Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/400

390 you with scorn and contempt! Yes, yes! So you will have to speak on that day. Do you feel what that means? Beware, I beseech you, beware, lest there be a day when every patriot will be proud and jubilant, and when your children will be ashamed to confess the name of their father. [Enthusiastic and long-continued applause.]

Look around you and see how great your nation is in these times of trial! If a courage which no danger can daunt; if a perseverance which no adversity can break; if a willingness to sacrifice her blood and treasure which no demand can exhaust; if a fidelity to just principles and a firmness of purpose which no threat can stagger, and no seduction can swerve, constitute a nation's claim to greatness, you search in vain the annals of the world for a people that could show a better title. And in these days of great deeds, and a great devotion, will you, can you insist upon being so small as to speak of nothing but difficulties you do not want to face; of sacrifices you do not want to make; of calls for military service you do not want to submit to; of taxes you do not want to pay? Even the rebels, detestable as is their cause, and deep as may be their sorrow and repentance when, at a future day, they look back upon the course they have run, even they will at least be able to set up a claim for that measure of esteem which is but seldom denied to courage and valor. But you! If your leaders be content to have nothing with which to propitiate the judgment of posterity but the factious selfishness of their complaints, the artful sophistries of their criticisms, and their contemptible sneers at the negro who with his blood—blood shed most freely for you as well as himself—has sealed his title to manhood and freedom,—will you be content to have nothing to plead in justification of your conduct but the passive indolence with which you followed so disgraceful a lead? Do not deceive yourselves! Even the