Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/292

272 instructs our naval officers to protect and defend the chief of a foreign government against any foreign enemy, and even against his own subjects and countrymen, and when he does this, not only while negotiations are going on with that foreign government, which negotiations, however, would not confer upon the President the autocratic power to resort to measures of war at his own pleasure, but even after the results of such negotiations, in the shape of a treaty, have been formally and solemnly rejected by the Senate, and we have no relations with that foreign government and people but the ordinary relations of peace—when a President does that, then he arrogates to himself one of the most important powers belonging to the representatives of the people. He violates the Constitution in one of its most vital points, and he constitutes himself the arbiter of peace and war for this great Republic. And when I am asked to endorse such an act by supporting that President for reëlection, and thus to aid in sanctioning, by a popular vote, such an act as a precedent, a precedent which, if taken as a rule of Constitutional construction, would authorize the President alone to initiate a war under almost any circumstances, and make this Republic virtually a monarchy as to the question of peace or war, then I, as a faithful citizen of this Republic, who have sworn to support its Constitution, say, “I will not do it.” I will not help to reëlect an officer whose reëlection, sanctioning his previous acts with popular approval, will be a justification and encouragement to all future Presidents in committing acts of usurpation reaching still farther. I will not help in paving the way for the advent of irresponsible personal government in this Republic. And when I am told that by such opposition other grave interests may be jeopardized, I answer that I am very doubtful whether the wanton levity with which our Presidents are to be permitted to play with