Jump to content

Carl Schurz

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Cydebot (talk | contribs) at 00:36, 14 July 2009 (Robot - Removing category German-American politicians per CFD at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 June 14.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Carl Schurz
13th United States Secretary of the Interior
In office
March 12, 1877 – March 7, 1881
PresidentRutherford B. Hayes
Preceded byZachariah Chandler
Succeeded bySamuel J. Kirkwood
United States Senator
from Missouri
In office
March 4, 1869 – March 3, 1875
Preceded byJohn B. Henderson
Succeeded byFrancis M. Cockrell
Personal details
Born(1829-03-02)March 2, 1829
Liblar, Germany
DiedMay 14, 1906(1906-05-14) (aged 77)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
SpouseMargarethe Meyer
Alma materUniversity of Bonn
ProfessionPolitician, lawyer, newspaper editor
Signature
Military service
AllegianceUnited States of America
Union
Branch/serviceUnion Army
Years of service1862 - 1865
RankMajor General, U.S.V.
Battles/warsAmerican Civil War

Carl Schurz (March 2, 1829 – May 14, 1906) was a German revolutionary, American statesman and reformer, and Union Army General in the American Civil War. He was also an accomplished journalist, newspaper editor and noted orator, who in 1869 became the first German-born American elected to the United States Senate.[1]

His wife, Margarethe Schurz, and her sister, Berthe von Ronge, were instrumental in establishing the kindergarten system in the United States.[2] During his later years, Schurz was perhaps the most prominent independent in American politics, noted for his high principles, his avoidance of political partisanship, and his moral conscience.[3]

He is famous for saying: "My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right."[4]. Many streets, schools, and parks are named in honor of him, including New York City's Carl Schurz Park.

Early life

Schurz was born in Liblar (now part of Erftstadt), Germany on March 2, 1829, the son of a schoolteacher. He studied at the Jesuit Gymnasium of Cologne, and also studied the piano under private instructors. Financial problems in his family obligated him to leave school a year early, without graduating, so he could help sort out his family's tangled financial affairs. Later he graduated from the gymnasium by passing a special examination and entered the University of Bonn.

At Bonn, a friendship developed with one of his professors, Gottfried Kinkel, that was to much influence his life for the next few years. He joined the nationalistic Studentenverbindung Burschenschaft Franconia at Bonn, which at the time included Friedrich von Spielhagen, Johannes Overbeck, Julius Schmidt, Carl Otto Weber, Ludwig Meyer and Adolf Strodtmann among its members.[5] In response to the early events of the revolutions of 1848, Schurz and Kinkel started the Bonner Zeitung, a paper advocating democratic reforms. At first Kinkel was the editor and Schurz a regular contributor. These roles were reversed when Kinkel left for Berlin to become a member of the Prussian Constitutional Convention.[6] When the Frankfurt rump parliament called for people to take up arms in defense of the new German constitution, Schurz, Kinkel, and others from the University of Bonn community did so. During this struggle, Schurz became acquainted with Franz Sigel, Alexander Schimmelfennig, Fritz Anneke, Friedrich Beust, Ludwig Blenker and others, many of whom he would meet again in the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War.

The revolution in Germany ultimately failed. When the fortress at Rastatt, the last holdout, surrendered with Schurz inside, Schurz escaped to Zürich. In 1850, he returned secretly to Prussia, rescued Kinkel from prison at Spandau and helped him to escape to Edinburgh, Scotland. Schurz then went to Paris, but the police forced him to leave France on the eve of the coup d'état of 1851, and he moved to London. Remaining there until August 1852, he made his living by teaching the German language. He married fellow revolutionary Johannes von Ronge's sister-in-law, Margarethe Meyer, in July 1852 and then moved to America. Living initially in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Schurzes moved to Watertown, Wisconsin, where Carl nurtured his interests in politics and Margarethe began her seminal work in early childhood education. Schurz is probably the best known of the Forty-Eighters, the German emigrants who came to the United States after the failed liberal revolutions.

