Born in 1829, died in 1906; took part in an uprising in the Palatinate in 1849 and was arrested, but escaped to Switzerland; came to the United States in 1852; made Minister to Spain in 1861, but resigned to enter the Union army, where he became a Major-General; elected Senator from Missouri in 1869; a leader in the Liberal Republican movement of 1872; Secretary of the Interior in 1877; prominent in the “Mugwump” movement of 1884.
In the course of this debate we have listened to some senators, as they conjured up before our eyes once more all the horrors of the Rebellion, the wickedness of its conception, how terrible its incidents were, and how harrowing its consequences. Sir, I admit it all; I will not combat the correctness of the picture; and yet if I differ from the gentlemen who drew it, it is because,
- ↑ From a speech delivered in the United States Senate, January 30, 1872, as reported in The Congressional Globe. The subject of debate was a bill which provided that no person should be a senator, representative, or presidential elector, or hold any civil or military office under the United States, or in any State, provided that he, as a federal or State officer, had sworn to support the Constitution and had afterward engaged in the Secession cause. But provision was made that by a two-thirds vote of each House this disability could be removed. General amnesty was not aimed at in the Bill, three classes of persons being excepted from relief. The Bill failed to become a law. These passages are given here by kind permission of the executors of General Schurz's estate.
27
