Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/227

Rh acts by surprise, with vehement energy, and wins considerable successes in the beginning. Government gathers its forces more slowly and may well be content if it maintains itself until the revolutionary passion submits to the inevitable law of reaction. Especially must this be so in a federative republican government like our own. While you who have gone abroad are hearing apprehensions of the failure of the Government on all sides, there is not one citizen who has remained at home who is not more confident in the stability of this Union now than he was on the day of your departure upon your mission. This confidence is not built on enthusiasm, but on knowledge of the true state of the conflict, and the exercise of calm and dispassionate reflection. 



&emsp; When I was sent to Spain I received the instruction to use my best efforts to prevent the recognition of the Southern Confederacy and to place the relations between this country and the United States upon a satisfactory footing. I was well aware of the importance of this task, and upon my arrival here I found that it was not altogether an easy one. Spain had indeed defined her policy with regard to our domestic troubles in a manner which won your approval. But the irritation caused by our protest against the annexation of Dominica and the efforts of my predecessor, who had most zealously served the interests of the rebellion before openly joining it, had produced a state of feeling here which under unfavorable circumstances would have led to disagreeable results. The symptoms of a decided and widely spread hostility were alarming. In struggling against these difficulties I have used all the means which my position placed at my disposal and which corresponded with the justice of our