Harper's Weekly/Principles, Not Men

by Harper's Weekly

PRINCIPLES, NOT MEN.

In his speech at Chicago Senator Schurz defined precisely his position in regard to the renomination of the President. He considered at some length the proceedings in San Domingo, and declared that in his judgment there had been a vital violation of the Constitution. It is a precedent, he thinks, full of peril, and he therefore says: “I can not, I shall not, indorse a violation of the Constitution in its most vital part by supporting, under any circumstances, the candidacy for re-election of the President who perpetrated it.” But the Democrats can not therefore flatter themselves that if General Grant should be renominated they may count upon the support of Senator Schurz for the Democratic candidate. Throughout his speech he identifies himself with the Republicans — hoping, indeed, and exhorting that they go forward. He asserts that he has no confidence in the sincerity of the Democratic “new departure,” while he does not question that of many of the Democratic leaders; and he declares that they must try to convert their party even if in the effort it be destroyed.

But Senator Schurz has no partisan Democratic tendency. He smiles at the thought that those who find the strait-jacket of one party too narrow must thereupon squeeze themselves into that of the other. “We liberal Republicans are honest enough to speak out frankly what displeases us in the Republican party, but the same honesty compels us to say that there is still more in the Democratic party that displeases us. No, gentlemen, the new wine of Republican liberalism will not keep in the old Democratic cask. It is quite likely that by this declaration I shall lose much of the confidence with which I have been honored on the part of Democrats of late, but I will not enjoy more confidence than in truth I am entitled to.” This manly declaration illustrates the grave political error constantly made by the Democrats who suppose that the most urgent criticism of Republican measures and men by Republicans indicates that they are ready to leave the party. Individuals of that kind there are, of course. Mr. Schurz is not one of them. But Mr. Henry B. Stanton is. He says in a recent letter, “I, therefore, should not object to the election, in 1872, of a State Rights Democrat of the moderate type of our old friend Silas Wright.” Mr. Schurz's deeper insight shows him that an honorable and patriotic Administration can be placed in power only by an honorable and patriotic party. “It is the curse of that party,” he says of the Democrats, “that it has educated its masses in prejudices which belong to a past period, and which now will not go out of the way to make room for a sound policy.”

So Governor Palmer, of Illinois, whom the Democrats have considered delightfully independent in his Republican sympathies, destroys all their hopes of seeing him in opposition by a letter to Kentucky regretting that he could not join in the canvass for Mr. Harlan. “The Republican party,” he says, “being thus committed to liberty, justice, and protection for all men, is entitled in the highest degree to the confidence of all classes in Kentucky.” The Governor proceeds to declare that it is the true State Rights party, because it demands that the governments of the States shall do their duty in defending the lives and liberties of their citizens, adding that if they did this the Ku-Klux legislation of Congress would become obsolete.

The impending contest is between these two parties — the Democratic devoted to the prejudices of the past, and the Republican committed to liberty, justice, and protection for all men. There was never a time when the old maxim of “principles, not men,” was more applicable. Senator Schurz, indeed, makes no personal or factious objection to the renomination of the President. His ground of opposition is wholly different. In his judgment the re-election of a President who, as he thinks, has vitally violated the Constitution would be a condonation of usurpation full of perilous consequences. While, therefore, he favors the great principles of the party, he opposes the man.

For ourselves we do not think — nor, as we believe, does the country suppose — that there has been that willful, wanton, and dangerous usurpation of power in regard to San Domingo which Mr. Schurz and Mr. Sumner so forcibly depict; nor do we think that the history of the Administration shows the President inclined to disregard his constitutional obligations. Indeed, it would be hard to find — except in the great instance of Washington — a victorious general, called at the close of a furious civil war to the chief magistracy of a disturbed nation, who has more honorably and modestly recognized the supremacy of law than the President. Were it otherwise, there could not be that general confidence in him which unquestionably exists. Senator Schurz vigorously criticises the Republican party, its leaders, and its policy; but he does not, therefore, cease to be a Republican. Indeed, he would prove his fidelity by purifying and elevating the party.

• Page Image at Wikimedia Commons