Eugene Lawrence

“ A more generous nature would have remembered with gratitude the priceless benefits conferred upon him and his countrymen by the energy and toil of generations of Americans, would acknowledge that Europe has learned its highest political lessons from the examples and teachings of the long line of American patriots. Exile and revolutionist, to them he is at least indebted for freedom and the opportunity of labor, even if he had not already obtained some of the highest offices in the nation. ”

“ The school-house and the railway will be the chief factors in our future progress; our coal, iron, wheat, corn, cotton, will spread ease and plenty among the European throngs who now linger in perpetual want. Nor is the condition of our Southern States so far below that of their Western or Northern neighbors. If they can not point to a growth like that of Kansas or Ohio, they may at least assert that they have risen from a greater depression. A fierce and mad minority of their people drove them into rebellion ”

“ All over the Free States population and wealth have advanced with ceaseless rapidity, new nations have grown up within the past ten years, the ravages of war have been repaired by a tenfold increase, and, except in some portions of the disordered South, the growth of the whole country has been unexampled in its history. Within ten years Minnesota has more than doubled its population, Iowa nearly attained the same rate of increase, Nebraska and Kansas trebled theirs. ”

“ But the pretensions of that notorious club, where Confederates and ultramontanes meet weekly to scoff at republican institutions, and perhaps plot the destruction of a government which they hate, have already shocked the patriotic sentiment of honest Democrats in all the rural districts. No Roman Catholic club which attempts to govern in American politics can long be successful. It may win temporary advantages, but it must ever prove at last odious to the people. ”

“ To no European race has our country shown more real sympathy than to the Germans, and from none has it received more. In the dangers of rebellion they stood unshaken by the Union, and Germany expended its accumulations in maintaining our national credit and purchasing our bonds. When American securities were refused a sale at the Paris Bourse, and were almost worthless in England, they were steadily advancing in the German cities; when France foretold and sought to profit from our ruin, Germany never despaired of the republic ”

“ Schurz's name and example chiefly to suggest a reply to the doubts he occasions and the ruin with which he threatens us. What are the dangers of the republic and what their remedy we may learn from our foreign critics, and the chief of its perils are those that spring from the disorders and the corruptions that have followed the rebellion. War brings with it a host of terrors, and leaves behind it the pains of a lingering disease. ”

“ To the industry and skill of its colored population the nation owes the chief part of its merchantable wealth, and the export of its Southern productions has saved it from bankruptcy and kept it from commercial decay. The colored race have given a new impulse to the South, and we believe the majority of the Southern whites will soon have as intense a horror and disapprobation for the murderous deeds of Vicksburg or Coushatta as prevail among the most intelligent Republicans. ”

“ Schurz, whose tastes and impulses are altogether European, but they are all of the Democratic party, and it is safe to say that not a single Republican would exchange freedom and equality for any form of foreign politics. Every honest Republican, indeed, is resolved to maintain and purify the institutions of his ancestors, and never doubts their perpetuity. ”

“ The immense Territories on the slopes of the Rocky Mountains are drawing in an industrious population, and the railways that are reaching Westward have become the channels of a ceaseless progress. The temporary panic which has passed over our business interests with intense severity, like so many others that have swept over England and America, will probably be followed by a new revulsion of unusual prosperity, and there can be no doubt that the enormous wealth of the country will be soon brought into active use. ”

“ A liberal system of internal improvements and of general education would soon develop such boundless fields of industry as would employ a larger number of immigrants than Europe has yet been able to furnish us with, and supply the world with new sources of comfort. ”

“ Schurz and his followers prepared to divide the Republican party, allied themselves with Confederates and ultramontanes, became the champions of ignorance, the avengers of slavery, and were cast aside with scorn in every free State as untrue to the sacred cause of human equality. The party which they had hoped to betray rose into unexampled strength, the party with which they allied themselves betook itself to murders and assassinations in the savage districts of the South, and the country still suffers from the barbarism and malice of that cruel faction which Mr. ”

“ Exile and revolutionist, educated in the ultramontane atmosphere of the Rhine provinces, he has never been able to throw off the rigid restraints of his early training, or to lose the narrowness of the gymnasium and university. ”