Politics in the United States

In 1855, Schurz settled in Watertown, Wisconsin, where he immediately became immersed in the anti-slavery movement and in politics, joining the Republican Party of Wisconsin. In 1857, he was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for lieutenant-governor. In the Illinois campaign of the next year between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, he took part as a speaker on behalf of Lincoln—mostly in German—which raised Lincoln's popularity among German-American voters. Later, in 1858, he was admitted to the Wisconsin bar and began to practice law in Milwaukee. In the state campaign of 1859, he made a speech attacking the Fugitive Slave Law and arguing for state's rights. Outside of the state, in Faneuil Hall, Boston, on April 18, 1859,[7] he delivered an oration on "True Americanism," which, coming from an alien, was intended to clear the Republican party of the charge of "nativism". The Germans of Wisconsin unsuccessfully urged his nomination for governor by the Republican party in 1859. In the 1860 Republican National Convention, Schurz was spokesman of the delegation from Wisconsin, which voted for William H. Seward; despite this, Schurz was on the committee which brought Lincoln the news of his nomination.

Civil War

See also: Prussia in the American Civil War

In spite of Seward's objection, grounded on Schurz's European record as a revolutionary, Lincoln sent him in 1861 as ambassador to Spain. He succeeded in quietly dissuading Spain from supporting the South. Persuading Lincoln to grant him a commission in the Union army, Schurz was commissioned brigadier general of Union volunteers in April, and in June took command of a division, first under John C. Frémont, and then in Franz Sigel's corps, with which he took part in the Second Battle of Bull Run. He was promoted major general of volunteers on March 14 and was a division commander in the XI Corps at the Battle of Chancellorsville, under General Oliver O. Howard, with whom he later had a bitter controversy over the strategy employed at that battle, resulting in their defeat by Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. He was at Gettysburg (a victory for the Union) commanding the Third Division of Howard's XI Corps, and at Chattanooga (also a victory for the Union side). Later, he was put in command of a Corps of Instruction at Nashville. He briefly returned to active service, where in the last months of the war when he was with Sherman's army in North Carolina as chief of staff of Henry Slocum's Army of Georgia. He resigned from the army when the war ended.

Postbellum politics

Carl Schurz is Don Quijote in this cartoon by Thomas Nast from Harper's Weekly of April 6, 1872

In the summer of 1865, President Andrew Johnson sent Schurz through the South to study conditions; they then quarrelled because Schurz approved General H.W. Slocum's order forbidding the organization of militia in Mississippi. Schurz's report, suggesting the readmission of the states with complete rights and the investigation of the need of further legislation by a Congressional committee, was ignored by the President. In 1866, Schurz moved to Detroit, where he was chief editor of the Detroit Post. The following year, he moved to St. Louis, becoming editor and joint proprietor with Emil Praetorius of the Westliche Post (Western Post), where he hired Joseph Pulitzer as a cub reporter. In the winter of 1867-1868, he travelled in Germany – the account of his interview with Otto von Bismarck is one of the most interesting chapters of his Reminiscences. He spoke against "repudiation" (of war debts) and for "honest money" (the gold standard) during the Presidential campaign of 1868.

In 1869, he was elected to the United States Senate from Missouri, becoming the first German American in that body. He earned a reputation for his speeches, which advocated fiscal responsibility, anti-imperialism, and integrity in government. During this period, he broke with the administration, starting the Liberal Republican movement in Missouri, which in 1870 elected B. Gratz Brown governor. In 1872, he presided over the Liberal Republican convention, which nominated Horace Greeley for President (Schurz's own choice was Charles Francis Adams or Lyman Trumbull). The convention did not represent Schurz's views on the tariff. Schurz campaigned for Greeley anyway. Especially in this campaign, and throughout his career as a Senator and afterwards, he was a target for the pen of Harper's Weekly artist Thomas Nast, usually in an unfavorable way.[8] He opposed Grant's Santo Domingo policy—after Fessenden's death, Schurz was a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs—his Southern policy, and the government's selling arms and making cartridges for the French army in the Franco-Prussian War. In 1875, he campaigned for Rutherford B. Hayes, as the representative of sound money, in the Ohio governor's campaign.

