Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/434

414 the Republic, to inspire them with new interest in its fortunes, thus neutralizing their heartburnings and animosities, giving the peace of measurable contentment to their country, and restoring the long-lost cordiality of feeling between the different parts of the Union.

President Grant's position was equally fortunate in other respects. He had never been identified with party strife. Its entanglements, animosities and resentments were foreign to him. He owed his elevation to no particular set of politicians to whom he might have been bound by a debt of gratitude. He was not borne aloft on the shoulder of faction, while the very opposition he had to encounter as a candidate was respectful in the appreciation of the services he had rendered. No President would have had less difficulty to overcome in relieving the country of the curse of narrow-minded, selfish, partisan rule, in distributing the offices of the Government with a single eye to the true interests of the public service and in thus inaugurating his Administration with a reform elevating the whole tone and temper of our political life.

When he ascended the Presidential chair it may be said that the whole people surrounded him with a cordial offer of their confidence and willing aid in all he might do to give the country good government. There was not a statesman in this Republic who would not have been ready, nay proud, to serve him at his call. He might but have willed it to gather the very flower of political wisdom and virtue around the council-board of his Cabinet to aid his inexperience, and the disposition of the popular mind in his favor was such that from the very ranks of the opposition he might have reinforced his supporters. The Nation stood ready to applaud every movement in the right direction. To support such an Administration conducted on such principles and faithfully serving such