Chapter VI · IN THE ASCENDANT.

In the New World man climbs the rugged steep

And takes the forefront by the force of will

And daring purpose in him.

On the 5th of December, 1863, General Garfield took his seat in the Thirty-Eighth Congress. The reader who has gone over the preceding chapter will know in part what brought him there, and will be prepared to judge what was expected of him. But in order clearly to understand what actually was to be looked for from this Congressional neophyte, it will be of advantage to consider who sent Garfield to the House. Congressmen generally represent their districts; and a people may not unfairly be judged by their average representation in Congress.

What kind of a constituency, then, was that which, for nine times the space that measures the term of a Congressman, and an equal number of times the space that measures the political life of many a Congressman, kept James A. Garfield in that place without a moment’s intermission? We would probably make no mistake if we should describe them from our knowledge of him. But let us take the mathematician’s method and verify our conclusion by a reverse process.

Twelve counties in the north-eastern corner of the State of Ohio are popularly grouped together and called the Western Reserve. They are the very Canaan of that great commonwealth; or, at least, come so near it that they can be described as a land flowing with wine and milk,—for grape culture is one of their important industries, and their dairies are famous. Of the nearly twenty-five million pounds of cheese annually produced in Ohio, ninety-five per cent. is made in the Western Reserve.

The Greeks had a story that their god Jupiter, when an infant, 168was tumbled down from the heavens to a secluded place on earth, where he was carefully watched while he grew. It shall be our easy task to show that the Western Reserve is a good place for a public man to grow in and make preparation to rule in a higher sphere.

The Reserve is a place of great natural resources, and, under almost any conditions, would have a well-to-do population. But it is not advantages of this kind which make it an unusually good place for the growth of a great man. If we should presume to say so, all the facts of history would rise to protest its falsity. The arts and literature and eloquence and political glory of Athens and her sister states clung close to barren hillsides. Switzerland rose to be the first free state of Europe among the wild fastnesses of her unfertile mountains. The American Revolution was fought out and the Union established by the finest generation of statesmen and warriors ever produced on the continent, before the extent or the wealth of our broad, level empire was dreamed of. New England and Virginia were not rich; but they were great, and they were free, and so were their statesmen in those days.

The Western Reserve was largely settled by people of New England. And, since it is not the character of the soil, but the composition of the people, which chiefly influences the man who grows there, it will be profitable to see of what sort these settlers and their descendants were.

One of the first things the first settlers of the Western Reserve did was to build a church. They brought the plan of their altars with them. Religion was the corner-stone of their new civilization. Religion was the solid rock on which they built a high morality and an earnest intelligence. Somehow or other they rested calmly on a God who made the forest his temple, and walked through it with them to the very end of the earth. They have their religion with them to this day, and it seems to round out their lives to a fuller completeness, and gives them solidity of character, and with its divinely sanctioned maxims creates such a standard of morality as a good man would aspire to to make his rule of life. This kind of community is a good place in which 169to grow a public man, if you want him to hold fast to principle unchangeably at all times.

The very next thing after a church, when this district was settled, came the common school. The race of which the settlers came was brainy. Their families always had more than a thimbleful of sense apiece. Hence the demand for education, and, therefore, a school-house and a school-teacher. These schools have grown and multiplied. The Reserve has not only common-schools, but colleges, which are already first-class, and are destined to become famous seats of learning. The nation itself has come to recognize in the people of the Reserve a higher average of intelligence than exists anywhere in the Union, except in a very few sections. Here is a very good place to seek for a public man who shall have the kind of intellect to grapple with great questions of statesmanship, and master them.

The Reserve was first peopled by a set of men who were not only religious, moral, and intelligent; but who possessed in themselves two requisites of a great people—courage and strength. Their own ancestors had braved untold dangers in coming to the American shores, and had endured hardships and privations innumerable to gain a footing on the rocky coast. Upborne by the tradition of these experiences, the pilgrimage and the work of founding a new State had been gone over by them again. They were a race who sailed unknown seas, climbed unexplored mountains to get into a new country, and cut down a primeval forest. Their descendants would be neither pigmies nor poltroons. This would certainly be a fine place for the production of a statesman who would have the courage to stand by his convictions and the power to successfully push his measures through.

The political institutions and political habits of this people deserve consideration. They brought their ideas of how to construct and conduct a State from New England, where the town is a political unit, and the town-meeting a great event. So, from the very earliest time, the Reserve has been a region where every body was personally interested in public affairs. They put a man in office because they thought, on actual investigation, that he was 170equal to its duties. And, more than that, they held their appointees to strict account. The unfortunate man who proved incapable or dishonest never got their support again, and never heard the last of their censures. These causes have made their political history good reading. Its chapters are pure and strong and healthy.

The Nineteenth Congressional District of Ohio, at the time of Garfield’s election, included six counties—Portage, Ashtabula, Lake, Geauga, Trumbull, and Mahoning. They are the eastern half of the Western Reserve. Before Garfield’s first election this district had been represented for many years by Joshua R. Giddings, one of the ablest antislavery leaders of the period just before the war.

