Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/307

Rh ner in which it was spread before the world. I do not know whether such treatment of a Senator by a Secretary of State has any precedent in our history. I doubt it. That this occurrence made further personal intercourse between the Secretary and the Senator impossible, is quite natural. Without it they might probably have gone on conferring, however widely disagreeing. Certainly, the rupture cannot with justice be altogether charged to Sumner's account. On the contrary, the provocation coming from the other side might have ruffled a temper less sensitive than his.

About the Treaty of Washington I had many confidential exchanges of opinion with him. He deplored that it had fallen short of what he called “the ideal solution”—a solution which had been seriously contemplated by the Administration likewise. But when the treaty had be come an accomplished fact, only requiring confirmation by the Senate, he supported it for the good things it contained—not because he was flattered and cajoled by the British members of the High Commission, nor because he felt himself “shorn of his power”—which, in fact, he was not nearly as much as you seem to suppose. I think you are mistaken if you believe that Sumner could not have got votes enough in the Senate to defeat the treaty if he had really wished to do so. His power in that body was still very great on such questions, in spite of his removal from his chairmanship; and by a presentation of the case just such as you have given in the first part of your address he might have carried more than one-third of the votes in the Senate, as well as public sentiment throughout the country, which at that period was still very far from friendly to England owing to her well-remembered conduct during our civil war.

But it was Sumner who actually led the debate in favor of the treaty in the executive sessions of the Senate; and