Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/352

342 the proudest monuments, not only of American statesmanship, American spirit, and American virtue, but also of the earnestness and good faith of the American heart. The Fourth of July, 1776, will shine with tenfold lustre, for its glory is at last completed by the first of January, 1863. [Long-continued applause.]

Thus the same logic of things which had driven the naturally disloyal slave aristocracy to attempt the destruction of the Union impelled the earnest defenders of the Union to destroy slavery.

Still, we are told that the Emancipation Proclamation had an injurious effect upon the conduct of the war. This may sound supremely ridiculous at this moment, but it seems there is nothing too ridiculous for the leaders of the opposition to assert, and nothing too ridiculous for their followers to believe. Still, let us hear them. They say that the anti-slavery policy of the Government divided the North and united the South. And who were these patriots who so clamorously complained of the divisions in the North? They were the same men who divided. [Applause.]

I will tell them what the anti-slavery policy of the Government did do.

It furnished a welcome pretext for those in the North whose loyalty was shaky, and it permanently attached to our colors four millions of hearts in the South whose loyalty was sound. [Loud cheers.] It brought every man down to his true level. It made the negro a fighting patriot, and it made the pro-slavery peace Democrat a skulking tory. [Tremendous cheering.] It added two hundred thousand black soldiers to our armies, and it increases their number daily.

I wish to call your special attention to this point. I will not discuss the soldierly qualities of the negro. Although on many bloody fields he has proved them, and