Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/102

 truthfulness of my arguments that I thought I must have won many. I was so confident of the irresistible power of truth and justice on our side that I did not permit myself to entertain any doubt of Frémont's success. Indeed the result of the State elections in the so-called October States, especially in Pennsylvania and Indiana, was sufficient to stagger my sanguine assurance. Still, I could not, and did not, give up hope. Would not a redoubled effort in those October States give us the victory after all? How could such a cause as ours fail? Impossible! It could not be. And yet it did. When after the November election the returns had all come in—I would not abandon hope until I had seen them all—and our defeat was certain, I felt as if I had suffered an immeasurable personal misfortune. It was a stunning blow. Was not this like the disastrous breakdown of the great movement for popular government on the European continent in 1848? Was the democratic principle to collapse in America too? It took me some time to recover from my bewilderment and to recognize the fact that this was only the first battle in a long campaign, a campaign of many years; that we could hardly have expected the new party of liberty to be victorious in its first onset upon a splendidly organized and drilled force with all the influences of long habit and the power of the Government behind it, and that faithful and persistent effort on our part would surely give us the final triumph. And so my distress turned into a fervid longing for the next opportunity to do service.

I continued to like and enjoy the freshness, simplicity and buoyant freedom of Western life, and I was happy to find that Margaretha, who had grown up in surroundings so very different, not only accommodated herself to its condition, but entered into it with the most cheerful humor. Our place