Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1872-10-25
Carl SchUPZ.

Senator SchurZ has been saying good
many true things of late. Indeed, there
are few men in this country who can say
truer things or say them more handsomely
than our distinguished German Senator.
Southern men were not prepared for the
course that Carl Schurz has taken in
reference to American Politics. They
were specially surprised at the element of
Conservatism that his acts since the war
have displayed. 1t has rarely happened
that men born and reared under other
forms of government have 80 soon come to
understand and appreciate in theory and
practice the principles upon which our own
was sought to be established. True Re-
publicanism or Democracy is as far differ
ent from Red Republicanism and Radical
ism, as it is from Imperialism or Monarch
ism it is as far removed from the despot-
ism of an individual as it is from that of a
mob in a word, it is liberty regulated by
law.
1t is generally exceedingly difficult for
one not habituated thereto from his in
fancy, to fully appreciate the machinery by
which our forefathers, in establishing the
Federal Government, thought they had
successfully solved the problem how best
to regulate liberty by law.
Too much law is as hurtful to the citizen
as too much license is hurtful to the State.
The statesman who is a Democrat as well as
patriot, finds himself compelled to tread in
narrow path if he would encroach neither
upon liberty nor upon law, and would Sc
cure the greatest good both to the indi-
vidual and to the State.
Southern men did not expect Senator
Schurz to appreciate the just relation and
the true line of separation between law and
liberty. Having suffered oppression in his
native land from despotism Of enc kind, it
seemed not unnatural for him to fly to the
other extreme.
As has been so strongly said BY EMILIO
CASTELAR, in d lteent paper on the Re-
publican movemAkt in Europe, ga man
born in the shadow of despotism, reared
among the terrors Of his own family, and
the suspicious of arbitrary authority. edu-
Gated under the lash of a religious and
political dogmatisnl-as soon as the idea
buds in his conscience, gagged by the cen
sorshlp-as soon the citizen character
is developed by maturity, stretched on the
rack of slavery, with the spectacle always
before his eyes Of tue OmnipOtence of one
man, and the shame always in his heart of
his own slavery, his own impotence, ham
pered by spies in his speech and writing,
and most intimate reunions, apprehensive
unless seeing everything possible and easy
to tyrant--he creates in his silent soul a
fantastic idea which he loves with delirious
eXultatiOn."
This was the estimate Southern men
had placed upon Carl SchJrz. Nor was
there anything in his course as all Abo-
litionist or Black Republican, and in the
part he took in the subjugation and en-
shaving nine millions OF whites to give
freedom to three millions of blacks to con-
vince them that they were wrong.
1t was With great surprise, then, that
among the first, if not the very first, of the
maddened crowd, he was observed to
pause. Nor was it any the less pleasing,
because unexpected, that his voice was
heard giving warning that liberty and law,
the citizen and the State, were alike in
danger.
We live in strange times, and look upon
strange scenes. Not the least strange
among these is that Carl Schurz, the man
whom, above all others, the conser.
vatism of the South lad looked upon
as its mortal enemy, should have proved
himself to be one Of its earliest and most
persistent defenders! Our people we'll re-
member the surprise with which his first
lttefances in behalf of liberty, regulated
)y law, were received. 1t is no small
compliment to the even balance of his
mind, that with his antecedents of birth.
ana habit, Carl Schurz, the
German exile, SHOULD be the first to cause |
americans, upon their own soil, to re- |
member that the despotism of numbers |
vas as hurtful as the despotism of an in
llvldual; that the despotism of an infuri |
ted mob might be as pernicioas as the !
tyranny of sole monarch. !
Long may his voice be heard in defence
# liberty and of law.