Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/291

Rh who you are, and I will tell you what you are capable of doing. You are the same men who, from 1848 to 1860, went the whole disgraceful way from the Wilmot Proviso to the Lecompton Constitution, from free-soil to the forcing of slavery upon free soil, protesting at every stopping-place, by all that is good and great, that you would not go a single step farther. [Laughter and great applause.] And you will have us believe that you are not going to do this or that! Did you know what you were going to do when you went into the Chicago Convention? How many of you are there who would not have sworn upon their sacred honor that they would never vote for a resolution like that which was passed—and did they not do it? I tell you in the face of your protestations and those of your candidate, you permit yourselves once to be infatuated with the idea that you can coax and buy the rebels back into the Union by concession, and whatever they may ask of you, you will do it, for it is only the first step that costs—and surely, Jefferson Davis will not spare you, for his foot is too familiar with the necks of his old Northern friends. [Great applause.] The old silly cry, “Do not irritate the South! do not irritate it by the blockade! do not irritate it by the armed negroes!” [laughter], will again have its old sway; your desires and delusive hopes will give birth to the most obsequious schemes, and soon you will be in a state of mind of which it will be difficult to say where folly ends and where treason begins.

Still, I will give you the full benefit of your protestations. I might describe the ruinous effect, the temporary withdrawal of our armies, or even the temporary raising of the blockade, would have upon the future chances of the war; how hundreds of French and English vessels would fly into Savannah and Wilmington with arms, and ammunition, and clothing, and railroad iron,