THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
“I do not plead the cause of party discipline. That is not one of the deities at whose shrine I worship. It never will be. But must I, born in a foreign land, speak to you of devotion to the great interests of your country? Must I entreat you to sacrifice the small whim of a personal preference to the greatest cause of this age? No, no! It cannot be! No man in whose soul glows a spark of sympathy with struggling humanity can now stand idle. No heart that ever was fired by the divine breath of liberty can now remain cold!
“Let Wisconsin stretch her hand across the great lakes and grasp that of New York. Let it be known that New York and Wisconsin, who stood together to the last for Seward in the convention, will be the first and foremost in the battle for Lincoln and Liberty!”
This appeal had much applause and was said to produce a good effect among those to whom it was addressed. But soon such invocations became entirely unnecessary, as the rising spirit of the campaign swept away every discontent in the Republican ranks. This spirit became irresistible. There has been much questioning as to what the influences were that stirred up and kept going the anti-slavery movement at the North. It was a favorite theory among Southern people—and I have heard that opinion expressed by some of them even at the present day—that, aside from the morbid notions of a few fanatical abolitionists, who were possessed by a half-insane fixed idea, and from the reckless and restless tendency of the Yankee character to meddle with other people's affairs, it was the greed of gain, the selfish desire to subject and control the South for pecuniary profit, that inspired the anti-slavery movement, and that this was in fact the decisive influence. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although there were many merchants and manufacturers on the anti-slavery side, yet it is an indis-
[ 191 ]