In 1858, Giddings was displaced. Overconfidence in his hold on the people had made him a little reckless, and an ambitious politician took advantage of the opportunity. A flaw, very slight indeed, was searched out in Giddings’s record. It was proved that his mileage fees were in excess of what the shortest route to Washington required. He had made the people pay his expenses to New York. The convention having been skillfully worked up on this peccadillo of its old favorite, a Mr. Hutchins was sent to Congress in his stead.

A little time only was required to display the difference between Mr. Hutchins and his predecessor. Mr. Giddings was requested at the next election to return. But that old patriot had been rewarded by the Government with a consulate at Montreal, and preferred to remain there; which he did until his death in 1864. In this situation the people of the Nineteenth District began to search for a man who could represent them according to their desire. They felt that it was due to themselves and to the Nation that they send to Congress a leader; some man with ability and force sufficient to deal with the great questions of the day, and solve the problems of the war.

At such a time as this, all eyes turned to the brilliant young General, James A. Garfield. His legislative abilities had been tested in the Ohio legislature just before the war, and his record there was an assurance of his fitness. He was a scholarly man; a 171forcible speaker; and one whose experience in the field was not only honorable to himself, but gave him a knowledge of military affairs which would be exceedingly useful in the condition of national affairs at that time. The election occurred in 1862, more than a year before the man elected could take his place. The war, they supposed, would be over by that time, so that Garfield’s service in the field would not be left incomplete. He was himself a perfect illustration of his own saying, “Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing.” And thus it happened that, without the least expression of such a desire, General Garfield was sent to Congress by the general and hearty wishes of his constituents.

Now into what kind of an arena was it that these people sent their champion to stand for them? What was its composition, and what had been its character in past times? In answering these questions, we are helped by an article written by Garfield for the Atlantic Monthly of July, 1877, wherein he says:

“The limits of this article will not allow me to notice the changes in manners and methods in Congress since the administration of the elder Adams. Such a review would bring before us many striking characters and many stirring scenes.

“In the long line of those who have occupied seats in Congress, we should see, here and there, rising above the undistinguished mass, the figures of those great men whose lives and labors have made their country illustrious, and whose influence upon its destiny will be felt for ages to come. We should see that group of great statesmen whom the last war with England brought to public notice, among whom were Ames and Randolph, Clay and Webster, Calhoun and Benton, Wright and Prentiss, making their era famous by their statesmanship, and creating and destroying political parties by their fierce antagonisms. We should see the folly and barbarism of the so-called code of honor, destroying noblemen in the fatal meadow of Bladensburgh. We should see the spirit of liberty awaking the conscience of the nation to the sin and danger of slavery, whose advocates had inherited and kept alive the old anarchic spirit of disunion. We should trace the progress of that great struggle from the days when John Quincy Adams stood in the House of Representatives, like a lion at bay, defending the sacred right of petition; when, after his death, Joshua R. Giddings continued the good fight, standing 172at this post for twenty years, his white locks, like the plume of Henry of Navarre, always showing where the battle for freedom raged most fiercely; when his small band in Congress, reinforced by Hale and Sumner, Wade and Chase, Lovejoy and Stevens, continued the struggle amid the most turbulent scenes; when daggers were brandished and pistols were drawn in the halls of Congress; and, later, when, one by one, the senators and representatives of eleven States, breathing defiance and uttering maledictions upon the Union, resigned their seats and left the Capitol to take up arms against their country. We should see the Congress of a people long unused to war, when confronted by a supreme danger, raising, equipping, and supporting an army greater than all the armies of Napoleon and Wellington combined: meeting the most difficult questions of international and constitutional law; and, by new forms of taxation, raising a revenue which, in one year of the war, amounted to more than all the national taxes collected during the first half century of the Government.”

All this we should see, and more. And it was to help complete the gigantic tasks of Congress during this momentous time that Garfield was sent there. The House of Representatives contained many able men, but most of these belonged to a closing period. They had grown up in opposition, not in administration. A new group of men was now about to take the lead, and reconstruct the Union on a foundation whose corner-stone should be Union and Liberty, instead of Slavery and State Rights. The old generation of leaders were still there with their wisdom and valuable experience; but the spirit of a new era now came in, which should outlive Thaddeus Stevens and his compeers. About this time there came into Congress, Blaine and Boutwell and Conkling and—Garfield, destined to do more than any of them in restoring prosperity, peace, public justice, and, above all, a harmonious Union, which this age shall not again see broken.

The usefulness of a legislator has in all times been popularly ascribed to his work in the open assembly. But this was never wholly true, and in no existing legislature in the world is it even half true at this day. Public business of this sort is so vast and so complicated that no assembly can give it all a fair consideration. To remedy this trouble we have the committee system, 173whereby special study by a few informs the many who rely upon their reports and merely pass upon their recommendations.

