Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/386

376 If you want to give permanency to the restored Union, the first thing necessary is that you put to rest the great element of discord which has continually disturbed the repose and threatened the unity of the Republic. And what is that element? It is the omnipresent, eternal slavery question. Are you not heartily tired of it? You always assured us that you were, and I respond by assuring you that I am. I wish I had never heard of it before, and I wish I might never again hear of it hereafter. [Applause.] Indeed, we have a right to be tired of it. For forty years it has agitated the public mind with continually increasing fury. No compromise could quiet it, no apparent settlement could appease it. Is it necessary that I should show you, why it sprang up again and again in spite of the efforts made to keep it down? I have discussed the point a hundred times; I will not repeat what has been said so often. Enough, it did keep the body politic in ceaseless agitation; it did at last lead to an attempt to break up the Republic. Everything else could be settled by compromises, or other means of mutual understanding, but the slavery question could not. This is the fact, and with the fact we have to deal. Is it not indeed time that, at last, it should be disposed of and put to rest, so that it may not trouble us again? Is it not a duty we owe to the Union, the restoration of which is bought at so heavy a price, that this great stumbling-block should be taken out of its way? But how dispose of it—how put it to rest forever? There is but one way, and that is simple, straightforward and sure. Let slavery itself disappear from the scene. [Enthusiastic cheering.] Let it die, and it will not trouble us again. Slavery dead, there will be an end of the slavery question. [Repeated cheering.]

You shrink back, Democrats, from the idea of giving the negro his freedom? Why? Have you not told us again and again, that, while we were troubling ourselves