MAJOR GENERAL CARL SCHURZ - FREE FRANK SIGNED - HFSID 190637

CARL SCHURZ
This signed envelope was mailed to Republican activist Frank W. Ballard in New York City
Free Frank signed: "C. Schurz", 5½x3½. Boston postmark, date illegible. His envelope with free US Senate postage to "Frank W. Ballard Esq/2½ Wall Street/New York". Carl Schurz (1829-1906) was a German-born United States politician, military veteran, and publisher. Educated in modern-day Germany, he moved to the United States in 1852 after the 1848 revolution in Germany failed. At the time, Germany was still a loose confederation of dozens of small states, and the revolution sought to establish a single state. While the revolution failed, Germany as a nation coalesced just a few decades later in 1871. Schurz settled in Wisconsin in 1855 and became active in the anti-slavery movement, joining the Republican Party. In 1861, Lincoln appointed him the United States Ambassador to Spain. This foreign relations position was especially important: Schurz was sent to Spain to dissuade them from supporting the South. Upon his return, he was commissioned brigadier general of the Union volunteers and saw action at Second Bull Run, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. In 1865, President Andrew Johnson sent him to report on conditions in the South, a report that was largely ignored. On March 4, 1869, Schurz became the first German-born American to be elected to the U.S. Senate, where he represented Missouri until 1875. He decided not to run for reelection. Two years later, he was nominated to be Secretary of the Interior under President Hayes from 1877-1881. Schurz was a champion for Indian rights, fighting to keep the Office of Indian Affairs in the Department of Interior and not the War Department. He moved to New York in 1881 and became editor of the New York Evening Post. A widely published author, he was famous for saying "My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." Frank W. Ballard had been Corresponding Secretary of the Young Men's Republican Club of New York, active in the election and re-election of Abraham Lincoln. In this capacity he organized the famous Cooper's Union speech by Lincoln (February 1860), Lincoln's famous "house divided" speech which first earned the first serious attention to his presidential aspirations in the Eastern states. Like Schurz, Ballard was a reformer, delivering a speech on "The Stewardship of Wealth" to New York City's YMCA in January 1865. Toned and creased. Corners worn and creased. Minor ink smears (legible). Otherwise, fine condition.