Carl Schurz | |
|---|---|
 Portrait byMathew Bradyc. 1869–1875 | |
| 13thUnited 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 fromMissouri | |
| In office March 4, 1869 – March 3, 1875 | |
| Preceded by | John B. Henderson |
| Succeeded by | Francis Cockrell |
| 16thUnited States Minister to Spain | |
| In office July 13, 1861 – December 18, 1861 | |
| President | Abraham Lincoln |
| Preceded by | William Preston |
| Succeeded by | Gustav Koerner |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Carl Christian Schurz (1829-03-02)March 2, 1829 Liblar,Rhine Province,Kingdom of Prussia,German Confederation (nowErftstadt, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany) |
| Died | May 14, 1906(1906-05-14) (aged 77) New York City, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Other political affiliations | Liberal Republican (1870–1872) |
| Spouse | Margarethe Meyer |
| Education | University of Bonn (BA) |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | German revolutionaries United States |
| Branch/service | United States Volunteers (Union Army) |
| Years of service | 1848 1862–1865 |
| Rank | Major general |
| Battles/wars | |
Carl Christian Schurz (German:[ʃʊɐ̯ts]; March 2, 1829 – May 14, 1906) was a German-American revolutionary and an American statesman, journalist, and reformer. He migrated to the United States after theGerman revolutions of 1848–1849 and became a prominent member of the newRepublican Party. After serving as aUnion general in theAmerican Civil War, he helped found the short-livedLiberal Republican Party and became a prominent advocate ofcivil service reform. Schurz representedMissouri in theUnited States Senate and was the 13thUnited States Secretary of the Interior.
Born in theRhine Province of theKingdom of Prussia, Schurz fought for democratic reforms in theGerman revolutions of 1848–1849 as a member of the academic fraternity associationDeutsche Burschenschaft.[1] After Prussia suppressed the revolution Schurz fled toFrance. When police forced him to leave France he migrated toLondon. Like many other "Forty-Eighters", he then migrated to the United States, settling inWatertown, Wisconsin, in 1852.
After being admitted to the Wisconsin bar, he established a legal practice inMilwaukee, 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) toSpain, Schurz served as a general in theAmerican Civil War, fighting in theBattle of Gettysburg and other major battles.
After the war, Schurz established a newspaper inSt. Louis,Missouri, and won election to theU.S. Senate, becoming the firstGerman-born American elected to that body.[2] Breaking with Republican PresidentUlysses S. Grant, Schurz helped establish theLiberal 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 protectAfrican-American civil rights in theSouthern United States duringReconstruction. Schurz chaired the1872 Liberal Republican convention, which nominated a ticket that unsuccessfully challenged President Grant in the1872 presidential election. Schurz lost his own 1874 re-election bid and resumed his career as a newspaper editor.
After RepublicanRutherford B. Hayes won the1876 presidential election, he appointed Schurz as hisSecretary of the Interior. Schurz sought to makecivil service based on merit rather than political and party connections and helped prevent the transfer of theBureau of Indian Affairs to theWar Department.
He was elected as a member to theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1878.[3]
Schurz moved toNew York City after Hayes left office in 1881 and briefly served as the editor of theNew York Evening Post andThe Nation and later became the editorial writer forHarper's Weekly. He remained active in politics and led the "Mugwump" movement, which opposed nominatingJames G. Blaine in the1884 presidential election. Schurz opposedWilliam Jennings Bryan'sbimetallism in the1896 presidential election but supported Bryan'santi-imperialist campaign in the1900 presidential election. Schurz died in New York City in 1906.
Carl Christian Schurz was born on March 2, 1829, in Liblar (now part ofErftstadt), inRhenish Prussia, the son of Marianne (née Jussen), a public speaker and journalist, and Christian Schurz, a schoolteacher.[4] He studied at theJesuit Gymnasium ofCologne, and learned piano under private instructors. Financial problems in his family obligated him to leave school a year early, without graduation. Later, he passed a special examination for graduation fromgymnasium and then entered theUniversity of Bonn.[5]
At Bonn, he developed a friendship with one of his professors,Gottfried Kinkel. He joined the nationalisticStudentenverbindungBurschenschaft Franconia at Bonn, which at the time included among its membersFriedrich von Spielhagen,Johannes Overbeck,Julius Schmidt,Carl Otto Weber,Ludwig Meyer andAdolf Strodtmann.[6][7] In response to the early events of therevolutions of 1848, Schurz and Kinkel founded theBonner 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.[8] When theFrankfurt 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 withFranz 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.
