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| On a visit to the National Portrait Gallery, in Washington DC |
Carl Schurz was quite the figure across countries in 19th century politics. He championed democracy as a German native, and fought in their revolutionary war against the Prussian Army. An escape to Switzerland, a rescue mission in Germany, and a residence in France followed. Emigration and marriage in the UK were in his offing, before the long journey across the pond to the US.
In 1855, Schurz settled in Watertown, Wisconsin, where he immediately became immersed in the anti-slavery movement and in politics, joining the Republican Party. In 1857, he was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for lieutenant-governor. In the Illinois campaign of the next year between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, he took part as a speaker on behalf of Lincoln—mostly in German—which raised Lincoln's popularity among German-American voters (though it should be remembered that Senators were not directly elected in 1858, the election being decided by the Illinois General Assembly). Later, in 1858, he was admitted to the Wisconsin bar and began to practice law in Milwaukee. In the state campaign of 1859, he made a speech attacking the Fugitive Slave Law, arguing for states' rights. In Faneuil Hall, Boston, on April 18, 1859, he delivered an oration on "True Americanism," which, coming from an alien, was intended to clear the Republican party of the charge of "nativism". Wisconsin Germans unsuccessfully urged his nomination for governor in 1859. In the 1860 Republican National Convention, Schurz was spokesman of the delegation from Wisconsin, which voted for William H. Seward; despite this, Schurz was on the committee which brought Lincoln the news of his nomination.
I'm from Chicago, Illinois, and we live just 10 miles south of the Illinois-Wisconsin border. Schurz never crossed my studies in high school, not that I can remember, but I'm glad to have known about him now. He was a German revolutionary, an American statesman, and a US Minister to Spain. Well-traveled, indeed.
Apparently Schurz never lost sight of the stars.
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