Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/344

334 treason. Finding slavery endangered by public opinion, it was natural that it should shut itself up against that dangerous influence. But being yoked together in a common national organization with the threatening influence of the expansive democratic element, it was natural that it should endeavor to control or suppress it by all the expedients of corruption and intimidation. But failing in this finally, and still insisting upon the perpetuation of slavery, it was natural that it should try to shut itself up more effectually—to isolate itself completely, by breaking up the national organization which held it under an influence so dangerous to its existence. Thus slavery, impelled by its necessities from step to step, was the real, the natural traitor against the American nationality, and the Southern people are only the victims of its inevitable treason. [Loud applause.] But if slavery, the enemy of American nationality, could not act otherwise without giving itself up, how are you to act, the defenders of American nationality?

The answer would seem to every unprejudiced mind as plain as the question. Still, strange as it may appear at first sight, there is a difference of opinion. Only three lines of policy suggest themselves. The most fertile ingenuity could not invent any beyond these three. Either we must permit the slave aristocracy to isolate itself territorially as well as politically—that is, we must consent to the breaking up of the American nationality; or, secondly, we must preserve our Union and nationality by striking down its enemies in arms and by extinguishing the social and political agency which in its nature is disloyal and anti-national; or, thirdly, we must invite the slave aristocracy back into the national organization, offering to it that supreme and absolute control of our national concerns without which it cannot insure its permanency in the Union.

On the first proposition the people have already pro-