During the 1849 military campaign in Palatinate and Baden, he joined the revolutionary army, fighting in several battles against the Prussian Army.[5] Schurz was adjunct officer of the commander of the artillery,Fritz Anneke, who was accompanied on the campaign by his wife,Mathilde Franziska Anneke. The Annekes would later move to the U.S., where each becameRepublican Party supporters. Anneke's brother,Emil Anneke, was a founder of the Republican party in Michigan.[9] Fritz Anneke achieved the rank ofcolonel and became the commanding officer of the34th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War; Mathilde Anneke contributed to both theabolitionist andsuffrage movements of the United States.
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When the revolutionary army was defeated at thefortress of Rastatt in 1849, Schurz was inside. Knowing that the Prussians intended to kill their prisoners, Schurz managed to escape and travelled toZürich. In 1850, he returned secretly to Prussia, rescued Kinkel from prison atSpandau and helped him to escape toEdinburgh, Scotland.[5] Schurz then went toParis, but the police forced him to leave France on the eve of thecoup d'état of 1851, and he migrated toLondon. Remaining there until August 1852, he made his living by teaching theGerman language.[10]
While in London, Schurz married fellow revolutionaryJohannes Ronge's sister-in-law,Margarethe Meyer, in July 1852 and then, like many otherForty-Eighters, immigrated to the United States.[5] Living initially inPhiladelphia,Pennsylvania, the Schurzes moved toWatertown, 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 theRepublican Party. In 1857, he ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for lieutenant governor. In theIllinois campaign of the next year betweenAbraham Lincoln andStephen A. Douglas, he took part as a speaker on behalf of Lincoln—mostly inGerman—which raised Lincoln's popularity among German-American voters. In 1858, Schurz was admitted to the Wisconsinbar and began topractice law inMilwaukee. Beginning 1859, his law partner wasHalbert 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 theFugitive Slave Law, arguing forstates' rights. InFaneuil 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 the1860 Republican National Convention, Schurz was spokesman of the delegation from Wisconsin, which voted forWilliam 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.
During theAmerican Civil War, Schurz served with distinction as a general in the Union Army. Persuading Lincoln to grant him a commission, Schurz was made abrigadier general of Union volunteers in April 1862. In June, he took command of adivision, first underJohn C. Frémont, and then inFranz Sigel's corps, with which he took part in theSecond Battle of Bull Run in August 1862. He was promoted tomajor general in 1863 and was assigned to lead a division in theXI Corps at the battles ofChancellorsville andGettysburg, both under GeneralOliver O. Howard.[10] A bitter controversy began between Schurz and Howard over the strategy employed at Chancellorsville, resulting in the routing of the XI Corps by the Confederate corps led byThomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Two months later, the XI Corps again broke during the first day of Gettysburg. Containing several German-American units, the XI Corps performance during both battles was heavily criticized by the press, fueling anti-immigrant sentiments.
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Following Gettysburg, Schurz's division was deployed to Tennessee and participated in theBattle of Chattanooga. There he served with the future SenatorJoseph B. Foraker,John Patterson Rea, and Luther Morris Buchwalter, brother toMorris Lyon Buchwalter. SenatorCharles Sumner (R-MA) was a Congressional observer during the Chattanooga Campaign.[citation needed] Later, Schurz was put in command of a Corps of Instruction atNashville. He briefly returned to active service, where in the last months of the war he was withSherman's army inNorth Carolina as chief of staff ofHenry Slocum'sArmy of Georgia. He resigned from the army after the war ended in April 1865.[10]
In the summer of 1865, PresidentAndrew Johnson sent Schurz through the South to study conditions. They then quarreled because Schurz supported General Slocum's order forbidding the organization of militia inMississippi. Schurz delivered a report to the U.S. Senate documenting conditions in the South which concluded thatReconstruction had succeeded in restoring the basic functioning of government but failed in restoring the loyalty of the people and protecting the rights of the newly legally emancipated who were still considered the slaves of society.[15] It called for a national commitment to maintaining control over the South until free labor was secure, arguing that without national action,Black Codes and violence including numerousextrajudicial killings documented by Schurz were likely to continue.[15] The report was ignored by the President, but it helped fuel the movement pushing for a larger congressional role in Reconstruction and holding Southern states to higher standards.[16][10]
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In 1866, Schurz moved toDetroit, where he was chief editor of theDetroit Post. The following year, he moved toSt. Louis, becoming editor and joint proprietor withEmil Preetorius of the German-languageWestliche Post (Western Post), where he hiredJoseph Pulitzer as a cub reporter. In the winter of 1867–1868, he traveled in Germany; and gave an account of his interview withOtto von Bismarck in hisReminiscences. He spoke against "repudiation" of war debts and for "honest money"—code for going back on the gold standard—during the presidential campaign of 1868.[10]
In 1868, he was elected to theUnited States Senate fromMissouri, 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.[citation needed] During this period, he broke with theGrant administration, starting theLiberal Republican movement in Missouri, which in 1870 electedB. Gratz Brown governor.[10]
AfterWilliam P. Fessenden's death, Schurz became a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs where Schurz opposed Grant's Southern policy as well as his bid toannex Santo Domingo. Schurz was identified with the committee's investigation of arms sales to and cartridge manufacture for the French army by the United States government during theFranco-Prussian War.
