Everett to superintend the machinery, and Captain Hudson to steer the Niagara. Aye, sir, do those men who reason thus know what the spirit of the age and the natural process of development mean? I will tell you the word—it is action, action and action again! [Cheers.] I wonder whether those philosophers have ever looked into the history of the world. They would have learned there, how time, and the natural process of development, and the spirit of the age did away with the feudal system of society in Western Europe. What was that process of development, that spirit of the age, then? It is now commonly called the French Revolution. It was the sublimest phrenzy, and the bloodiest madness, of a people. It was the destruction of the Bastile. It was the decapitation of a king and of thousands of his adherents. It was the banishment of the whole nobility and the refractory priesthood. It was a sea of blood; it was twenty years of universal war; it was more terrible than an earthquake. [Cheers.] Have our philosophers a particular liking to that kind of natural process of development and spirit of the age? But as true as the sun will rise to-morrow, they will have the full benefit of it, if their policy,