Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/264

244 such discretionary authority. But here, gentlemen, the question is not to protect the safety of American citizens. Here the question is to protect a usurper, Baez, in a foreign country. And, now, you speak of the confidence with which we shall surrender such powers to the Executive! It is humiliating, indeed, that Republican Senators should have to take a lesson of independence of spirit even from Jefferson Davis and his partisans.

If you raise the question of confidence, we are not called upon to ask whether the President possesses it; but the proper question to ask is whether, in view of this act and to this extent, it is safe to give it to him. What has he done? In order to further a scheme of his own, he has ordered naval commanders to commit warlike acts without the authority of Congress. Thus he transgressed his Constitutional powers and usurped those of the National Legislature; he jeopardized the peace and the honor and the safety of this Republic. Doing this, he has either proved that he does not understand the Constitutional limitations of his power, or that he is reckless enough knowingly and willfully to break through them. In either case, if he does possess the confidence of the people, it is, in view of these acts, high time for the people to consider whether that confidence is safely bestowed. The people may well ask themselves if the President, impelled by such inducements as the San Domingo scheme offered, went so far, how far he may be inclined to go under the impulse of temptations still stronger.

Sir, I do not speak of the President without that respect which is his due. Nor do I put upon the things he has done a harsh construction. The President's education was that of military life. He was unused to the operations of the checks and balances of power which constitute the rule of civil government. If the habits of peremptory