THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
and thereby have a veto on all anti-slavery legislation, that I could not understand how a sane mind could conceive it. I did not sufficiently consider the possibility that the Southern “fire-eaters” might have talked themselves, by their own grandiloquence, into a state of mind that was not quite sane, and that they might succeed in starting in the South a popular “craze” strong enough to sweep into its current the more sober-minded against their own inclination. This is what actually happened. It flattered Southern pride to be told, as the Southern revolutionists constantly told their people, that one Southerner could whip half a dozen Northerners; that the Northern people generally had no fighting spirit whatever, and that the South need only put on a warlike attitude to bring the Northerners to their knees, and thus to extort from them any concession that might be desired. Had the people of the South foreseen that the Northerners could and would fight for the Union even to the last ditch, it is quite probable that the sober thought would have overcome the “craze,” and that the secession movement would have stopped short of the actual trial of strength. Good policy, therefore, demanded that, in order to dispel the Southern delusion as to the lack of fighting spirit in the North, the Northern spokesmen should assume a tone of defiance, challenging the Southern blusterers to come on, if they were foolish enough to dare.
On the other hand, while it was not doubted at the North that the Southern people were brave and full of fighting spirit, it was very much doubted whether they could effectively fight in a war which was, in fact, waged against slavery. It was thought that the necessity of guarding and keeping down their slaves would require a very large part of their fighting force and leave comparatively little for operations in the field against hostile armies. This opinion I candidly shared, and I expressed
[ 203 ]
