Carl Schurz - For the Republic of Washington and Lincoln

Carl Schurz

Published by Good Press, 2020

EAN 4064066441784

Table of Contents

It is not mere light-minded hero-worship that moves the American people to celebrate the anniversary of Washington's birth as a national holiday. Preminent among the monumental figures of the world's history stand the founders of nations; and preminent among them stands he whose virtue, fortitude and wisdom are honored by all mankind without a dissenting voice. It may well be said that, however men may differ in their judgment of other heroes, George Washington's character has long ceased to be a subject of debate, the verdict which places him in the first rank among the great citizens in history being universally concordant and final. And when we honor his name we celebrate what is noblest and best and most glorious in our national being.

It is not my purpose to undertake here an elaborate review of his principles, his policies and his achievements. I shall only recall to your memory some of the ideal inspirations of his mind which are of special interest as they bear upon the most important problems of our dayand first his reverential appreciation of the extraordinary favors he thought to have been bestowed by Providence upon the American people.

In his first inaugural address he said: No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. This sentiment, profoundly cherished by him, frequently appears in his writings with remarkable fervor of utterance. And well might he entertain it. I will point out what may well be called three exceptional blessings of Providence vouchsafed to the American people, the first of which Washington witnessed and profoundly valued.

THREE PROVIDENTIAL FAVORS.

Look back upon the time when our country first rose into view. Europe was in the throes of the bloody and destructive struggles following the Reformation. The efforts for religious freedom seemed rather to hamper than to promote the efforts for the political enfranchisement of peoples. On the European continent modern absolutism issued from the confusion. Even in England, where a certain measure of political freedom had been won by long contests, and where at last the crown was overthrown by the great rebellion, the Commonwealth quickly degenerated into a military absolutism, which in its turn had to yield to the restoration of the royal power. And when a new revolution resulted in firmly establishing constitutional government, still that government remained preponderantly aristocratic, and the church continued to be united with the state.

While these troubles were afflicting the peoples of Europe who were painfully staggering under the inherited burdens and shackles of feudal institutions and privileges and customs and traditions, heaped upon them by past centuries, the soil now occupied by this great Republic was opened to the best aspirations of a new era. The Englishmen, Germans, Dutch, Frenchmen, Swedes, Celts who sought their fortunes here, found a free field for their activities. No matter whether they came in search of an asylum for their religious beliefs, or in quest of wealth or adventureno matter whether kings still claimed this new world as theirs, and whether aristocrats or great proprietaries tried to preserve something like feudal authorityall pretensions adverse to political freedom speedily vanished in this atmosphere. Here that freedom had not to struggle through any established institutions or customs inherited from the past. Here the seed of democracy planted itself in virgin soil, to grow and bear fruit without hindrance. Here was, therefore, the natural birthplace of that great charter of human rights and human liberty, the Declaration of Independence, pointing out the goal to be reached, and destined to serve as a guiding star to all mankind. If here the momentous problem of government of, for and by the people is not to be solved, where in the world can it be?

This greatest of all opportunities was the providential favor Washington recognized; and he did not fail to point out the awful responsibility arising from it when he said: The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people. And the manner in which he thought that this our great opportunity should be turned to the benefit of mankind, he forcibly indicated by expressing, in his Farewell Address, his ardent wish

that the happiness of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made so complete, by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing, as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection and the adoption of every nation which is as yet a stranger to it.

And further:

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all; religion and morality enjoin this conduct, and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened and, at no distant day, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too-novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.

Thus did Washington view the first providential favor bestowed upon this people, and also our duty to spread this blessing among the nations, not by the force of arms, but by the moral power of example.

The second was no less extraordinary, although Washington himself would have been too modest to avow it. It consisted in the fact that the first President of this Republic furnished in himself, by his character, the principles he followed, the motives that inspired him and the wisdom of his policies, the most perfect model of a republican chief magistrate in the history of the worlda President to whose teachings and example all his successorsindeed, all those wielding public power in this Republiccould with the utmost confidence look for safest guidance. Surely, no other nation has ever been so signally blessed.

The third unique providential favor enjoyed by the American people consists, owing to their geographical situation, in their happy exemption from those embarrassments and dangers by which other nations, being in constant touch with powerful, jealous and possibly hostile neighbors, feel themselves obliged to keep up vast, burdensome and constantly increasing armaments on land and sea. For more than three-quarters of a centurya war of our own making and the period of our civil conflict exceptedthe American people have enjoyed the inestimable boon of a substantially unarmed peace in perfect security. Until recently we valued this priceless privilege so heartily and proudly that we looked down with pitying superiority upon the nations of the Old World, seeing them grievously burdened with their monstrous military and naval establishments; and we watched with an almost disdainful smile their incessant efforts to increase those burdens in their nervous anxiety lest some rival might get an advantage; until at last one of their mightiest rulers truthfully confessed that the ruinous competition could not much longer go on without fatal consequences. And we were the only great nation on earth securely free from these drag weights and worries.