Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/59

Rh within the bounds of economy and propitiate the Northern taxpayer? How will he content the Southern men in the distribution of offices, who will claim that they have furnished the majority of votes and are therefore entitled to the lion's share? And how will he keep the Northern Democracy in good spirits and in working order by a distribution of the patronage which will appease the hunger of twenty years? These are some of the problems which the unsophisticated soldier-President, whose whole sphere of mental activity has so far been confined to the handling of troops on the field of battle, and to the narrow horizon of duty which army life in times of peace comprises, will have to solve. And these problems he will have to solve not in the quiet of the closet, surrounded by a few able counsellors in peaceful consultation, but quickly, under the bewildering pressure of not a hundred but thousands of eager politicians, who fill the ear with a babel of sound and with a pandemonium of conflicting ambitions. This is a task that would tax a man of phenomenal genius to the utmost of his capacity; but what will become of one who is unaided even by the least experience of political life, and has nothing but his inner consciousness to measure the value of the arguments and pretenses which are dinned into his ears and the character of the interests that besiege him with their urgency for immediate action?

Let us see now what, in view of all this, we have a right to expect from a Democratic victory. Is it the maintenance of our public faith? While there are prominent opponents of repudiation in the Democratic party, it is a notorious fact that all the elements hostile to the Constitutional discharge of our National obligations have also gathered under the same banner. Nearly all, if not all, the States that have repudiated or speak of repudiating their own debts are Democratic States, with heavy Democratic majorities, furnishing Democratic electoral votes