THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
national power. But it was not the war that created the enthusiastic and self-sacrificing patriotism of the people. That patriotism existed before the war, and would have existed without it. The war only served to give it an opportunity for demonstrative manifestation. And as to the consolidation of the Union, the abolition of slavery, and the strengthening of the national power—would these things have been of less value if they had been achieved without a war? I will not assert that under the circumstances then existing they could have been so achieved; but would it not, on the whole, have been far better for the physical as well as the moral advancement of the American people, if superior statesmanship had overcome the seeming impossibilities and found a way to achieve them without a war? Would not mankind, and especially the American people, have been the better for it? Is it really true that the war, as such, without the high objects for which it was made, would have “kindled in the popular heart the noblest instincts and emotions of human nature?” Did it not, by the side of the noble emotions and the self-sacrificing patriotism called into action by the high objects to be served, also call into action, at least with a great many of those who took part in it, the brutal instincts of human nature? Did the war really lift the people above the mean selfishness of daily life and stop the dominance of the vile materialism said to grow up in long periods of peace? Did it not rather, by the side of noble desire to help the good cause, call forth a greedy craving on the part of a great many to use the needs of the government and the public distress as an opportunity for making money by sharp practices, and did not the rapid accumulation of fortunes develop during and after the war a “materialistic” tendency far worse than any we had known among us before? Is it really true that our war turned the ambitions of our people into the
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