Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/60

40 in the balance. But as my colleague has evidently given his whole mind to this subject, and has formed his conclusions, no doubt with great reluctance, it will not do to treat the matter lightly.

Seriously speaking, sir, if I should discuss the moral aspect of my colleague's performance, I do not know whether it would be easy to remain within the bounds of parliamentary language. But being charitably disposed, I look at it as a thing of pathological interest, as a somewhat morbid hallucination, such as is frequently produced by the tortures of disappointed affection, and which, in its wild flights, loses all perception of reality and all appreciation of probabilities. I forgive him, sir; I forgive him, especially as I must do him the justice to say that his distemper did not altogether overcome the natural kindness of his heart, for I will not ascribe it to prudent discretion that he carefully avoided making any of those assertions in my presence. At the commencement of the campaign I invited my colleague to a public discussion; he declined for reasons undoubtedly satisfactory to himself, and then went straightway to a place where he knew I would not be to set afloat these stories. And when afterward I met him at some place in the interior of the State he carefully left out of his speech all that related to my contemplated treason; and then at the next place where I was not, he repeated the same stories again. His extreme reticence may be most satisfactorily explained on the theory that he thought such charges pronounced in my face might be too harrowing to my feelings.

But it was not against me alone; it was against the Germans generally that my colleague directed his batteries. After having represented them as a class of voting cattle who can be used by unscrupulous politicians for any