Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/59

 to the extension of slavery over territories dedicated to freedom, not in obedience to any necessity, not for any purpose of public good, but to open to himself the road to the presidential chair by winning the favor of the slave power, thus wantonly jeopardizing the cause of freedom for personal ambition, that charge was sustained by overwhelming circumstantial evidence. And when then I saw him on the floor of the Senate plead his cause with the most daring sophistries and in a tone of most overbearing and almost ruffianly aggressiveness, and yet undeniably with very great force and consummate cunning, I thought I recognized in him the very embodiment of that unscrupulous, reckless demagogy which, as my study of history had told me, is so dangerous to republics. These impressions made me detest him profoundly. And when the time came for me to take an active part in anti-slavery campaigns, I thought that of all our opponents he was the one that could never be arraigned too severely. Of this, more hereafter.

No contrast could have been more striking than that between Douglas and the anti-slavery men in the Senate as I saw them and listened to them from the gallery. There was to me something mysterious in the slim, wiry figure, the thin, sallow face, the overhanging eyebrows, and the muffled voice of Seward. I had read some of his speeches, and admired especially those he had delivered on the Compromise of 1850. The broad sweep of philosophical reasoning and the boldness of statement and prediction I found in them, as well as the fine flow of their language, had greatly captivated my imagination. Before seeing him I had pictured him to myself, as one is apt to picture one's heroes, as an imposing personage of overawing mien and commanding presence. I was much disappointed when I first saw that quiet little man who, as he moved about on the floor of the Senate chamber, seemed to be