Interior Secretary

Carl Schurz and James Blaine in a Puck political cartoon of c. 1878 by J. Keppler

In 1876, he supported Hayes for President, and Hayes named him Secretary of the Interior, following much of his advice in other cabinet appointments and in his inaugural address. In this department, Schurz put in force his theories in regard to merit in the Civil Service, permitting no removals except for cause, and requiring competitive examinations for candidates for clerkships. His efforts to remove political patronage met with limited success. As an early conservationist, he prosecuted land thieves and attracted public attention to the necessity of forest preservation.

Carl Schurz Park, Upper East Side Manhattan, New York City

During Schurz's tenure as Secretary of the Interior, there was a movement, strongly supported by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, to transfer the Office of Indian Affairs to the War Department.[9] Restoration of the Indian Office to the War Department, which was anxious to regain control in order to continue its "pacification" program, was opposed by Schurz, and ultimately the Indian Office remained in the Interior Department. The Indian Office had been the most corrupt of the Interior Department. Positions there were based on political patronage and seen as granting license to use the reservations for personal enrichment. Schurz realized that the service would have to be cleansed of corruption before anything positive could be accomplished, so he instituted a wide-scale inspection of the service, dismissed several officials, and began civil service reforms, where positions and promotions were based on merit, not political patronage.[10]

Schurz's leadership of the Indian Affairs Office was not uncontroversial. His role in the abrogation of treaties made with various native American Indian tribes is chronicled in Dee Brown's work, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. While certainly not an architect of the campaign to push Native Americans off their lands and into tribal reservations, Schurz continued the previous practice of the Bureau of Indian Affairs of resettling tribes on reservations. In response to several nineteenth century reformers, however, Schurz later rescinded his approval of the policy of removing Indians from their homelands, promoting assimilationist policies that were in favor among reformers at the time.[11] [12][3]

Retirement and death

Upon his retirement in 1881, Schurz moved to New York City, and from the summer of 1881 to the autumn of 1883 was editor-in-chief and one of the proprietors of the New York Evening Post. In 1884, he was a leader in the Independent (or Mugwump) movement against the nomination of James Blaine for president and for the election of Grover Cleveland. From 1888 to 1892, he was general American representative of the Hamburg American Steamship Company. In 1892 he succeeded George William Curtis as president of the National Civil Service Reform League and held this office until 1901. He succeeded Curtis as editorial writer for Harper's Weekly in 1892–1898, actively supporting electoral reform. In 1895 he spoke for the Fusion anti-Tammany Hall ticket in New York City. He opposed William Jennings Bryan for president in 1896, speaking for sound money and not under the auspices of the Republican party; he supported Bryan four years later because of anti-imperialism beliefs, which also led to his membership in the American Anti-Imperialist League. In the 1904 election he supported Alton B. Parker, the Democratic candidate. Carl Schurz lived in a summer cottage in Northwest Bay on Lake George, New York which was built by his good friend Abraham Jacobi.

When a statuary tribute to German-language poet Heinrich Heine met with anti-Semitic controversy in Germany, Schurz's activism aided in its relocation across the Atlantic to New York.[13]

Throughout his life, Schurz never hesitated to deliver his opinion, and was known by politicians as elevated as Presidents Lincoln and Johnson for his frequent, vitriolic letters. Because of his strongly worded speeches and editorials and his deeply held convictions, he was a hero to his supporters, but widely disliked by his critics. He had a strong connection to the immigrant community. He told a group of German immigrants at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 how he expected them to fit into American society:

I have always been in favor of a healthy Americanization, but that does not mean a complete disavowal of our German heritage. Our character should take on the best of that which is American, and combine it with the best of that which is German. By doing this, we can best serve the American people and their civilization.

Schurz published a number of writings, including a volume of speeches (1865), an excellent biography of Henry Clay (1887), essays on Abraham Lincoln (1899) and Charles Sumner (posthumous, 1951), and his Reminiscences (posthumous, 1907–09). In his later years he wrote his memoirs.

