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Mr. Schurz made himself felt. He brought into the Senate a fresh moral force, and as we read his speeches we cannot fail to recognize with fresh admiration the unvarying wisdom, the far-seeing statesmanship, the unflinching courage, the high purpose, with which he met them all. The singular clearness of statement, which has never deserted him, his wonderful command of English, the unfailing calmness and dignity with which he encountered and returned the attacks of his opponents, made him the first debater in the Senate, and an orator second to none. But he never descended to anything unworthy, and you may search his speeches in vain for any appeal to low motive, for any trace of thought for his personal fortunes.
To appreciate his course in the Senate we must put ourselves again in the atmosphere of the time, and realize that he was forced to resist and criticize the President, whose election he had labored hard to secure, and the party which absolutely controlled the politics of the country—to meet and disregard the wrath which drove Charles Sumner from the Committee on Foreign Relations, and which punished opposition as personal hostility. While Mr. Schurz sat in the Senate the measures and methods which he opposed brought the Republican party from unexampled power in 1869 to overwhelming defeat five years later, and it triumphed in 1876, if at all, only because it returned to the standards and the principles which he had supported.
It is difficult in his presence to say all that I would of Mr. Schurz's remarkable career in the Senate, but it was there that he established his title to lead the men, wherever they may be, who put the interests of their
