Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/508

474 am informed that this statement is countenanced by you. Hoping to meet you this evening.

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In reply to your last note I desire to say that you have entirely misconstrued my language. I am not in favor of immediately enfranchising the rebels, and I cannot understand how you could construe my words in that way.

We have been invited to address the Radical caucus to-night and not to-morrow night. I shall be there according to invitation and shall speak even should you not meet me. The misrepresentations, the echo of which I find in your letter, have gone far enough and I desire to stop them. 



—For the high honor and trust you have conferred upon me I give you my heartfelt thanks, but not on my personal account alone. Without attaching too great a significance to what you have done, I may say that my election to the Senate of the United States under the existing circumstances is an evidence of the liberal and progressive spirit moving the people of Missouri. You have broken through all those prejudices and set aside all those traditional considerations which formerly were almost decisive in determining the action of legislative bodies on questions like this. Locality, foreign birth, time of residence, all this spoke against me, and as an offset I had nothing to show but some faithful efforts in behalf of the cause of the