Home > Carl Schurz

Schurz was born in Liblar (now Erftstadt), the son of a school teacher. He studied at the Jesuit Gymnasium of Cologne, and then entered the University of Bonn, where he became a revolutionary, partly through his friendship with Gottfried Kinkel, then a professor. He assisted Kinkel in editing the Bonner Zeitung, and was active in the Revolution of 1848; but when Rastatt surrendered he escaped to Zürich. In 1850 he returned secretly to Germany, rescued Kinkel from prison at SpandauSpandau is the westernmost borough Bezirk of Berlin, situated at the confluence of the Havel and Spree rivers and along the western bank of the Havel. It encompasses an area of 91. 91 km² and has (as of 2003) about 226. 100 inhabitants. Its current mayor and helped him to escape to ScotlandScotland or in Scottish Gaelic, Alba is a country and former independent kingdom of northwest Europe, and one of the four nations comprising the United Kingdom. Scotland occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. Scotland took part in a p. Schurz went to ParisEiffel Tower has become the symbol of Paris throughout the world. Paris is the capital and largest city of France. The city is built on an arc of the River Seine, and is thus divided into two parts: the Right Bank to the north and the smaller Left Bank to, but the police forced him to leave France on the eve of the coup d'étatA coup d'etat ( IPA: /ku deit/), often simply called a coup is the sudden overthrow of a government, usually done by a small group that just replaces the top power figures. It is different from a revolution, which is staged by a larger group and radically, and until August 1852Events January 14 President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte proclaims a new constitution for the French Second Republic. January 17 United Kingdom recognizes independence of the Transvaal Devil's Island penal colony opens February 11 First British public toilet he lived in LondonLondon is the capital of the United Kingdom and of England, and with over seven million inhabitants in the Greater London area, is the second-most populous conurbation in Europe (after Moscow). From being Londinium the capital of the Roman province of Bri, making his living by teaching GermanGerman (called Deutsch in German in which germanisch refers to prechristian times), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and one of the world's major languages. It is the language with the most native speakers in the European Union.. He married in July 1852 and moved to America, living for a time in Philadelphia. Schurz is probably the best-known of the Forty-Eighters, the German emigrants who moved to the USA after the revolutions.

In 1856, after a year in Europe, he settled in Watertown, Wisconsin, and immediately became prominent in 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 — mostly in German — which helped Lincoln to win the presidency. 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, and thus injured his political standing in Wisconsin; and in April he delivered, in Faneuil Hall, Boston, 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 Republican National Convention of 1861 Schurz was spokesman of the delegation from Wisconsin, which voted for William H. Seward; he was on the committee which announced his nomination to Abraham Lincoln.

In spite of Seward's objection, grounded on Schurz's European record as a revolutionary, Lincoln sent him in 1861 as minister to Spain. He returned to America in January 1862, resigned his post, was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers in April, and in June took command of a division 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 at the Battle of Chancellorsville of the Eleventh Corps , under General Oliver Howard, with whom he later had a bitter controversy over this battle. He was at Gettysburg and at Chattanooga. Later he was put in command of a Corps of Instruction at Nashville, and saw no more active service except in the last months of the war when he was with Sherman's army in North Carolina. He resigned from the army as soon as the war ended.

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- 1867 he was chief editor of the Detroit Post and then became editor and joint proprietor with Emil Praetorius of the Westliche Post (Western Post) of St. Louis. 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" and for "honest money" during the Presidential campaign of 1868.

From 1869 to 1875 he was United States Senator from Missouri, and made a great reputation with his speeches urging financial responsibility. During this period he broke with the administration: he started the Liberal Republican movement in Missouri in 1870 which elected B. Gratz Brown governor; and 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. 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. But in 1875 he campaigned for Rutherford B. Hayes, as the representative of sound money, in the Ohio governor's campaign.

In 1876 he supported Hayes for President, and after winning, Hayes named him Secretary of the Interior and followed 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; he reformed the Indian Bureau and successfully opposed a bill transferring it to the War Department; and he prosecuted land thieves and attracted public attention to the necessity of forest preservation.

Upon his retirement in 1881 he 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 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 1904 he supported Alton B. Parker, the Democratic candidate. He died in New York City.

Schurz published a number of writings, including a volume of speeches, a biography of Henry Clay, an essay on Abraham Lincoln, and his Reminiscences. In his later years he wrote his memoirs.

During the last twenty years of his life Schurz was perhaps the most prominent Independent in American politics, and even more notable than his great abilities was his devotion to his high principles. He was the first German-born American to enter the United States Senate, and was an able debater; and his command of the English language, written and spoken, was remarkable.

He is famous for saying: "Our country right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right."