THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
imprisonment, the confiscation of newspapers, the use of armed force—are found necessary to prop the Federal Government; and that the latter, in its effort to crush the independent spirit of eight millions of people, is with rapid strides approaching the line which separates democratic government from the attributes of an arbitrary despotism. The incidents of the war, so unfavorable to our arms, could not fail to give weight and color to these representations. … And if opinions like these could gain ground among our natural friends, what have we to expect of those who secretly desire a permanent disruption of the Union? … And what will the Federal Government have to oppose to this plausible reasoning? A rupture of relations, which would undoubtedly be more disagreeable to us than to them? Fleets and armies, which so far have been hardly able to close some Southern ports and to protect the President from capture in his capital? The resentment of the American people, which has ceased to be formidable? There are, in my opinion, but two ways in which the overwhelming perplexities can be averted which a rupture with foreign powers, added to our troubles at home, would inevitably bring upon us. The one consists in great and decisive military success speedily accomplished, and the other in such measures and manifestations on the part of the government as will place the war against the rebellious Slave States upon a higher moral basis, and therefore give us the control of public opinion in Europe. … It is my profound conviction that as soon as the war becomes distinctly one for and against slavery, public opinion will be so strongly, so overwhelmingly in our favor, that, in spite of commercial interests or secret spites, no European government will dare to place itself, by declaration or act, upon the side of a universally condemned institution. Our enemies know that well, and we may learn from them. While their agents carefully conceal from the eyes of Europeans their only weak point, their attachment to slavery, ought we to aid them in hiding with equal care our only strong point, our opposition to slavery? While they, well knowing how repugnant slavery is to the European way of feeling, do all to make Europeans forget that they fight for it, ought we, who are equally well acquainted with European sentiment, to abstain from making Europeans remember that we fight against it? In not availing ourselves of our advantages, we relieve the enemy of the odium attached to his cause. It is, therefore, my opinion that every step taken by the government towards the abolition of slavery is, as to our standing in Europe, equal to a victory in the field.
The fundamental idea of this despatch was, not that an
anti-slavery demonstration in the conduct of our government
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