Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/284

274 conviction in the minds of our people, that for the peace, liberty, and prosperity of the North American continent, the restoration of the Union is an absolute necessity. [Great applause] And what then? The war will be resumed. But under what circumstances! Now we fight the South alone, as a legitimate government fights a rebellious combination; then we shall have to fight a recognized, fully organized, and immensely strengthened Confederacy, with her European cotton-allies at her heels. Now we have the Mississippi; we have the most important points on the Atlantic coast; we have the great central position of East Tennessee; we have the heart of Georgia. We shall give up all this, merely for the privilege of paying every foot of that road again with our dollars and of sprinkling every inch of it again with the blood of our people! [Great applause.] O, my good friends in England and France! do you not think, after all, that while we are at it, it will be wisest and most economical for us to go through with it? You, who effect such a holy horror of war and bloodshed, do you not think, after all, that it will be a saving of blood and calamity if we persevere in a war of which we can see the end, instead of running into one that will be interminable?

Pardon me for devoting so much time to a subject upon which your convictions are settled. Such arguments may also be lost upon the peace-clamorers in France and England. But it might be well, perhaps, for them to know that we can see no peace but in Union, and that their efforts to persuade us to the contrary will indeed fail of their object, but will certainly confirm us in the suspicion that they may love peace well, but would love the permanent dismemberment of this Republic better. [Applause.]

Peace with disunion being impossible, it is necessary, then, if for the sake of peace alone, that the Union should be restored. And how can it be restored? Either by the