Carl Schurz Quotes

Yankee" still signifies to them those traits of character which the southern press has been so long in the habit of attributing to the northern people; and whenever they look around them upon the traces of the war, they see in them, not the consequences of their own folly, but the evidences of "Yankee wickedness.

Our national strife pertains to ourselves—to the passing generations of men; and it can, without convulsion, be hushed forever with the passing of one generation.

The contest is not between the North and South as geographical sections … nor between the people of the North and the people of the South, for our relations have been pleasant …. But the real contest is between the two forms of society which have become established …. Society is essentially different from government … and within this government two societies had become developed as variant in structure and distinct in form as any two beings in animated nature.

If you persist in your purpose of secession, there will be war - a bloody and cruel war. Not only will the North fight, but she will also triumph. The experiment of secession will fail, and the South, in ruin and desolation, will bitterly repent the day when she attempted to overthrow a wise and beneficent government.

With the Lincoln assassination, the South didn't feel it could mourn along with the North. But Garfield was beloved by all the American people. He was trusted and respected by North and South, by freed slaves and former slave owners. Also by pioneers, which his parents had been, and by immigrants.

Our people now, one and all, are determined to sustain the Government and demand a vigorous prosecution of the war inaugurated by the disunionists. All sympathy with them is dead.

I accept your nomination in the confident trust that the masses of our countrymen, North and South, are eager to clasp hands across the bloody chasm which has so long divided them, forgetting that they have been enemies in the joyous consciousness that they are, and must henceforth remain brothers.

One [section of the nation] would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

Whereas, serious and alarming dissensions have arisen between the Northern and Southern States, concerning the rights and security of the rights of the slaveholding States, and especially their rights in the common territory of the United States; and whereas it is eminently desirable and proper that these dissensions, which now threaten the very existence of this Union, should be permanently quieted and settled by constitutional provisions, which shall do equal justice to all sections, and thereby restore to the people that peace and good will which ought to prevail between all the citizens of the United States: Therefore,…

I am equally passionate about the struggle between the North and the Southern American states. Of course, my heart goes out to the North. But alas! It is the South who acted with the most force, wisdom, and solidarity, which makes them worthy of the triumph they have received in every encounter so far. It is true that the South has been preparing for war for three years now, while the North has been forced to improvise.

The slave power of the South and the banking power of the North ... are now uniting to rule the country.

It must not be forgotten that the people of these States, without justification or excuse, rose in insurrection against the United States. They deliberately abolished their State governments so far as the same connected them politically with the Union.... They opened hostilities and levied war against the government. They continued this war for four years with the most determined and malignant spirit.... Whether legally and constitutionally or not, they did, in fact, withdraw from the Union and made themselves subjects of another government of their own creation. And they only yielded when they were compelled by utter exhaustion to lay down their arms ... expressing no regret, except that they had no longer the power to continue the desperate struggle The war thus waged was a civil war of the greatest magnitude. The people waging it were necessarily subject to all the rule which, by the law of nations, control a contest of that character, and to all the legitimate consequences following it. One of those consequences was that, within the limits prescribed by humanity, the conquered rebels were at the mercy of the conquerors. That a government thus outraged had a most perfect right to exact indemnity for the injuries done, and security against the recurrence of such outrages in the future, would seem too clear for dispute

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure half slave and half free.

I believe that involuntary servitude, as it exists in different States of this Confederacy, is recognized by the Constitution. I believe that it stands like any other admitted right, and that the States where it exists are entitled to efficient remedies to enforce the constitutional provisions .... I fervently hope that the question is at rest, and that no sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement may again threaten the durability of our institutions or obscure the light of our prosperity ...

You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors. You are bound to fail.

It is by no means surprising that prejudices and resentments, which for years were so assiduously cultivated and so violently inflamed, should not have been turned into affection by a defeat; nor are they likely to disappear as long as the southern people continue to brood over their losses and misfortunes. They will gradually subside when those who entertain them cut resolutely loose from the past and embark in a career of new activity on a common field with those whom they have so long considered their enemies.

The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length produced its natural effects.

We know, at last, precisely what we would get by submission, and therein has our enemy done us good service—abolition of slavery, confiscation of property, and territorial vassalage.

I know that the Southern People prefer a Govt. of their own but as soon as it is demonstrated that there cannot be an independent Southern Confederacy, many then will yield obedience rather than lose their Estates.

The Northern People are forced by the Principle of self-existence to push their Power and Dominion so as to embrace the lands whose waters flow to the Mississippi. In this they must be despotic. If the Patriotism of our People is unequal to the task of subjugating the whole South still there can and will be no Peace till a Power exists able & determined to be respected within the limits of our Government. I have always supposed therefore that a large proportion of the People north must move south & possess the soil. As to changing the opinions of the People of the South that is impossible, and they must be killed or dispossessed. We have finished the first page of this war vainly seeking a union sentiment in the South, and our Politicians have substantially committed suicide by mistaking the Extent and power of the Southern People & its Government, and are about Entering a Second period. Those who sought political advantage by a display of military Zeal have disappeared from the Field of action, and now will begin the real struggle of conquest.

The restoration of the Rebel States to the Union must rest upon the principle of civil and political equality of both races; and it must be sealed by general amnesty

My opinion is that the Northern States will manage somehow to muddle through.

The question of what actually caused the Civil War is secondary to the result of the Civil War, which is that after the war was over, slavery was ended, and the North and the South reconciled. And I think we need to respect that.

This is one of the last great battles with slavery. Driven from these legislative chambers, driven from the field of war, this monstrous power has found a refuge in the Executive Mansion, where, in utter disregard of the Constitution and laws, it seeks to exercise its ancient far reaching sway.... Andrew Johnson is the impersonation of the tyrannical slave power. In him it lives again.

Some persons assume that the success of our arms in crushing the opposition which was made in some of the States to the execution of the Federal laws reduced those States and all their people -the innocent as well as the guilty- to the condition of vassalage and gave us a power over them which the Constitution does not bestow or define or limit. No fallacy can be more transparent than this. Our victories subjected the insurgents to legal obedience, not to the yoke of an arbitrary despotism.