"My country right or wrong; when right, to keep her right; when wrong, to put her right"
About this Quote
Patriotism gets a surgical rewrite here: not a love letter to the flag, but a conditional contract with it. Schurz takes the popular toast "My country, right or wrong" and snaps on a second clause that changes everything. The first half admits the tribal reflex; the second half disciplines it. "When right, to keep her right" frames citizenship as maintenance work, not applause. "When wrong, to put her right" turns dissent from a betrayal into a duty.
The line works because it hijacks the cadence of blind loyalty and uses it to smuggle in moral accountability. Schurz isn't arguing against national attachment; he's arguing against the lazy version of it that confuses criticism with treason. The pronoun "her" softens the nation into something intimate, almost familial, which makes the corrective impulse feel like care rather than hostility. It's a rhetorical judo move: he grants the emotional premise of nationalism and then redirects its force toward reform.
Context matters. Schurz was a German revolutionary turned American senator and Civil War-era public figure, shaped by failed uprisings in Europe and the high-stakes test of American democracy. He knew what happens when states demand loyalty without limits, and he watched the U.S. wrestle with slavery, war, Reconstruction, and corruption. The intent is clear: to carve out a civic identity where the highest form of allegiance is not obedience, but stewardship. In a culture that often treats unity as silence, Schurz insists that keeping a country "right" sometimes requires making noise.
The line works because it hijacks the cadence of blind loyalty and uses it to smuggle in moral accountability. Schurz isn't arguing against national attachment; he's arguing against the lazy version of it that confuses criticism with treason. The pronoun "her" softens the nation into something intimate, almost familial, which makes the corrective impulse feel like care rather than hostility. It's a rhetorical judo move: he grants the emotional premise of nationalism and then redirects its force toward reform.
Context matters. Schurz was a German revolutionary turned American senator and Civil War-era public figure, shaped by failed uprisings in Europe and the high-stakes test of American democracy. He knew what happens when states demand loyalty without limits, and he watched the U.S. wrestle with slavery, war, Reconstruction, and corruption. The intent is clear: to carve out a civic identity where the highest form of allegiance is not obedience, but stewardship. In a culture that often treats unity as silence, Schurz insists that keeping a country "right" sometimes requires making noise.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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