Carl Schurz

Carl Schurz
13th United States Secretary of the Interior
In office March 12, 1877 – March 7, 1881
President	Rutherford B. Hayes
Preceded by	Zachariah Chandler
Succeeded by	Samuel J. Kirkwood
United States Senator from Missouri
In office March 4, 1869 – March 3, 1875
Preceded by	John B. Henderson
Succeeded by	Francis M. Cockrell
Born	March 2, 1829(1829-03-02) Liblar, Germany
Died	May 14, 1906 (aged 77) New York City, New York, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Margarethe Meyer
Alma mater	University of Bonn
Profession	Politician, lawyer, newspaper editor
Religion	Society for Ethical Culture (born Catholic)
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	United States of America Union
Service/branch	Union Army
Years of service	1862 - 1865
Rank	Major General, U.S.V.
Battles/wars	American 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.

Carl Schurz fountain in Rastatt

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

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 Quixote 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 Grant administration, starting the Liberal Republican movement in Missouri, which in 1870 elected B. Gratz Brown governor. Schurz opposed Grant's bid to annex Santo Domingo — 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 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, and 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] The election was a debacle for the Greeley supporters: Grant won by a landslide, and Greeley died.

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.

Delegation of Ute Indians in Washington, D.C. in 1880. Background: Woretsiz and general Charles Adams (Colorado) are standing. Front from left to right: Chief Ignatio of the Southern Utes; Carl Schurz US Secretary of the Interior; Chief Ouray and his wife Chipeta.

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]

New York City

Upon leaving the Interior Department in 1881, Schurz moved to New York City. In the summer of 1881, he joined the New York Evening Post as editor-in-chief and one of the proprietors. He left the Post in the autumn of 1883 because of differences over editorial policies regarding corporations and their employees.^[13] 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 also succeeded Curtis as editorial writer for Harper's Weekly in 1892 and held this position until 1898. 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. Schurz died in New York City and is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Opinions

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.^[14]

Throughout his life, Schurz never hesitated to deliver his opinion, and was known by politicians as elevated as Presidents Lincoln^[15] 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.^{[citation needed]}

Immigrant connections

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 said: who does not honor the old fatherland is not worthy of the new, but I say also he is not worthy of the old fatherland who is not one of the most faithful citizens of the new. Noblesse oblige. To be a German now means more than it meant before he belonged to one united nation. He who calls himself a German now must never forget his honorable obligation to his name; he must honor Germany in himself. The German-American can accomplish great things for the development of the great composite nation of the new world, if in his works and deeds he combines and welds the best that is in the German character with the best that is in the American. — Carl Schurz, German Day, June 15, 1893.

Publications

Schurz published a number of writings, including a volume of speeches (1865), a two-volume biography of Henry Clay (1887), essays on Abraham Lincoln (1899) and Charles Sumner (posthumous, 1951), and his Reminiscences (posthumous, 1907–09). His later years were spent writing the memoirs recorded in his Reminiscences which he was not able to finish — he only reached the beginnings of his U.S. Senate career.

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

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

Schurz is memorialized in numerous places around the United States:

• Carl Schurz Park, a 14.9 acre (60,000 m²) park in New York City, adjacent to Yorkville, Manhattan, overlooking the waters of Hell Gate. Named for Schurz in 1910, it is the site of Gracie Mansion, the residence of the Mayor of New York since 1942
• Karl Bitter's 1913 statue of Schurz at Morningside Drive and 116th Street in New York City
• Carl Schurz and Abraham Jacobi Memorial Park in Bolton Landing, New York
• Schurz, Nevada named after him
• Carl Schurz Drive, a residential street in the northern end of his former home of Watertown, Wisconsin
• Schurz Elementary School, in Watertown, Wisconsin
• Carl Schurz Park, a private membership park in Stone Bank (Town of Merton), Wisconsin, on the shore of Moose Lake
• Schurz Monument ("Our Greatest German American") in Menominee Park, Oshkosh, Wisconsin[2]
• Carl Schurz High School, a historic landmark in Chicago, built in 1910.
• Schurz Hall, a student residence at the University of Missouri.
• Carl Schurz Elementary School in New Braunfels, Texas
• Mount Schurz, a mountain in eastern Yellowstone, north of Eagle Peak and south of Atkins Peak, named in 1885 by the United States Geological Survey, to honor Schurz's commitment to protecting Yellowstone National Park
• In 1983, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 4-cent stamp with his name and face
• In World War II the United States liberty ship SS Carl Schurz was named in his honor.
• The U.S.S. Carl Schurz was commissioned in 1917 as a Patrol Gun Boat. Formerly the small unprotected cruiser S.M.S. Geyer of the German Imperial Navy, the ship had been taken over by the U.S. Navy when hostilities between Germany and the U.S. commenced, after having been interned in Honululu in 1914. The Schurz sank after a collision in April 1918 off Beaufort Inlet, Florida.

