THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
lican, and several of the anti-slavery leaders of the State. The speeches which were delivered vied with one another in denouncing the fugitive slave law as one of the ruthless invasions of the rights and liberties of the American citizen, and in celebrating the States' rights men of Wisconsin as the heroes of the day. Vigorous attacks upon the narrow-minded spirit of nativism as embodied in the Know-nothing organization were not wanting. And in all this Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, the founder of the Democratic party, was praised and canonized by Republican anti-slavery men as the great patron-saint of the fundamental principles of our Republic. A day or two later I was assailed in some newspapers which favored the Know-nothing movement, as an intruder who had come into Massachusetts to meddle with State politics. But this served only to attract to me a degree of public notice which otherwise I would, probably, not have had.
A few days later, on April 18, 1859, a great public reception in Faneuil Hall took place which had been arranged for me by some of the participants in the Jefferson birthday dinner. Senator Wilson presided. The ancient hall was crowded with a typical Boston audience. There I was to strike my blow against nativism and the policy of sly shifts and small expedients, and, judging from appearances, my speech produced a happy effect. I spoke with great fervor, dwelling upon the idea which has been a “leit motif,” a leading motive, with me during my whole public life in America: the peculiar significance of the position occupied by this Republic in the progress of mankind toward democratic government, and the consequent responsibility of the American people to the civilized world. It may have an improbable and even absurdly presumptuous sound when it is asserted that foreign-born American citizens may be more fervently, more
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