Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/151

 had become citizens of the United States. This was the famous “two-years' amendment” which at the time created much excitement among the foreign-born population, and was eagerly seized upon by Democratic newspapers and stump-speakers as a premonitory indication of the fate which awaited the foreign born if the Republican party should come into power. And this warning was all the more likely to make an impression, as the State of Massachusetts was recognized as the high school of the anti-slavery movement.

Among the Republican leaders who became especially alarmed at this state of things was Henry Wilson, one of the United States Senators from Massachusetts. As I learned to know him at a later period, he was what is commonly called “a man of the people.” Without the advantage of a higher education—his early connection with the shoe business in Natick, had earned him the nickname of “the Natick cobbler”—he had worked himself up to a position of influence in politics. He had won the confidence of the anti-slavery men by his sincere and very active devotion to that cause. His eloquence did not rise to a high level, but became impressive by the ingenuous force with which it portrayed his convictions. He justly enjoyed the reputation of being a thoroughly honest and well-meaning man. There was something childlike in his being, even in his political dealings, although he may have considered himself, and to a certain extent he was, a skillful political manager. He certainly was a very watchful and busy one. The anti-slavery sentiment filled his whole soul. Beyond that cause he took very little interest in other political questions; at least he judged them by their relation to it, and only in that relation they became important or unimportant in his eyes. Everybody liked him; and everybody was attracted by the sympathetic warmth of his nature; and everybody trusted