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

• Streets named after him in Berlin-Spandau, Bremen, Stuttgart, Erftstadt-Liblar, Giessen, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Köln, Rastatt, Paderborn, Pforzheim, Pirmasens, Leipzig, Wuppertal
• Schools in Bonn, Bremen, Berlin-Spandau, Frankfurt am Main, Rastatt and his place of birth, Erftstadt-Liblar
• The Carl Schurz Haus in Freiburg im Breisgau is an innovative institute (formerly Amerika-Haus) fostering German-American cultural relations
• an urban area in Frankfurt am Main
• the Carl Schurz Bridge over the Neckar River[3]
• a memorial fountain as well as the house where Lt. Schurz was billeted in 1849 in Rastatt
• German Armed Forces barracks in Hardheim
• German federal stamps in 1952 and 1976

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

United States Army portal

American Civil War portal

• List of American Civil War generals
• Forty-Eighters
• German American
• German-American Heritage Foundation of the USA

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.
•  "Schurz, Carl". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. 

Notes

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.
• Trefousse, Hans L., Carl Schurz: A Biography, (U. of Tenn. Press, 1982)
• Twain, Mark, "Carl Schurz, Pilot," Harper’s Weekly, May 26, 1906.

External links

• Carl Schurz at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress Retrieved on 2008-08-12
• Works by Carl Schurz at Project Gutenberg
• Works of Carl Schurz
• The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz at Wikisource.
• Twain, Mark. Carl Schurz, Pilot, Harper's Weekly, May 26, 1906, p. 727.
• Reynolds, Robert L. "A Man of Conscience", American Heritage Magazine, vol. 14, no. 2 (1963).
• "Schurz: The True Americanism" Harper's Magazine, November 1, 2008.
• "Carl Schurz" from Charles Rounds, Wisconsin Authors and Their Works, 1918.
• The Political Graveyard
• Abraham Lincoln's White House - Carl Schurz

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

Harper's Weekly Gallery

Schurz and other anti-Grant "conspirators" — March 16, 1872	French Arms investigation — May 11, 1872	Schurz and his victims — September 7, 1872	Schurz leaves the U.S. Senate — March 20, 1875
Schurz reforms the Indian Bureau — January 26, 1878	Schurz counsels a wounded settler — December 28, 1878	Schurz and Wilhelm II — July 14, 1900	Schurz and Emilio Aguinaldo — August 9, 1902

v • d • e United States Secretaries of the Interior Ewing • McKennan • Stuart • McClelland • Thompson • C Smith • Usher • Harlan • Browning • Cox • Delano • Chandler • Schurz • Kirkwood • Teller • Lamar • Vilas • Noble • M Smith • Francis • Bliss • Hitchcock • Garfield • Ballinger • Fisher • Lane • Payne • Fall • Work • West • Wilbur • Ickes • Krug • Chapman • McKay • Seaton • Udall • Hickel • Morton • Hathaway • Kleppe • Andrus • Watt • Clark • Hodel • Lujan • Babbitt • Norton • Kempthorne • Salazar

v • d • e United States Senators from Missouri Class 1 Benton • Geyer • Polk • Henderson • Schurz • Cockrell • Warner • Reed • Patterson • Truman • Briggs • Kem • Symington • Danforth • Ashcroft • Carnahan • Talent • McCaskill Class 3 Barton • Buckner • Linn • Atchison • Green • Johnson • Wilson • Brown • Drake • Jewett • Blair • Bogy • Armstrong • Shields • Vest • Stone • Wilfley • Spencer • Williams • Hawes • Clark • Donnell • Hennings • Long • Eagleton • Bond

v • d • e Cabinet of President Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881) Vice President William A. Wheeler (1877-1881) Secretary of State William M. Evarts (1877-1881) Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman (1877-1881) Secretary of War George W. McCrary (1877-1879) • Alexander Ramsey (1879-1881) Attorney General Charles Devens (1877-1881) Postmaster General David M. Key (1877-1880) • Horace Maynard (1880-1881) Secretary of the Navy Richard Wigginton Thompson (1877-1880) • Nathan Goff, Jr. (1881) Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz (1877-1881)