Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/343

Rh rule the nation was denied, began to execute its threat to ruin it. It withdrew at once into its doctrine of Slave-States-rights, and, carrying it to the criminal extent of secession, struck its murderous blow at the life of the nation. It transferred the contest from the forum to the battle-field, and once more Roundheads and Cavaliers, Democracy and Aristocracy, meet each other in arms. This is the history of the origin of this Revolution. I call it a Revolution, for it is a rebellion only on their side; it is a Revolution for the American people. [Applause.] This is the true character of the great struggle for the preservation of our nationality, a struggle which was initiated, not when the first gun was fired upon Fort Sumter, but when the slave aristocracy uttered the first threat of disunion; which arrived at its crisis when the slave aristocracy failed in its attempt to obtain complete control of our National Government, and struck the blow against the life of the nation; and which cannot end until the anti-national spirit is extinguished by the destruction of the institution which begot and fostered it. [Tremendous cheering.]

I have led you through this long, and perhaps tedious, summary of our social and political history for the purpose of showing that our present struggle is the natural outgrowth of an antagonism of which we find the germs in the first organization of American society. I have shown, also, that the aristocratic element, after having identified itself with the system of slavery, acted upon the command of its necessities. Its principal crime consisted at the beginning, and consists to-day, in its identifying itself with slavery instead of yielding to the democratic principles upon which a healthy national organization could be founded. But remaining faithful to slavery, it was impelled by the irresistible power of logic, from step to step, until at last it landed in the domain of high