Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/297

Rh it must be stopped on the score of “justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare.” And this you cry into the ears of England and France, who merely wait to hear you say so! Have not our enemies in those countries always advocated the recognition of the Confederacy on the ground that the war, on our part, was hopeless, unjust, inhuman, tyrannical, and ruinous? With what delight the London Herald and the London Times will hail this declaration! With what triumph they will point to it! Is it not admitting all, all they have been contending for—hopelessness, injustice, inhumanity, tyranny, ruin, all? And now, if the American people should be so lost to all sense of shame and decency as to endorse this declaration at a National election, with what face will you stand up before England and France, and ask them not to recognize the Confederacy? If this war is indeed what you affirm—a failure, and hopeless, unjust, inhuman, and ruinous—would it not he an act of mercy, of justice, of humanity, to step in and stop it? And do you not, by this most infamous declaration, invite them to do so? I will prove to you that this is no mere offspring of my imagination. Some time ago, Lord Lyons wrote to his Government an official dispatch, in which the following passage occurred:

“Several of the leaders of the Democratic party sought interviews with me, both before and after the arrival of the intelligence of Gen. McClellan's dismissal. The subject uppermost in their minds, while they were speaking to me, was naturally that of foreign mediation between North and South. Many of them seemed to think that this mediation must come at last; but they appeared to be afraid of its coming too soon. It was evident that they apprehended that a premature proposal of foreign intervention would afford the Radical party a means of reviving the violent war spirit, and thus of defeating the powerful plans of the Conservatives. They appeared to