The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1860-03-22

Carl shurz on Douglas.
The eloquent young German orator
of Wisconsin lately visited Massachu-
setts, and made splendid speech at
Springfield, in which the Inconsistencies
of Senator Douglas were exposed in a
mastery manner The whole speech |
appears in the Republican. and the fol-
lowing,is the concluding portion there
of:
"But one thing he (Douglas) does
tell you: lido not care ,chether slu0e7.v
be voted up or DOOM There is then. a
human heart that does not care /! Sir
look over this broad land, where the
struggle has ragged for years and years;
and across the two oceans, around the
globe, to the point where the far West
meets the far East; over the teeming
countries where the cradle of mankind
stood; and over the workshops of CIV
ilization in Europe, and those mysteri-
Gus regions under the tropical sun,
which have not emerged yet from the
night of barbarism to the daylight Of
civilized life; and then tell me, how
many hearts do you find. that do not
tremble with mortal anguish or e&ul-
tant JOY as the scales 60 up or down ?
Look over the history of the world
from the time when infant mankind felt
in its heart the first throbbings of as
piring dignity, down to our days when
the rights of man have at last found
Bold and powerful champion in a great
and mighty republic where is the
page that is not spotted with blood and
tears shed in that all-absorbing strug-
gle? Where a chapter that does not
tell the tale of jubilant triumph or
heart-breaking distress, as the scales
of freedom or slavery went up ordown?
loud applause.) But to-day, in the
midst of the nineteenth century, in a
republic whose programme was laid
down in the Declaration of Indepen-
dence, there comes man to you, and
tells you with cynic GOODNESS, that he
does not careI And because he does
not care, he claims the confidence of
his countrymen and the highest honors
of the Republic Because he does not
care, he pretends to be the representa-
tive statesman of this age!
Sir, always thought that he can be
no true statesman whose ideas and con-
ceptions are not founded upon profound
moral convictions of right and wrong.
(Applause.) What then shall we say
Of him, who boastingly parades his in
difference as virtue? May we not
drop the discussion about his states
manship, and ask: What is he worth
as man? (Repeated cheers. Yes,
he mistakes the motive power which
shapes the event of history. l find
that in fhe life of free nations mere le-
gal dispositions never turned the tide
of events, and mere constitutional con-
structions never determined the tenden-
cy of an age. The logic of things goes
its steady way, immovable to eloQuence
and deaf to argument. 1t shapes and
changes laws and constitutions accord
ing to its immutable rules, and those
adverse to it will prove no effectual OBJ
suction to its onward march. In times
of great conflicts, the orompti,ags and
dictates of human conscience are more
potent than all the inventive ingenuity
of the human brain. The conscience
of free people, when once fairly rul-
ing the action of the masses, will never
fail to make new laws, when those ex-
isting are contrary to its tendency, or
it will put its own construction upon
those that are there. Your disquisi,
tons and plausibilities may be used as
weapons and stratagems in fencing
match of controversing parties, but
powerless as they are before the con-
science of men, posterity will remem-
Der them as mere secondary incidents
of the battle of great principles, in
which the strongest motive powers OF
human nature were the true comba-
tants.
There is the slavery question not a
mere occasional quarrel between two
sections of country divided by geo.
graphical line! not mere contest be-
tween two economical interests for the
preponderance I; not o mere wrangle
between two political parties for power
andspoils, butthe great struggle between
the human conscience and burning
wrong, between advancing civilization
and retreating barbarism, between two
antagonistic systems of social organiza-
ton. (Cheers.( In vain will our i'm.
portant mock-gianss endeavor 20 make
the test question of our age turn on a
ridiculous logical bubble, or paltry
legal technicality applause y in vain
will they invent small lodges and call
them "great principles % in vain will
they attempt to drag down the allah
sorbing contest to the level of mere
pot house quarrel between two rival
candidates for a Presidential nomina.
ton. (Applause.) The wheel of pro.
crossing events will crush them to
atoms as it has crushed so many alb
normities (cheers) and a future genera
ton will pehaps read on Mr.. Douglas
tombstone the inscription: "Here lies
the queer sort of statesman, who
when the great battle of slavery was
fought, pretended to say that he did
not care whether slavery be voted up
or voted down." (Cheers.)
But as long as the moral vitality Of
this nation is not exhausted, Mr.. Doug
las and men like him will in vain en-
deavor to reduce the people to that dis
gushing state Of moral Indifference
which he himself is not ashamed to