Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/146

112 State-rights cause. The fire-eaters of our party (and you know there are such, who are always apt to undo by overdoing) threatened to bolt unless Sloan would make a public statement of his views on the State-rights question. Shortly after the convention, while I was travelling in Indiana, I wrote Sloan that there was some difficulty in Milwaukee and Racine, probably instigated by A. D. Smith and his particular friends, and that he, probably, would be called upon to write a letter for publication. I told him that I would consider it very improper for a candidate for a judicial office to make a public statement of his views on matters which might come up to him for adjudication; but if it was necessary that something should be done, I advised him to write private letters to some prominent Republicans, enabling them to endorse him as a State-rights man, without publishing the letters. When I got home, the first thing that met my eye was a letter from Sloan stating that my advice had come too late, and that he had yielded to the urgent demands of the State-rights men. He had, indeed, showed himself to be driven into doing a very weak thing and doing it in a very weak manner too. You have probably seen Sloan's letter to his “dear brother” in Janesville. That letter has cost him over two thousand votes, for it made even State-rights men doubt of the good sense of their candidate. So there was no fire, no enthusiasm, no alacrity in the fight on our side, while Dixon's friends were active and working in all parts of the State. Recent developments show that the farm-mortgage interest went in for Dixon, while, during the campaign, Sloan had to bear the odium of it. In short, there was foul play, discontent, disaffection, treachery everywhere; men who had worked to get Sloan nominated and voted for him in the convention, turned right against him as soon as his letter appeared, and our opponents found in the apparent make-up of the thing