Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/391

Rh peace; is that which you try to win by just a little war. [Applause.] If, having to deal with an enemy who is determined to resist to the last, you want to save blood and treasure, you must make the war sharp and energetic; you must not think of peace until success is clearly decided. If you want a certain and durable peace, let the defeat of the enemy be so thorough that peace and its conditions are with him not a matter of choice, but a matter of necessity. [Continued applause.] You may tell me that this will be difficult. It may be difficult, but it will be far less difficult than to accomplish a good peace by a little war, for that will be impossible. It may be difficult, but is it not necessary? And now I ask you, not only as patriots but as sensible men, will you confide a task which is so necessary and so difficult, to the hands of men who confessedly have no policy, or if they have, do not dare to avow it? Will you place the future of the Republic into the hands of a party, whose purposes are all confusion, indecision, and darkness? Will you stake the very life of the nation upon the success of a plan of which you yourselves do not know what it is? You would despise a man who in the mere affairs of every-day life should act so foolishly; and yet you would set the commonest rules of prudence aside, when your own peace, power, liberty, happiness, security—your all, and that of your children and children's children is at stake! [Applause.]

Democrats, you cannot say that I have endeavored to befog your judgment with the artifices of oratory; you cannot say that I have tried to work upon your passions or your pride. I have not spoken to you from the stand-point of what you call sentimental philanthropy, nor have I even endeavored to stir up those tender sympathies with the suffering and downtrodden, which sleep in every human heart, and which, when aroused, might bias the