Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/492

 without justice and necessity. Did I believe him innocent, I should not only refrain from everything that might do him harm, but I should be among the first to stand between him and the sacrifice; and even now I assure him it is with the profoundest pain that I see him in his deplorable situation. But, sir, no consideration of personal kindness and sympathy, no emotion of compassionate friendship, can I permit to seduce me, nor should it seduce anybody here, to sacrifice to one individual what is higher than he and higher than all of us—the dignity and the honor of the American Senate, the moral authority of the laws we make, the purity of our representative government, and the best interests of the American people. Whatever sacrifice we may be willing to offer, these things at least should not constitute the victim. 

 &emsp; I have received your letter of the 17th inst. asking me to use my influence with the Administration to obtain for you the appointment as postmaster at Louisiana [Missouri].

There are several reasons why I cannot comply with your request. In the first place, I have no influence with the Administration. In the second place, my opinions on the civil service are such as to render it impossible for me to advocate the removal of an incumbent merely for the purpose of putting in another man on political grounds. In the third place, I think a newspaper editor should take care to preserve his independence and therefore not accept an official position in which an expression of his true convictions might seriously embarrass him. As an organ of public opinion a newspaper ought to be as