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Frederic Bancroft. A Sketch of Carl Schurz's Political Career 1869-1906
A Sketch of Carl Schurz's Political Career 1869–1906
Table of Contents
The Rising Senator
I
II THE LIBERAL REPUBLICAN
III THE SENATORIAL FREE LANCE
IV THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR
V JOURNALISM, CLEVELAND'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION, LITERATURE, AND BUSINESS
VI EDITOR OF "HARPER'S WEEKLY," POLITICAL SAGE
VII ANTI-IMPERIALISM AND THE END
Отрывок из книги
Frederic Bancroft, William A. Dunning
Published by Good Press, 2020
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Morton, one of the leaders of the President's supporters, introduced in the Senate a resolution providing for a commission to visit Santo Domingo and report upon conditions there. This was intended, so Morton assured Sumner, merely as a means of dropping the whole matter in a manner that would show some respect for the President. Sumner, however, spurned the suggestion that it be allowed to pass unopposed, and by a tirade beginning, "The resolution before the Senate commits Congress to a dance of blood," made public and irreparable the breach with the President. This speech, crammed as it was with the most offensive imputations upon Grant and his advisers, grieved the more judicious of Sumner's friends. It diverted attention from the issue of annexation, on which public opinion favored the opposition, to that of the personal animosity between Grant and Sumner, on which no arts of malignant rhetoric could win the sympathy of the people from their silent military hero. The debate on the resolution turned largely upon Sumner's personal motives and methods, and he was very roughly handled by the friends of the President, especially Zachariah Chandler and Roscoe Conkling.
To Schurz the turn given to the affair by this war of personalities was in the highest degree distressing. In temper and self-control he was thoroughly unlike the Massachusetts Senator. He feared for the effect upon Sumner personally, and for the effect upon the main question. In a frank conference with the President while the treaty of annexation was before the Senate, Schurz had learned how tenacious Grant was of his purpose to acquire Santo Domingo. The ostentatious repudiation of the Missouri liberals during the State campaign of 1870 had been public notice that the presidential favor would be withdrawn from Senators who, like Schurz, refused to support the Dominican policy. In a number of States there was a promising opportunity to constrain senatorial votes by administration pressure through the party machine. Under such circumstances Schurz was seriously alarmed lest, despite the contrary professions of Morton, a scheme to present anew the direct question of acquisition might suddenly reveal itself. The surest way of meeting this danger was to get public opinion back to the main issue. This he undertook to do in a very serious address to the Senate, on January 11, 1871. He studiously avoided all the extraneous topics that Sumner's invective had brought into the discussion, and confined himself practically to the single question of annexation. It was typical of Schurz's superior methods of developing and leading public opinion.
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