Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/141

 upon anti-slavery grounds, but from constitutional reasons and from hatred of the slave-holding aristocracy, the oppressors and misleaders of the common people, who had resolved to destroy the Republic if they were not permitted to rule it. The constant burden of his speech was that this rebellion against the government of the Union was treason, and that treason was a crime that must be made odious by visiting condign punishment upon the traitors. To hear him expatiate upon this, his favorite theme, one would have thought that if this man ever came into power, the face of the country would soon bristle with gibbets, and foreign lands swarm with fugitives from the avenging sword of the Republic. And such sentiments he uttered not in a tone betraying the slightest excitement, but with the calmness of long-standing and unquestionable conviction. When, in the course of our conversations, I suggested, as I sometimes did, that there were in the reconstruction of the Union other objects to be accomplished fully as important as the punishment of the traitors, he would treat such suggestions with polite indulgence, at the same time insisting with undisturbed sternness, that the Union could not endure unless by a severe punishment of the traitors, treason were forever branded as the unpardonable crime. Indeed, this seemed to constitute the principal part of his political program for the future. No doubt, there were gentler and more amiable currents of feeling in Mr. Johnson's composition, known to his family, friends, and neighbors; but in our political talks at that time they did not manifest themselves. When, a short time after my first meeting with Mr. Johnson, the Republican National Convention nominated him as its candidate for the vice-presidency, I was, I must confess, one of those who received the news with a certain uneasiness of feeling.