Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/370

360 vate their senses with oratorical display, and address myself to their common sense with the simplest language at my command.

The object of our struggle with the rebellious people of the South is, and ought to be, to restore the Union, and to make it a permanent institution. Every candid man among our opponents, who has not banished the last remnant of patriotic feeling from his heart, will accept this definition as correct. Whoever is not in favor of restoring the Union is a disunionist, and ought to be sent to his friends across the lines. [Applause.] Whosoever pretends to be in favor of restoring the Union, but not in favor of making the Union a permanent institution, is either a knave or a fool, and in neither capacity entitled to the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens. [Loud applause.] With him it is not worth while to reason.

As to the object of the great struggle, then, we are agreed. Our disagreement seems to be about the means and measures by which the common object is to achieved. Let us review the points of difference.

We have tried and are trying to accomplish the restoration of the Union by the experiment of war. Are you opposed to this? If you are so now, you certainly were not always so. There was a time, only three short years ago, when most of those, whose feelings have since become so peaceable, clamored for war with bursting enthusiasm. They predicted that the Democrats alone would drive the rebels into the Gulf of Mexico; they spoke of nothing but swords and bayonets; even Fernando Wood helped in raising a regiment. The war was called a holy war that must be fought out to the last drop of blood. You remember the glorious time of the great uprising. But if the war was a holy war then, why are you opposed to it now? Is not the cause of the rebels as damnable to-day as it was then? Are not our enemies the same? Has