Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/394

374 means all regained that was lost. Moreover, the support regained is to a very great extent only conditional. “As between Grant and Greeley, for Greeley.” This is especially the tone of the German press, with a more or less pronounced desire for another alternative. At best, this sort of negative adhesion is not the spirit which will make a vigorous campaign.

This applies equally to another class of Liberal Republicans,—and here I do not speak of the free-traders merely, who formerly were very zealous in the movement, and who now say that on all the issues of principle except one, on which they cut loose from the regular Republican organization, the Liberal Republican candidate for the Presidency has always been against them; and the one exception is the amnesty question, which is only an ephemeral one. And here again free-trade plays but a very subordinate part. I will give you an example. The reëlection of Senator Ferry in Connecticut was represented as a Liberal Republican victory. I have it from Ferry's own lips that he will not only not vote for you, but if he exerts any influence, will throw it against you, even at the risk of reëlecting Grant; and this not as a free-trader, for I really do not know whether he is one, but partly because he does not want to betray the principles he has been fighting for and partly because he believes that your Administration would be exposed to influences dangerous to the interests of the country. I tell you this by his permission, because you should know it. I know of many men of equal worth and importance who are of a similar mind, Republicans, who speak somewhat in the tone of the letter I communicated to you and which you returned with the remark that the writer was probably not a Republican.

As for the Democrats, the chances seem to be, to-day, in favor of the acceptance of the Cincinnati ticket by the