U. S. Senate Speeches and Remarks of Carl Schurz/Sales of Arms to French Agents 6

SALES OF ARMS TO FRENCH AGENTS

The Senate resumed the consideration of the resolution submitted by Mr. on the 12th instant, the pending question being on the amendment offered by Mr., to add at the end of the resolution the following:

Mr. CARPENTER addressed the Senate. [His speech will be published in the Appendix.]

Mr. SCHURZ. The closing sentences of the Senator's speech were pitched in a strain not unusual in this debate. When argument is at fault, then an appeal to prejudice is in order, and it is resorted to without restraint. It seems to be fashionable now to ascribe all that is disagreeable to the Administration to some foreign influence, against which the native spirit must rise. Yesterday we heard even the general-order business in the New York custom-house, which I take occasion to denounce again as a scandalous abuse, in some manner justified on the plea that foreign importers were at the bottom of the movement against it. To-day we hear another charge of corrupt practices discredited upon the ground that this resolution is to affect the sympathies of the foreign-born citizens of this country, and that it may serve foreign interests.

Gentlemen, I tell you this will be of no avail. The people want a just and honest conduct of Government. The people are rising up against corruption wherever it shows its head, and you cannot dissuade them from their purpose by pretending the general-order business in New York is unpopular with foreign importers, or that there is no wrong connected with the sales of arms because foreign Governments are concerned, or because I was born in Germany.

I asked the Senator from Wisconsin whether he charged me with any unpatriotic motive. He seemed to disclaim it, and yet he did so charge by inuendo. It would have been more manly and courageous in him had he stood up here and spoken out, &ldquo;You have not cast off your allegiance to the foreign Power of which you were formerly a subject, and you are at the present moment betraying American interests.&rdquo; Instead of making the charge he tried to shift it, tried to turn and squirm, so as to give the people to understand his meaning, without courageously bringing it out with blunt directness. I deny it with the indignation of a clear conscience.

I do not stand here to make a defense of my patriotism. I did not come to this country yesterday. I have been here for twenty years. If the Senator from Wisconsin can point out in my past life a single instance where there was a sacrifice demanded of me that I did not make, where there was a service I could render that I have not rendered, where there was an act of patriotism I could perform that I have not performed, let him point it out, and I will answer. No, sir, this resolution is not brought forward as something to benefit some foreign Government. The accusation is preposterous.

I knew very well when this discussion began that it would be attempted on the part of those who justify anything the Administration may do to give it such a turn, and to appeal to the prejudice of some people in order to cover up what is wrong. I repeat, gentlemen, do not indulge in delusions; that transparent trick will not succeed.

Sir, I am not going to discuss at length the question of international law raised by the Senator from Wisconsin when he endeavored to show that sales of arms by the Government to a belligerent were legal; I am not going to quote authorities and read documents, but I will, in a very few simple words, appeal to the common sense of the Senate and of the world. The Senator from Wisconsin is aware that I have not attempted an elaborate discussion of points of international law in the speeches I have made. But I will say now that there was one grave and astounding error running through his whole argument absolutely fatal to his conclusions. It was simply this, that throughout his whole speech he confounded the trade which might be legitimately carried on with belligerent parties by private merchants with the trade carried on with belligerent parties directly by a government. Nobody denies that American citizens are permitted to sell arms to a belligerent Power; nobody denies that in the regular course of trade they are permitted to sell war-like supplies; but the question would assume a very different aspect if the Government should claim the right to open its arsenals and its dock-yards to do the same thing. And this is what the Senator from Wisconsin declares legitimate under the law of nations. He is the first exponent of public law who ventures so far.

Why, sir, our own Government recognized the principle that it was not permitted to do this. Why was it, while private citizens were under the proclamation of neutrality entirely unrestricted in their commerce, subject to their risk, why was it, I ask, that the Secretary of War established the rule that no arms should be sold to the agent of a belligerent Power by the Government? Simply because the Government itself recognized the principle that it was wrong and incompatible with neutral obligations to do so. If the Government had not recognized that principle, what did the rule of action mean which the War Department laid down for itself? The Senator stands controverted by the act of our own Government as by the common sense of mankind.

With these few simple remarks the whole theory of international law laboriously advanced by the Senator from Wisconsin drops to pieces. To adopt the language which has been used by several Senators with regard to the grounds of suspicion adduced by the Senator from Massachusetts, there is not a shred left of it; it is pulverized to atoms.

The Senator from Wisconsin tried to make us believe that a Government might do so if there was no intention to aid either of the belligerent Powers. Intention! Suppose we were to drift into a war with a foreign nation, or suppose another rebellion were to occur in this country, and then some foreign Government were to open its arsenals and its dock-yards and from thence send to our enemies supplies and arms, with or without pay; suppose our remonstrances met with the simple reply, &ldquo;Oh! we do not intend to hurt you;&rdquo; do you think that would be satisfactory to us? Is that the rule the Senator desires to have established? Is not such an idea absolutely preposterous?

