Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/29

Rh unfortunately for themselves, should prevail. [Repeated applause.]

There is but one way of avoiding forcible revolutions, and that is by beginning a course of progressive reforms in time. When that season of absolute necessity may arrive, is certainly difficult to determine, but reforms will rarely be commenced too soon, and it may very soon be too late. Are the advocates of slavery sure that this “too late” is still very far off? Let them beware! If the people of the United States follow their advice, I see that kind of “process of development” advancing towards us with the steady step of Fate. I see a time drawing near when those irreconcilable contradictions will break out in a crisis more violent than any we have seen yet, and will envelop slavery, and union, and progress, and prosperity, in the flames of a universal conflagration. [Cheers.]

But now, methinks, I see Mr. Douglas standing there, with a broad smile on his face, and I hear him say with that refinement of style with which that great man endeavors to maintain the dignity of a United States Senator: “These predictions are all gammon. Haven't we got my great principle?” [Loud laughter and cheers.] Popular sovereignty! Was not popular sovereignty, according to Mr. Douglas, to appease the conflict, to remove the fight from the halls of Congress, to localize the struggle, to quell the excitement, to settle the slavery question forever? But how did it happen that the very enactment of that popular sovereignty, as embodied in the Nebraska Bill, was the signal for a new and spontaneous outburst of hostilities? How was it possible that this very remedy should fan the lingering strife into a new flame? And, indeed, the blood of American freemen spilt on the prairies of Kansas, the smouldering ruins of the pioneer's cabin—fired, not by the savage hand of the Indian, but by the hands of people that claim to be civil-