Carl Schurz
Carl Schurz (German: [ʃʊɐ̯ts]; March 2, 1829 – May 14, 1906) was a German revolutionary and an American statesman, journalist, and reformer. He migrated to the United States after the German revolutions of 1848–1849 and became a prominent member of the new Republican Party. After serving as a Union general in the American Civil War, he helped found the short-lived Liberal Republican Party and became a prominent advocate of civil service reform. Schurz represented Missouri in the United States Senate and was the 13th United States Secretary of the Interior.
Carl Schurz
March 2, 1829
Liblar, Rhine Province, Kingdom of Prussia, German Confederation (now Erftstadt)
May 14, 1906 (aged 77)
New York City, U.S.
Liberal Republican (1870–1872)
German revolutionaries
United States
1848
1862–1865
German revolutions of 1848–49
American Civil War (1861–1865)
Born in the Kingdom of Prussia's Rhine Province, Schurz fought for democratic reforms in the German revolutions of 1848–1849 as a member of the academic fraternity association Deutsche Burschenschaft.[1] After Prussia suppressed the revolution Schurz fled to France. When police forced him to leave France he migrated to London. Like many other "Forty-Eighters", he then migrated to the United States, settling in Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1852. After being admitted to the Wisconsin bar, he established a legal practice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He also became a strong advocate for the anti-slavery movement and joined the newly organized Republican Party, unsuccessfully running for Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin. After briefly representing the United States as Minister (ambassador) to Spain, Schurz served as a general in the American Civil War, fighting in the Battle of Gettysburg and other major battles.
After the war, Schurz established a newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri, and won election to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first German-born American elected to that body.[2] Breaking with Republican President Ulysses S. Grant, Schurz helped establish the Liberal Republican Party. The party advocated civil service reform, sound money, low tariffs, low taxes, and an end to railroad grants, and opposed Grant's efforts to protect African-American civil rights in the Southern United States during Reconstruction. Schurz chaired the 1872 Liberal Republican convention, which nominated a ticket that unsuccessfully challenged President Grant in the 1872 presidential election. Schurz lost his own 1874 re-election bid and resumed his career as a newspaper editor. He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1878.[3]
After Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the 1876 presidential election, he appointed Schurz as his Secretary of the Interior. Schurz sought to make civil service based on merit rather than political and party connections and helped prevent the transfer of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the War Department. Schurz moved to New York City after Hayes left office in 1881 and briefly served as the editor of the New York Evening Post and The Nation and later became the editorial writer for Harper's Weekly. He remained active in politics and led the "Mugwump" movement, which opposed nominating James G. Blaine in the 1884 presidential election. Schurz opposed William Jennings Bryan's bimetallism in the 1896 presidential election but supported Bryan's anti-imperialist campaign in the 1900 presidential election. Schurz died in New York City in 1906.
Early life[edit]
Carl Christian Schurz was born on March 2, 1829, in Liblar (now part of Erftstadt), in Rhenish Prussia, the son of Marianne (née Jussen), a public speaker and journalist, and Christian Schurz, a schoolteacher.[4] He studied at the Jesuit Gymnasium of Cologne, and learned piano under private instructors. Financial problems in his family obligated him to leave school a year early, without graduating. Later he graduated from the gymnasium by passing a special examination and then entered the University of Bonn.[5]
Migration to America[edit]
While in London, Schurz married fellow revolutionary Johannes Ronge's sister-in-law, Margarethe Meyer, in July 1852 and then, like many other Forty-Eighters, migrated to the United States.[5] 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.
In Wisconsin, Schurz soon became immersed in the anti-slavery movement and in politics, joining the Republican Party. In 1857, he ran unsuccessfully as a Republican 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. In 1858, Schurz was admitted to the Wisconsin bar and began to practice law in Milwaukee. Beginning 1859, his law partner was Halbert E. Paine. With Paine's encouragement, Schurz took more of an interest in politics and public speaking than in law.[11] In the state campaign of 1859, Schurz made a speech attacking the Fugitive Slave Law, arguing for states' rights. In Faneuil Hall, Boston, on April 18, 1859,[12] he delivered an oration on "True Americanism", which, coming from an alien, was intended to clear the Republican party of the charge of "nativism". Wisconsin Germans unsuccessfully urged his nomination for governor 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.[10]
After Lincoln's election and in spite of Seward's objection, Lincoln sent Schurz as minister to Spain in 1861,[13] in part because of Schurz's European record as a revolutionary.[10] While there, Schurz did not manage to cause any lasting impact on the Spanish authorities regarding the conflict.[14] He returned to the US in early 1862 to join the Union army.
Death and legacy[edit]
Schurz died at age 77 on May 14, 1906, in New York City, and is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sleepy Hollow, New York.[31]
Schurz's wife, Margarethe Schurz, was instrumental in establishing the kindergarten system in the United States.[32]
Schurz is famous for saying: "My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right."[33]
He was portrayed by Edward G. Robinson as a friend of the surviving Cheyenne Indians in John Ford's 1964 film Cheyenne Autumn.
Works[edit]
Schurz published 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, reaching only the beginnings of his U.S. Senate career. Schurz was a member of the Literary Society of Washington from 1879 to 1880.[34]
Schurz is commemorated in numerous places around the United States:
Several memorials in Germany also commemorate the life and work of Schurz, including:
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
- February 26, 1881
