" And he discouraged office-holders, civil or
military, who showed any special zeal in his behalf. To General Schurz,
who wrote asking permission to take an active part in the presidential
campaign, he replied:
"Allow me to suggest that if you wish to remain in the military service,
it is very dangerous for you to get temporarily out of it; because,
with a major-general once out, it is next to impossible for even the
President to get him in again.... Of course I would be very glad to have
your service for the country in the approaching political canvass; but I
fear we cannot properly have it without separating you from the
military." And in a later letter he added: "I perceive no objection to
your making a political speech when you are where one is to be made; but
quite surely, speaking in the North and fighting in the South at the
same time are not possible; nor could I be justified to detail any
officer to the political campaign during its continuance and then return
him to the army."
Not only did he firmly take this stand as to his own nomination, but
enforced it even more rigidly in cases where he learned that Federal
office-holders were working to defeat the return of certain Republican
congressmen. In several such instances he wrote instructions of which
the following is a type:
"Complaint is made to me that you are using your official power to
defeat Judge Kelley's renomination to Congress.
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