THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
it in my speech at St. Louis and on various other public occasions. Subsequent events showed this to have been a grave mistake. But hardly anybody, perhaps not even a Southerner, would have dared to predict that while large Southern armies were fighting in the field to keep the slaves in bondage, a large majority of the same slaves would, without being coerced or overawed by the presence of an armed force, quietly and faithfully continue to cultivate the fields of their masters, and thus to provide them with sustenance in the struggle against their liberators. But this is what actually happened. To be sure, it could not eventually save slavery; but it did enable the South to put greater armies into the field and to continue the fearful grapple much longer than the North had anticipated.
My speech at St. Louis, while gaining some votes for Lincoln, did not produce any visible effect upon the “slave-holders of America.” But one of them told me at a later period that he had listened to that speech; that he had become unwillingly convinced, then and there, that, on the whole, I was right; that he had not dared to say so openly, because it would have cost him the friendship and confidence of his class, but that it had haunted his mind all through the Civil War.
That one of my speeches which perhaps attracted most attention in the campaign of 1860 was wholly devoted to a dissection of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, the presidential candidate of the Northern wing of the Democratic party. In preparing this argument I debated with myself the question how far it was permissible to attack a political opponent personally, in the discussion of public interests. I came to the conclusion that it was entirely permissible and fair if the personality of that opponent was brought forward to give strength to his cause, and especially if that personality exercised an influence through false pretense. This, as it seemed to me, was in the highest
[ 204 ]