Schurz died in New York City and is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Schurz on "The True Americanism"

What is the rule of honor to be observed by a power so strongly and so advantageously situated as this Republic is? Of course I do not expect it meekly to pocket real insults if they should be offered to it. But, surely, it should not, as our boyish jingoes wish it to do, swagger about among the nations of the world, with a chip on its shoulder, shaking its fist in everybody's face. Of course, it should not tamely submit to real encroachments upon its rights. But, surely, it should not, whenever its own notions of right or interest collide with the notions of others, fall into hysterics and act as if it really feared for its own security and its very independence. As a true gentleman, conscious of his strength and his dignity, it should be slow to take offense. In its dealings with other nations it should have scrupulous regard, not only for their rights, but also for their self-respect. With all its latent resources for war, it should be the great peace power of the world. It should never forget what a proud privilege and what an inestimable blessing it is not to need and not to have big armies or navies to support. It should seek to influence mankind, not by heavy artillery, but by good example and wise counsel. It should see its highest glory, not in battles won, but in wars prevented. It should be so invariably just and fair, so trustworthy, so good tempered, so conciliatory, that other nations would instinctively turn to it as their mutual friend and the natural adjuster of their differences, thus making it the greatest preserver of the world's peace. This is not a mere idealistic fancy. It is the natural position of this great republic among the nations of the earth. It is its noblest vocation, and it will be a glorious day for the United States when the good sense and the self-respect of the American people see in this their "manifest destiny." It all rests upon peace. Is not this peace with honor? There has, of late, been much loose speech about "Americanism." Is not this good Americanism? It is surely today the Americanism of those who love their country most. And I fervently hope that it will be and ever remain the Americanism of our children and our children's children.

— Carl Schurz, "The True Americanism," address delivered in New York City at a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, January 2, 1896

Schurz on Patriotism

The man who in times of popular excitement boldly and unflinchingly resists hot-tempered clamor for an unnecessary war, and thus exposes himself to the opprobrious imputation of a lack of patriotism or of courage, to the end of saving his country from a great calamity, is, as to "loving and faithfully serving his country," at least as good a patriot as the hero of the most daring feat of arms, and a far better one than those who, with an ostentatious pretense of superior patriotism, cry for war before it is needed, especially if then they let others do the fighting.

— Carl Schurz, "About Patriotism," Harper’s Weekly, April 16, 1898

Schurz expanded on this theme in a speech delivered at the Anti-Imperialistic Conference in Chicago, Illinois, October 17, 1899:

I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves … too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: "Our country, right or wrong!" They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: "Our country—when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right."

— Carl Schurz, "The Policy of Imperialism," in Speeches, Correspondence
and Political Papers of Carl Schurz, vol. 6 (1913), pp. 119–20.

In memoriam

Carl Schurz statue in New York City

Schurz is memorialized in numerous places around the United States:

Several memorials in Germany also commemorate the life and work of Schurz:

The United States Army base in Bremerhaven, Germany was also named for Schurz - Karl Schurz Kaserne. The base served as a logistical hub for U.S. forces in Germany. The base was returned to the German government in 1996, following the end of the Cold War.

See also

References

  • Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
  • Yockelson, Mitchell, "Hirschhorn", Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, Heidler, David S., and Heidler, Jeanne T., eds., W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, ISBN 0-393-04758-X.
  •  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

