Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/337

Rh nourished by that great struggle for liberty had confirmed them in their faith. They had expanded their desire for colonial independence into a broad assertion of the rights of human nature. From such convictions and impulses grew that grand platform of human liberty and equality—the Declaration of Independence. [Loud cheers.] All their public acts relating to the subject were based upon the conviction that the abnormity of slavery was to be put upon the course of ultimate extinction. Hence the great ordinance of 1787, and the legislation about the slave trade. And, indeed, had that spirit continued to govern the destinies of this Republic, slavery would have been gradually abolished, the foundation of the aristocratic tendency would have been taken away, and the future development of the country would have been placed upon, the solid and fertile ground of social and political harmony embodied in truly democratic institutions.

But this healthy development was suddenly interfered with—“by the Abolitionists,” our opponents will say. No, not by the Abolitionists, for the general Abolition spirit of that period had brought slavery near its death, No, it was interfered with by the invention of the cotton-gin; and, strange enough, a progress in manufacturing industry worked a most deplorable reaction in moral and political ideas. Slavery, drooping in most of the States, became suddenly profitable, and the sordid greediness of gain crushed down in a great many hearts the love of principle. Slavery, instead of being an evil, a scourge, and a disgrace, became suddenly a great, economical, moral, and political blessing. New theories of government sprang out of this economical revolution, and the same system of social organization, which, but a short time before, had been the foulest blot on the American name, was suddenly discovered to be the corner-stone of demo-