THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
Union for freedom.” Then he explained to me that, while a distinct anti-slavery policy would remove the foreign danger, and would thus work for the preservation of the Union—while, indeed, it might, in this respect, be necessary for the preservation of the Union, and while he thought that it would soon appear and be recognized to be in every respect necessary, he was in doubt as to whether public opinion at home was yet sufficiently prepared for it. He was anxious to unite, and keep united, all the forces of Northern society and of the Union element in the South, especially the Border States, in the war for the Union. Would not the cry of “abolition war,” such as might be occasioned by a distinct anti-slavery policy, tend to disunite those forces and thus weaken the Union cause? This was the doubt that troubled him, and it troubled him very much. He wished me to look around a little, and in a few days to come back to him and tell him of the impressions I might have gathered. Then he told me how he had enjoyed some of my despatches about Spanish conditions and public men, and how glad he had been to hear from Seward that I was getting on so nicely with “the Dons.” So we parted.
The general aspect of the state of the Union at the beginning of the year 1862 was by no means cheering. The storm brought forth by the “Trent” affair had, indeed, been successfully weathered. The administration had recognized the necessity of surrendering the Southern emissaries taken from the “Trent” in time to avert the threatened conflict with England. As to the grounds upon which this was done, I have always thought that Mr. Seward's reasoning in his famous despatch upon this subject, basing the surrender of the captured emissaries upon a mere technical point, was far less strong, less dignified, and less honorable to this Republic than the simple and broad ground taken by Mr. Sumner in his speech in the Senate,
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