Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/258

238 does the Senator from Wisconsin, or any other Senator, think the American people, against the principles of their own Constitution, would leave it to the philanthropic impulses of the President alone, of one man, to decide when those philanthropic impulses shall be given vent to, when the guns of the United States shall be sent upon such a belligerent peace mission? Does it not occur to the Senator that if we give such discretionary power to our Chief Magistrate in spite of our Constitution, that Presidential benevolence, that philanthropy of the nineteen-inch caliber might involve us unaware in any trouble that is going on in any part of the world? If I know anything of the people of the United States, they respectfully beg to be excused. Really, sir, this chapter in the Senator's speech, with due respect to his ability be it said, does not rise to the dignity of an argument.

But even the pretext of intentions and purposes merely benevolent, when you look at the facts, appears utterly without foundation. Had the President been actuated only by such motives, they could easily have found other more useful and more magnificent theaters of action. Why did he not show the least desire to interfere in some of the revolutions which have happened on the continental part of this hemisphere during his Administration, or a desire to send his philanthropic artillery down to Paraguay, where blood was flowing in streams, in order to interfere in a war in which, against our desire, we came so near being involved? No, sir; it will not do to tell this benevolence story to an intelligent people. What was done was done to further, by force of arms, if need be, a pet scheme of the White House, in which neither the Congress nor the people of the United States had shown the least interest. It was for this that the war-making power of Congress was usurped, that the Constitution,