Nay, further than that, the Senator from Wisconsin endeavored to prove to us that it was not only the right but the duty of our War Department to sell arms under those circumstances, even to agents of the belligerent parties, for, says he, the War Department is not only authorized but directed to do so. Very well, if the War Department was not only authorized but directed to do so, then it was wrong for the War Department to stop those sales or to refuse to sell to persons known as French agents if their bids were good and they were able to pay. Is not this clear? If the War Department had an opportunity to sell to agents of either of the belligerent powers, and the War Department, being directed to sell those arms, refused, the War Department did not fulfill its duty. And here then I will, in the name of the Senator from Wisconsin, make a direct charge.

We have been asked: &ldquo;Why did you not,

when the sales of arms were going on, protest against them and try to have them stopped?&rdquo; Well, sir, I did endeavor to have them stopped. I did endeavor, to the beat of my ability, to induce the War Department to discontinue the sales, and finally I succeeded. I hold in my hand a letter from the Secretary of War announcing to me that those sales had been stopped, and I have very good authority for saying that they were stopped in consequence of my urgency.

Mr. SUMNER. Will you read that letter?

Mr. SCHURZ. It is as follows:

Mr. SUMNER. Is that in the autograph of the Secretary?

Mr. SCHURZ. Yes, sir.

The point I was going to make is this: I have proven that I did endeavor to stop those sales. I have proven also that the sales, according to this letter, were stopped. If the Secretary of War had not only the right, but it was his duty to sell to any bidder able to pay, even to French agents, then certainly he violated the law by stopping those sales as long as he had an opportunity to sell; and the only justification that could possibly be attempted would be this: that after the 24th of January, when this letter was written to me, there appear sales of several hundred pieces of artillery, some of which may have been arranged before this letter was written, but some of which in all probability were made and concluded afterward. At any rate, several hundred pieces of artillery appear in the report of the Secretary of War as having been sold after this promise had been given that the sales of arms should be stopped. According to the Senator from Wisconsin, the continuance of the sales was not only proper, but their discontinuance would have been criminal. How does that view of the case please you? Then what remains of the whole argument of the Senator from Wisconsin? Let me repeat, in the language which has been current here, not a shred; it is pulverized to atoms.

There is only one other point I desire to touch in a few words. The Senator from Wisconsin says if we discover that a breach of neutrality has been committed, how shall we in the future stand before the nations of the world? Will not that be an incitement to the German Government to set up claims against us, and if we do not willingly pay those claims will they not have a rightful cause of war against us, and what will be the situation of the Senator from Massachusetts and myself then? Sir, is not this a perfectly absurd supposition? Do you think &mdash; and here I feel compelled to repeat the remarks which I made day before yesterday &mdash; do you think that after not having remonstrated at the time, after having shown a determination to ignore this matter on its part, the German Government would, after the Senate of the United States has ordered an investigation of this case, not with a view of giving a basis for claims to Germany, but for the purpose of setting itself right in its own conscience and before the nations of the world, then come and say, &ldquo;We take advantage of your own conscientious act, and we now set up a claim against you?&rdquo; Would any generous, any decent Government think a single moment of doing so?

Let me put before you once more the supposition with which I illustrated my argument a few days ago. Suppose during our civil war we had made no remonstrance against the letting out of rebel cruisers from British ports; suppose after the war some member of Parliament had moved an investigation for the purpose of discovering whether any wrong had been committed, and of punishing the wrong-doers, do you not think that every wise and generous man in the United States would have spurned the idea of taking advantage of such a step to set up a claim against England then? I ask again, would not the country resound with the highest praise of old England for that generous and just act, spontaneously performed? Would we not join hands in warmer friendship than ever before, the British nation having, without compulsion, of her own motion, shown so noble a disposition to be just? What, then, becomes of this part of the Senator's argument? A shred.

The Senator from Wisconsin used these words: &ldquo;What is set up as a precedent here may come to plague us hereafter.&rdquo; Exactly sir; what we set up as a precedent here may come to plague us hereafter. Let me say, if the case remains as it now stands, with the information that already is before the world, the precedent, for all practical purposes, is set up, and the precedent in that form will come to plague us. Is it, then, not our duty to break the point of that precedent by showing that if any wrong was committed, the people of the United States, as represented in their sovereign capacity by Congress, emphatically disapprove of it; that if any wrong was committed, the people are ready to resent it against their own servants? That is the way to destroy the pernicious effect of that precedent, and that is the duty of a true patriot. The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, &ldquo;My country, right or wrong.&rdquo; In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right. [Manifestations of applause in the galleries.]