Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/346

336 of weakness; I see in them a sign of a just understanding of his situation. Revolutionary developments are never governed by the preconceived plans of individuals. Individuals may understand them, and shape their course accordingly; they may aid in their execution and facilitate their progress; they may fix their results in the form of permanent laws and institutions—but individuals will never be able to determine their character by their own conceptions. Every such attempt will prove abortive, and lead to violent reactions. A policy which is so controlled by the spirit of the times, and is based upon a just appreciation of circumstances, may, perhaps, not be very brilliant, but it will be safe, and, above all, eminently democratic. And I venture to suggest that a great many of those who indulge in the highest sounding figures of speech as to what great things they would do, if they had the power, would hardly he capable of conceiving so wise an idea as that which the President expressed in language so simple and so modest. [Applause.]

And thus the Government has steadily followed the voice of events—slowly, indeed, but never retracing a step. Slowly, did I say? We are apt to forget the ordinary relations of time, at a moment when the struggle of a century is compressing itself into the narrow compass of days and hours. What was to be done, and what was done, is plain. I showed you how, after the establishment of the first colonies the democratic spirit natural to new organizations failed to absorb the aristocratic element, on account of the introduction of slavery. I showed you haw the philosophy of the eighteenth century, and the lofty spirit of the Revolutionary period, failed in gradually abolishing slavery in consequence of an economical innovation. Those two great opportunities were lost; the full bearing of the question was not understood. But now the slave power itself has made us under-