Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/432

408 a full measure of unalloyed delight. Eminent as he was as a contributor to American letters, he was far more eminent as a public teacher of the highest order—a teacher who taught, by example as well as precept, lessons inspired by the noblest ideals of virtue and patriotism.

I do not mean to say he confined himself to what might be called literary preaching; for his deep and ardent public spirit called him in early manhood to the sterner tasks imposed upon him by his conception of civic duty. The anti-slavery cause took hold of his whole moral nature and made him an active member of the Republican party of those days. He was one of those who advocated anti-slavery principles when it was dangerous to do so, and who exposed themselves not only to partisan reviling in speech and press, but to physical violence in facing infuriated mobs. It was the moral courage of his convictions which kept him calm and resolute on a platform in Philadelphia, when clubs and brickbats were used to answer the anti-slavery argument.

But his political career was in some respects essentially different from that of most men of ability and ambition, who devote themselves to the service of the public. While he unceasingly labored with pen and speech for what he thought right and just and honorable, not selecting for himself, like a fastidious dilettante, only the dainty part of the work, but plunging personally into the rough encounter with the partisan opponent as well as, on his own side, with the professional politician in primary, caucus and convention, he declined for himself those rewards which even a perfectly legitimate personal ambition might have coveted. Although a man of his brilliant abilities, splendid working force and charming personality might easily have risen to high places of distinction and power, he sought for himself nothing but the station and the opportunities of the simple