Notes

  1. ^ Schurz, Carl 1829 - 1906
  2. ^ Schurz, Margarethe [Meyer] (Mrs. Carl Schurz) 1833 - 1876
  3. ^ "Nation's Orators Glorify Schurz; Carnegie Hall Memorial a People's Tribute. Country Needs Such Men; Chairman Choate Rebukes New York Senators -- Cleveland, Eliot and Others Speak," New York Times. November 22, 1906.
  4. ^ Schurz, Carl, remarks in the Senate, February 29, 1872, The Congressional Globe, vol. 45, p. 1287[1]
  5. ^ Schurz, Carl. Reminiscences, Vol. 1, pp. 93-94.
  6. ^ Schurz, Reminiscences, Vol. 1, Chap. 6, pp. 159.
  7. ^ Hirschhorn, p. 1713.
  8. ^ This story, and the conflict between Nast and Harper's editorial writer George William Curtis, is related by Albert Bigelow Paine in Thomas Nast: His Period and His Pictures, 1904.
  9. ^ "ARMY CHARGES ANSWERED; THE INDIAN SERVICE UPHELD BY MR. SCHURZ. WHY IT WOULD BE UNWISE TO TRANSFER THE INDIAN BUREAU TO THE WAR DEPARTMENT--INCONSISTENT AND INACCURATE STATEMENTS BY MILITARY OFFICERS--LOOSE MANAGEMENT UNDER THE ARMY. INCONSISTENT AND INACCURATE STATEMENTS BY ARMY OFFICERS. ALLEGED ARMY DISHONESTY. MEASURES OF IMPORTANCE. MR. SCHURZ CROSS-EXAMINED. OTHER WITNESSES," The New York Times, December 7, 1878, p. 5 [2]
  10. ^ Trefousse, Hans L., Carl Schurz: A Biography, (U. of Tenn. Press, 1982)
  11. ^ Hoxie, Frederick E. A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1981.
  12. ^ "Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior, November 1, 1880," In Prucha, Francis Paul, ed., Documents of United States Indian Policy, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.
  13. ^ Sturm und Drang Over a Memorial to Heinrich Heine. The New York Times, May 27, 2007.

Further reading

  • Schurz, Carl, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (three volumes), New York: McClure Publ. Co., 1907-08. Schurz covered the years 1829-1870 in his Reminiscences. He died in the midst of writing them. The third volume is rounded out with A Sketch of Carl Schurz's Political Career 1869-1906 by Frederic Bancroft and William A. Dunning. Portions of these Reminiscences were serialized in McClure's Magazine about the time the books were published and included illustrations not found in the books.
  • Bancroft, Frederic, ed., Speeches, Correspondence, and Political Papers of Carl Schurz (six volumes), New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1913.
  • Brown, Dee, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, 1971
  • Fuess, Claude M., Carl Schurz, Reformer, (NY, Dodd Mead, 1932)
  • Schurz, Carl, Intimate Letters of Carl Schurz 1841-1869, (Madison, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1928)[6]
  • Trefousse, Hans L., Carl Schurz: A Biography, (U. of Tenn. Press, 1982)
  • Twain, Mark, "Carl Schurz, Pilot," Harper’s Weekly, May 26, 1906[7]

Sister projects

Quotations related to Carl Schurz at Wikiquote Media related to Carl Schurz at Wikimedia Commons Works related to Carl Schurz at Wikisource  German Wikisource has original text related to this article: Carl Schurz

  • Schurz and other anti-Grant "conspirators" — March 16, 1872
    Schurz and other anti-Grant "conspirators" — March 16, 1872
  • French Arms investigation — May 11, 1872
    French Arms investigation — May 11, 1872
  • Schurz and his victims — September 7, 1872
    Schurz and his victims — September 7, 1872
  • Schurz leaves the U.S. Senate — March 20, 1875
    Schurz leaves the U.S. Senate — March 20, 1875
  • Schurz reforms the Indian Bureau — January 26, 1878
    Schurz reforms the Indian Bureau — January 26, 1878
  • Schurz counsels a wounded settler — December 28, 1878
    Schurz counsels a wounded settler — December 28, 1878
  • Schurz and Wilhelm II — July 14, 1900
    Schurz and Wilhelm II — July 14, 1900
  • Schurz and Emilio Aguinaldo — August 9, 1902
    Schurz and Emilio Aguinaldo — August 9, 1902
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by U.S. Minister to Spain
1861 		Succeeded by
U.S. Senate
Preceded by U.S. senator (Class 1) from Missouri
1869–1875
Served alongside: Charles D. Drake, Daniel T. Jewett, Francis P. Blair, Jr., Lewis V. Bogy 		Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by United States Secretary of the Interior
1877–1881 		Succeeded by
Military offices
Preceded by Commander of the XI Corps (ACW)
January 19, 1863 - February 5, 1863 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Commander of the XI Corps (ACW)
March 5, 1863 - April 2, 1863 		Succeeded by

Template:Persondata

Retrieved from "http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Carl_Schurz&oldid=301961267"