scandalous abuses. At New Orleans, in connection with internal dissension in the Republican party, the United States troops and a revenue cutter were openly employed in promoting the fortunes of the faction which enjoyed the favor of Casey, a brother-in-law of Grant and collector of the port. In view of the policy of the Ku Klux act it appeared to many anxious Republicans that a purpose was afoot to carry the election of Grant in 1872 by the setting up of military rule again in the South.
All these various conditions kept the spirit of watchfulness and intrigue active among public men during the recess of Congress in 1871. Schurz remained in close touch with those of a liberal trend of thought, and shaped the project of thwarting the re-election of Grant. When the houses reassembled in December the two factions in the Senate were eagerly and equally intent on opportunities for parliamentary attack and partisan advantage. Early in the session Schurz and Sumner found an opening through which to assail the administration, as they had done before, for reckless conduct in matters touching foreign nations. Information came to them that during the Franco-Prussian War great quantities of arms had been sold to France under circumstances that suggested jobbery and corruption in the War Department and outrageous disregard of the duties of a neutral. Schurz first ascertained that the record of the State Department was entirely blameless, and further that the German government would not take advantage of any revelations to call the United States to account. Having thus provided against any possibility of foreign complications, the attack was opened.
Sumner offered a resolution proposing an inquiry and investigation concerning the sale of arms to France, and on February 13, 1872, made a speech in support of the resolution. He had not well mastered the details of the affair; and hence, while his charges of improper conduct by the government were clear enough, the evidence to sustain them was not so presented as to make out a very impressive case. Schurz was not intending to take a prominent part in the debate, but when the administration cohort—Morton, Carpenter, Conkling and others—rushed to the defense of the War Department, Sumner, laboring heavily, peremptorily summoned Schurz to his aid. From the 15th of February to the end of the month the Missouri Senator sustained with but little assistance the burden of a most violent political debate. The climax of his labor and his triumph came on the 19th and 20th.
The debate created great excitement and attracted large audiences to the galleries. On the 19th Conkling made an elaborate speech in defense of the administration, attacking Sumner and Trumbull. The whole White House coterie was in the galleries to witness the overthrow of its adversaries. As soon as Conkling was through, Schurz demanded the floor to reply instantly, but an adjournment was moved and carried, assuring him the floor for the next day. Mrs. Schurz, who had listened to Conkling, was very much dejected and told her husband on the way home that she did not think he could answer Conkling's speech. He tried to restore her courage and then employed the better part of the night in studying the documents once more and in arranging his ideas for the reply. But he could not prevail upon his wife to accompany him to the Senate the next day. When he arrived at the Capitol he found the avenues of the Senate chamber filled with so great a crowd that he could with difficulty make his way through it. As soon as Schurz got the floor, Fenton of New York moved that the doors of the Senate chamber be opened to admit the ladies who could not find room in the galleries. This was agreed to, and in a few minutes every sofa and every square foot of standing room in the chamber were filled. This audience was indeed inspiring and he never in his life spoke with so much nervous energy, fire and immediate effect. The crowd on the floor and in the galleries would at last break out at every touch, and the presiding officer found it very hard to restrain them. When Schurz finished, the larger part of the audience, after having indulged themselves in all sorts of demonstrations, rose to depart, and proceedings in the Senate had to be suspended for about a quarter of an hour. When the orator was just closing, Mrs. Schurz, who had after all been too restless to stay at home, arrived at the Senate chamber and tried in vain to get in. In a moment the crowd began to pour out, and Sumner, who was looking for some friends, met her in the lobby and, stretching out his hands, cried: "Oh, Madam, I congratulate you. Your husband has just made the greatest speech that has been heard in the Senate for twenty years." "It was indeed," said Schurz, in recalling this incident to Sumner's biographer many years later, "not the best speech, for the subject was comparatively small, but the greatest parliamentary triumph I ever had in the Senate."
To break the effect of Schurz's remarkable eloquence, which all the newspapers of the land acknowledged and recorded, his adversaries turned their batteries almost exclusively upon him and his personal aims. Morton represented him as seeking merely to turn the German vote over to the Democrats, and dwelt with special iteration upon Schurz's public declaration that he would not support Grant under any circumstances. Conkling pressed again the intimation made before, that Schurz, in order to besmirch the administration, had acted in collusion with some spy or emissary of a foreign power. In his most sonorous and rasping language the showy New York Senator charged Schurz with putting on airs of personal courage; with indulging in cowardly insinuations that the President was corrupt; and with seeking to deter those who would properly resent such insinuations by "frisky and portentous proclamation" of the danger which they would incur.
Conkling was evidently in a state of intense irritation and he exposed himself to a quick and deadly retort. "If I did and said anything yesterday that looked like strutting," said Schurz, "then I most sincerely beg the Senate's pardon; for I certainly did not want to encroach upon the exclusive privilege of my honorable and distinguished associate from New York. If I did and said anything that looked like boasting, let me assure you, sir, that it was not the remark that even if I met a thousand of his kind I would not quail; for I would not consider that a striking demonstration of courage."
Carpenter of Wisconsin harped upon the charge that Schurz, in seeking to fasten wrong-doing upon his own government in relation to another power, was false to patriotic duty and forgetful of the sentiment "My country, right or wrong." Schurz avowed his devotion to that sentiment with this addition: "My country, right or wrong: if right, to be kept right; if wrong, to be set right."
The arduous and brilliant fortnight of parliamentary fencing brought small results so far as the original issue was concerned. A committee of investigation was appointed by the Senate, but the administration majority saw to it that neither Sumner nor Schurz was a member. The latter was permitted, however, to question witnesses. In May a report was made acquitting the officials of all wrong-doing in connection with the sale of arms. Mr. Schurz, while admitting that the testimony fell short of establishing guilt by legal evidence, felt that this failure was due to the hostile attitude of the committee toward the accusers, and believed all his life that the War Department had acted recklessly and illegally and that illegitimate money-making was at the bottom of the business.
This debate increased twentyfold Mr. Schurz's forensic reputation. He had already won a recognition as one of the strong men of the Senate in the serious discussion of large problems and policies; now he also ranked with those who were most dangerous in the quick parry and thrust of impromptu partisan debate. Conkling never spoke to Schurz again, for Schurz's disdainful sarcasm gave him as painful a wound as he received when Blaine likened him to a turkey-gobbler. The attitude of the administration press during and after the debate gave conclusive if disagreeable evidence of the new importance achieved by the Missouri Senator. Ingenious and malignant slanders assailed him from all sides with redoubled frequency, but throughout it all there was the grumbling admission that his work on the floor of the Senate had been wonderfully adroit and effective.
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