Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/38

28 of freedom begins to be heard! South Carolina trembles at the detection of abolitionists among the professors of her colleges! The warm soil of North Carolina bears crops of fiery anti-slavery books! See daring leaders putting themselves at the head of the non-slaveholding whites, and bidding defiance to the oligarchy! See a free-labor colony driving its wedge into the very heart of the Old Dominion! Aye, in spite of the election-frauds and ballot-box stuffing, all the bells of St. Louis are pealing the tocsin of emancipation [loud cheers], and before long the whole State of Missouri will respond with a triumphant echo! [Applause.] I tell you, the heroic youths in the fiery furnace of slavery are chanting the praise of freedom with fearless voices, for they have heard the wings of the angel of liberty rustling in the thunder-cloud of the northern horizon. [Long and continued applause.]

See here, the first earnest and powerful display of anti-slavery sentiments in the North; and there, right consequent upon it, the first bold effort of the anti-slavery elements in the South! Is this merely accidental? No! The emancipation movement in Missouri and the free-labor colony in Virginia are the first-born children of the Fremont campaign. [Applause.] Courage and energy here, will inspire them with boldness and energy there. Had the North acted manfully thirty years ago, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, Delaware and Maryland, would perhaps be Free States now. And now let us hear no more of the fanatics of the North disturbing the poor slaveholders in their meek philanthropic intentions. [Cheers.]

Such, sir, have been some of the effects of a great anti-slavery campaign, in which we were unsuccessful. Such have been the effects of a glorious defeat, which was merely a demonstration of growing strength. Now I ask you, what would be the effects of a great anti-slavery victory? I will undertake to answer:  Give us a few years