Harper's Weekly Editorials on Carl Schurz/The Speech of Senator Schurz 2

by Harper's Weekly

THE SPEECH OF SENATOR SCHURZ.

The address of Mr. Schurz at St. Louis is the only important speech which has thus far been made in favor of Mr. Greeley's election. Mr. Schurz has been always a Republican, and his speech at Chicago a year ago, in which be arraigned the Administration and declared that under no circumstances should he support the re-election of General Grant, with the later speech at Nashville, in which he said that the time had come for the formation of a new party, were the beginning of the Cincinnati campaign. Yet the unconcealed disappointment of Mr. Schurz with the Cincinnati nominations, and his final declaration at the Fifth Avenue Conference that, upon the whole, he would support Mr. Greeley, gave interest to the first public statement of his reasons for his course — a statement which he has now made in his St. Louis speech.

The speech has the independence, sincerity, and ability which characterize all his discourses, and a general loftiness of tone and ardent aspiration which show both the political thinker and enthusiast. It is in two parts — in one of which he again denounces the Administration and gives his estimate of the President at length. In this part, of course, there is nothing new, but the old topics are vigorously handled. And we have no hesitation in saying that if we believed the Administration to be so utterly degraded, and the President to be such an ignorant and reckless zany, and our Republican associates to be so helplessly under the thumb of a selfish boor, and the Cincinnati movement to be such an uprising of patriotism and morality as Mr. Schurz believes, we should do as he has evidently done — try to persuade ourselves that the election of Mr. Greeley would offer a chance for improvement.

But he undoubtedly feels, as every reader must feel, that the second part of his speech is very unsatisfactory. His task was to show not only that the Administration of General Grant and the Republican party is bad, but that that of Mr. Greeley and the Democratic party would be better. And how does he do this? By honestly confessing that the nomination of Mr. Greeley did not represent the reform movement, but that upon two important measures — revenue reform and the reform of the civil service — Mr. Greeley has given pledges that he will not dare nor desire to break. The first of these pledges is his acceptance of the sixth plank of the Cincinnati platform, which is the most absurd statement ever introduced into that most absurd of structures, the platform of a nominating convention. This plank, as our readers will remember, remits the question of free trade and protection to the people of the Congressional districts and to Congress, “wholly free of Executive interference or dictation.”

But is not every question of public policy the care of the people in the districts? They elect representatives of their views to the national legislature to frame laws accordingly, but they also elect a President who is made by the Constitution — through the veto power — a part of that legislature. The Constitution, moreover, makes it his official duty to recommend to Congress such measures as he deems to be necessary and expedient. Now Mr. Greeley is, above all, a high protectionist. He believes the protective policy to be both necessary and expedient, and is so strongly of that opinion that he can hardly believe the honesty of these who differ. If he were elected President it would be his duty to recommend to Congress the protective system. If he has pledged himself not to do so, he has promised to disregard the constitutional duty of his office. Again, if Congress should pass “a free-trade tariff,” or one which would be acceptable to revenue reformers, it would be President Greeley's constitutional duty to veto it. He could not honorably evade it. If he has promised not to do so, he has promised to violate his oath of office. To the extent of the veto the Constitution has made him a part of the legislature, and as President he could no more honorably sign a tariff bill which he did not approve than as a member of Congress he could vote for it. The plank is absurd. If Mr. Greeley is pledged as President to remain passive upon one of the most important of all questions, and upon which he is known to have the most positive convictions he is pledged to evade the Constitution. Yet this pledge is one of the two reasons which Mr. Schurz urges for supporting Mr. Greeley's election as a return to constitutional government.

The second pledge is that in regard to civil service reform. This reform is properly considered by Mr. Schurz to be a subject of vital importance. He is the author of an elaborate scheme which was presented in the Senate four years ago, but which disappeared in the Congressional abyss, as all such schemes do. Mr. Schurz wrote to Mr. Greeley on the 26th of June to know his views. On the 8th of July Mr. Greeley replied. He describes very truly the mischiefs of the present system, and states that in his opinion the remedy lies in a single Presidential term. As to such details of method as boards and examinations, Mr. Greeley speaks with entire courtesy of the efforts that have been recently made, but which he evidently supposes to be paralyzed by Executive hostility; and he trusts that the time is not far distant when there will be a genuine reform. This letter, which repeats Mr. Greeley's well-known favorable views of a single term of the Presidency, and which states that if he could hold but for one term the President would have no temptation to conciliate political interests by appointments, Mr. Schurz accepts as a pledge for the practical reform of the civil service; and as the abandonment of such a pledge would be inextinguishable disgrace, he does not believe that it would be betrayed. Now undoubtedly Mr. Greeley expresses his honest views in this letter, but he makes no pledge. He says that he favors a reform of the civil service by the appointment of good men, and that a one-term President would have no temptation to appoint unfit men. But Mr. Schurz must see that Mr. Greeley is no more pledged by this letter than he was by his letter of acceptance, or by his article in the Galaxy last year. We are not questioning his wish for a reform of the civil service; but if Mr. Schurz was not ready to support him upon what he had already said, this letter furnishes no additional reason.

Yet because of this letter and of that absurd plank Mr. Schurz is willing to intrust the government of the country to the Democratic party. This, indeed, be expressly and contemptuously denies. He assumes that the Democratic party is dissolved by the nomination of Mr. Greeley, and that his administration will be — for he is absolutely sure of his election — a non-partisan administration. We honor the character and we respect the abilities of Mr. Schurz, but when we hear him say that he knows “the patriotic spirit” of the men in the Democratic party “who achieved so tremendous a revolution,” we listen with amazement and incredulity. He is a scholar, he is a student of history, he is an observer of human nature, he has mingled in public affairs — is it possible that he believes that a great organized political body, with the history, the traditions, and the tendencies of the Democratic party in this country, has suddenly, upon the eve of an election, renounced all that made it a party? Mr. Schurz is an honest man. He says so. Therefore he does believe it. And that is the very reason why the movement of which he is the real leader will necessarily fail. He believes that the old Democratic party, compact and organized, which has regularly nominated Mr. Greeley, and to which he will owe his election if successful, has become a party of reform. But the well-taught and sagacious American people no more believe it than they believe Lucifer to be Gabriel because he might call himself so.

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