In 1869, he became the first U.S. Senator to offer aCivil Service Reform bill to Congress. DuringReconstruction, Schurz was opposed to federal military enforcement and protection ofAfrican Americancivil rights, and held nineteenth century ideas of European superiority and fears ofmiscegenation.[17][18]
In 1870, Schurz helped form theLiberal Republican Party, which opposed PresidentUlysses S. Grant's annexation ofSanto Domingo and his use of the military to destroy theKu Klux Klan in the South under theEnforcement Acts.
In 1872, he presided over the Liberal Republican Party convention, which nominatedHorace Greeley forPresident. Schurz's own choice wasCharles Francis Adams orLyman Trumbull, and the convention did not represent Schurz's views on thetariff.[10] 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 ofHarper's Weekly artistThomas Nast, usually in an unfavorable way.[19] The election was a debacle for the Greeley supporters. Grant won by a landslide, and Greeley died shortly after election day in November, before theElectoral College had even met.
Schurz lost the 1874 Senatorial election toDemocratic Party challenger and formerConfederateFrancis Cockrell. After leaving office, he worked as an editor for various newspapers. In 1875, he assisted in the successful campaign ofRutherford B. Hayes to regain the office ofGovernor of Ohio. In 1877, Schurz was appointedUnited States Secretary of the Interior by Hayes, who had been by then been electedPresident of the United States. Although Schurz honestly attempted to reduce the effects ofracism towardNative Americans and was partially successful at cleaning up corruption, his recommended actions towards American Indians "in light of late twentieth-century developments" were repressive.[20] Indians were forced to move into low-quality reservation lands that were unsuitable for tribal economic and cultural advancement.[20] Promises made to Indian chiefs at White House meetings with PresidentRutherford B. Hayes and Schurz were often broken.[20]
In 1876, he supported Hayes for president and Hayes named himsecretary of the interior, following much of his advice in other cabinet appointments and in his inaugural address. In this department, Schurz put into force his belief that merit should be the principal consideration in appointing people to jobs in theCivil Service. He was not in favor of permitting removals except for cause, and supported requiring competitive examinations for candidates for clerkships. His efforts to remove political patronage met with only limited success, however. As an early conservationist, Schurz prosecuted land thieves and attracted public attention to the necessity of forest preservation.[10]
During Schurz's tenure as Secretary of the Interior, a movement to transfer theOffice of Indian Affairs to the control of theWar Department began, assisted by the strong support of Gen.William Tecumseh Sherman.[21] 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 office in the Interior Department. Positions in it were based on political patronage and were seen as granting license to use the reservations for personal enrichment. Because Schurz realized that the service would have to be cleansed of such corruption before anything positive could be accomplished, he instituted a wide-scale inspection of the service, dismissed several officials, and began civil service reforms whereby positions and promotions were to be based on merit not political patronage.[22]
Schurz's leadership of the Indian Affairs Office was at times controversial. While certainly not an architect offorced displacement of Native Americans, he continued the practice. In response to several nineteenth-century reformers, however, he later changed his mind and promoted an assimilationist policy.[23][24]
Upon leaving the Interior Department in 1881, Schurz moved toNew York City. That year German-bornHenry Villard, president of theNorthern Pacific Railway, acquired theNew York Evening Post andThe Nation and turned the management over to Schurz,Horace White andEdwin L. Godkin.[26] Schurz left thePost in the autumn of 1883 because of differences over editorial policies regarding corporations and their employees.[27]
In 1884, he was a leader in the Independent (orMugwump) movement against the nomination ofJames Blaine for president and for the election ofGrover Cleveland. From 1888 to 1892, he was general American representative of theHamburg American Steamship Company. In 1892, he succeededGeorge William Curtis as president of theNational Civil Service Reform League and held this office until 1901. He also succeeded Curtis as editorial writer forHarper'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 opposedWilliam Jennings Bryan forpresident in 1896, speaking for sound money and not under the auspices of the Republican party; he supported Bryanfour years later because ofanti-imperialism beliefs, which also led to his membership in theAmerican Anti-Imperialist League.[28]
True to his anti-imperialist convictions, Schurz exhorted McKinley to resist the urge to annex land following theSpanish–American War.[29] He authored an opinion piece warning that prominent imperialists would take in "Spanish- Americans, with all the mixtures of Indian and negro blood, and Malays and other unspeakable Asiatics, by the tens of millions!"[30] In the1904 election he supportedAlton B. Parker, the Democratic candidate.[31] Carl Schurz lived in a summer cottage in Northwest Bay on Lake George, New York which was built by his good friendAbraham Jacobi.
