Carl Schurz

Carl Schurz (March 2, 1829 – May 14, 1906) was a German revolutionist, American statesman and reformer, and Union Army general in the American Civil War. His wife Margaretta Schurz was instrumental in establishing the kindergarten system in the U.S.

Politics in the United States

In 1856, after a year in Europe, he settled in Watertown, Wisconsin, and immediately became prominent in the Republican Party of Wisconsin. 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 — mostly in German — which helped Lincoln to win the presidency. 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 and arguing for state's rights, and thus injured his political standing in Wisconsin; and in April he delivered, in Faneuil Hall, Boston, an oration on "True Americanism"— which, coming from an alien, was intended to clear the Republican party of the charge of "nativism". The Germans of Wisconsin unsuccessfully urged his nomination for governor by the Republican party in 1859. In the Republican National Convention of 1861 Schurz was spokesman of the delegation from Wisconsin, which voted for William H. Seward; he was on the committee which announced his nomination to Abraham Lincoln.

Related Topics:
1856 - Watertown, Wisconsin - Republican Party - Wisconsin - 1857 - Illinois - Abraham Lincoln - Stephen A. Douglas - German - 1858 - Bar - Practice law - Milwaukee - 1859 - Fugitive Slave Law - Faneuil Hall - Boston - "True Americanism" - 1861 - William H. Seward

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