33
“THE CHAMPION OF THE SLAVE.”
SPEECH OF PROFESSOR WILLIAM M. SLOANE, OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
It is a wise saying that words are the shadow of deeds.
In celebrating Mr. Schurz as the champion of the slave
mine could be neither few nor light as they must be,
were it not for his own, which remain as a historic record
of the first importance. The speeches which he
delivered throughout the period bounded by the years 1858
and 1864 are the only account which thus far he has seen
fit to give of his activities in the eventful struggle.
These, with his famous studies of Lincoln and
Clay,
afford, however, quite sufficient material wherewith to
gain conviction of the writer's character, and to justify
the sentiment of which I speak.
If you will carefully read these few volumes you will get a brilliant light on the anti-slavery struggle. You will see it in all its social aspects, how the curse was gnawing at the vitals of the family, demoralizing the church, and threatening the life of the State. The picture will be one to fill you with awe, yet it will call forth your powers of admiration as few others drawn on the canvas of history, because you will get a vision of moral agitation on a vast scale, of the appeal to war, not for the love of contest but as the last and only arbiter, and of the fraternity which did not disappear even amid bloodshed and the shock of battle, but persisted to the