Schurz was married toMargarethe Schurz in July, 1852; together they had five children: Agathe, Marianne, Emma, Carl Lincoln, and Herbert.[32][33] Schurz was the cousin ofEdmund Jüssen (also spelled Jussen), a German expatriate,forty-eighter, and attorney who worked inColumbus, Wisconsin. In 1856 Schurz's sister Antonie Schurz married Jüssen. Jüssen, like Schurz fought in theAmerican Civil War for the23rd Wisconsin Infantry Regiment as aLieutenant Colonel.[34]
Schurz died at age 77 on May 14, 1906, in New York City, and is buried inSleepy Hollow Cemetery,Sleepy Hollow, New York.[35]
Schurz's wife,Margarethe Schurz, was instrumental in establishing thekindergarten system in the United States.[36]
Schurz is famous for saying: "My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right."[37] On the 2025 anniversary of his birth, he was quoted byAnu Garg of Wordsmith.org as saying, "We have come to a point where it is loyalty to resist, and treason to submit."[38]
He was portrayed byEdward G. Robinson as a friend of the surviving Cheyenne Indians inJohn Ford's 1964 filmCheyenne Autumn.
Schurz published a volume of speeches (1865), a two-volume biography ofHenry Clay (1887), essays on Abraham Lincoln (1899) andCharles Sumner (posthumous, 1951), and hisReminiscences (posthumous, 1907–09). His later years were spent writing the memoirs recorded in hisReminiscences which he was not able to finish, reaching only the beginnings of his U.S. Senate career. Schurz was a member of theLiterary Society of Washington from 1879 to 1880.[39]
Schurz is commemorated in numerous places around the United States:
Several memorials inGermany also commemorate the life and work of Schurz, including:
Letter from Carl Schurz to Abraham Lincoln, November 8, 1862.ARMY CHARGES ANSWERED; THE INDIAN SERVICE UPHELD BY MR. SCHURZ. WHY IT WOULD BE UNWISE TO TRANSFER THE INDIAN BUREAU TO THE WAR DEPARTMENT--INCONSISTENT AND INACCURATE STATEMENTS BY MILITARY OFFICERS--LOOSE MANAGEMENT UNDER THE ARMY. INCONSISTENT AND INACCURATE STATEMENTS BY ARMY OFFICERS. ALLEGED ARMY DISHONESTY. MEASURES OF IMPORTANCE. MR. SCHURZ CROSS-EXAMINED. OTHER WITNESSES
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Schurz, Carl".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 390–391.
Media related toCarl Schurz at Wikimedia Commons
Quotations related toCarl Schurz at Wikiquote Works by or aboutCarl Schurz atWikisource GermanWikisource has original text related to this article:Carl Schurz| Diplomatic posts | ||
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| Preceded by | United States Minister to Spain 1861 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. Senator (Class 1) from Missouri 1869–1875 Served alongside:Charles D. Drake,Daniel T. Jewett,Francis Blair,Lewis V. Bogy | Succeeded by |
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| Preceded by | United States Secretary of the Interior 1877–1881 | Succeeded by |
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| Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Spain (1913–present) | |
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