Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/45

Rh productive and far more honorable sources of wealth than laziness feeding upon slave-labor, they will sacrifice old prejudices to a new spirit of enterprise, and repeated trials will produce substitutes for slave-labor, where hitherto the latter has been deemed indispensable. Whatever depravity the system of slavery may have entailed upon its devotees, the people of the South are neither devoid of noble impulses nor of the elements of common sense. Rather than kill their time in mourning over the ruins of departed glory, they will try to found new fortunes on a new order of things. And the non-slaveholding whites—now a degraded class of beings—will speedily rise to the rank of active citizens, carried forward by a general progressive movement. No doubt, slavery will linger some time in the cotton and rice growing States. But even there you will see statesmen at the head of affairs, who, abandoning old pretensions, will rather apologize for its continued existence, than boastingly parade it as the fundamental principle of democratic institutions. [Applause.] And at last that thick fog of prejudice will pass away, which hitherto has veiled from their eyes the sun of true democracy. They will, as if awakening from a dark dream, admire with astonishment the life-spreading warmth of its beams, and the glorious purity of its light. [Great cheers.]

And, at the same time, when slavery ceases to be a power, it will cease to exercise its demoralizing influence upon our national policy. No anti-democratic tendency will any longer rule the government of this country. The people will no longer be distracted and confused by the conflict of antagonistic principles. Our foreign policy will no longer be subservient to the grasping appetites of the slave aristocracy, but to the real interests of the whole country. Our influence with foreign nations will rise in the same measure as they have reason to believe