"I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves … too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: 'Our country, right or wrong!' They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions, and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: 'Our country—when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.'"
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About Carl Schurz
Carl Schurz was a German revolutionary, American statesman, and reformer. He was born in 1829 in Liblar, Prussia, and took part in the German Revolutions of 1848. Fleeing to the US, he became a prominent figure in the anti-slavery movement and the Republican Party. Schurz served as a Union army general during the Civil War, later becoming a US Senator and Secretary of the Interior. He advocated for civil service reform, Indian rights, and was a vocal critic of corruption in government.
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