A member of Congress can not be judged by the figure he presents on the floor of the House. He may say nothing there, and yet be author of important measures the mere public advocacy of which is making some other man a national reputation. James A. Garfield was, from the first of his Congressional career, a leader in debate; but the story would be only half told if mention were omitted of the wonderful industry displayed by him on the various great committees where his abilities gave him place.

When the Thirty-Eighth Congress opened, the war was not yet ended—a fact which many an utterer of unfulfilled prophecy and many a broken heart deplored. The most important committee of all was still the Military Committee. It was composed as follows: Robert C. Schenck, of Ohio; John F. Farnsworth, of Illinois; George H. Yeaman, of Kentucky; James A. Garfield, of Ohio; Benjamin Loan, of Missouri; Moses F. Odell, of New York; Henry C. Deming, of Connecticut; F. W. Kellogg, of Michigan; Archibald McAllister, of Pennsylvania.

Although Garfield’s name comes fourth here, he really was intended as second by the Chairman. Mr. Schenck had requested Speaker Colfax to put him on, under a belief that he would be an invaluable help to himself. We have been several times required to notice a happy faculty which Garfield had of inspiring the faith in himself of those with whom he came in contact, by some striking act which showed them that he was not an ordinary man. This was not intentional, but simply the spontaneous shining forth of light which was in the man. Almost the first session of the Committee on Military Affairs brought out just such an incident:

It had then been only a short time since the science of anæsthetics had grown into some importance by the use of chloroform and ether. In the hospitals of the army it was very common. As is usual with inventions and discoveries, there was a struggle going on for the profit and honor of the discovery. Dr. Morton, a dentist, and others, were petitioning Congress, each as the discoverer 174of chloroform, for some kind of appropriation or arrangement by which they might be rewarded for the services they had done for our soldiers in thus alleviating their sufferings. The petitions were referred to this committee. The members all, except Garfield, declined to investigate it, on the ground that they knew nothing about such an obscure topic. Garfield only observed that he thought the claim remarkable. Not knowing what else to do, the Chairman referred it to him, expecting not to hear of it again.

At the next meeting he had a scientific and thoroughly written report ready, exhausting the whole subject. On request, the matter was explained. Garfield had a way of supplementing his regular line of studies by having always some unusual and out-of-the-way topic on hand to amuse his leisure hours. Not long before this he had accidentally come across a book on anæsthesia, and his investigations had made him ready for the unforeseen report in committee. All knowledge is useful. After this the committee was not afraid of strange topics. They were given over to the man who knew anæsthesia, and then they considered the subject settled. As one man said,—“Good Lord! what would he not know?”

General Garfield’s time was now devoted to public business. Every subject likely to come before his committee was investigated through all the avenues of information. He set himself a wide course of reading on finance, on constitutional law, and a great group of kindred subjects. These were studied in the Garfield way, which was to read all the literature he could find on a topic, or that could in any way affect the discussion thereof. It was this prodigious labor, matching his capacity for keeping the run of what would have overwhelmed most men with confusion, that made him at the same time a remarkably ready and a wonderfully reliable man, either in committee or as a speaker on the floor of the House.

General Garfield had not been in Congress two weeks before his occasional brief statements began to attract attention. Of course it was not till after a considerable period that he became a recognized leader; but his force began to be felt very soon, and 175grew every day until, by steady development of his abilities and his influence, he finally reached the summit of power, as leader of his party in the Lower House of Congress.

We have seen that he was not a politician in the popular meaning of the word. He had been sent to Congress rather against than with his inclinations, and was above posturing and plotting for reëlection. Even after he had reluctantly given up his commission as Major-General in the army, he was ready to return on call. In fact, he did once almost determine on going back. General Thomas, having succeeded Rosecrans in his command, wrote a private letter asking Garfield to accept the command of a corps in his army. The offer was tempting, and duty seemed to point the way. Mr. Lincoln, however, was having trouble to get his measures through Congress, and needed support. On his statement that Garfield would confer a personal favor by remaining where he was, the change was not made.

This was not the kind of man to stultify himself for the sake of public favor; and therefore it is not surprising to find his first speech on record opposed to the whole House. It was on the “Bounty Question.” At this time in the war, volunteering had become so rare a thing that new measures had to be devised to keep up the ever-dwindling ranks of the army. Two methods were advocated. One was to draft men forcibly, and put them into the service; the other was to induce men to volunteer by payment of a bonus for enlistment. Out of these two principles a hybrid policy had been formed, resulting in the Conscription Act, of March 3, 1863. This act provided for a draft, but allowed a commutation in money, which was fixed at three hundred dollars. In addition, thirteen exceptions were allowed by which the draft could be escaped. To compensate for these losses, three hundred dollars bounty money was given to every raw recruit, and four hundred dollars to every reënlisted veteran. The result of all which was a rapidly decreasing army. The Government urged stronger measures; and it was before these measures had been perfected that an incident occurred in which General Garfield first indicated his opinions on the subject.

176According to a law passed, the bounties above mentioned could be paid only up to January 5, 1864. On January 6th, the Military Committee reported a joint resolution to continue this limit over till March 1st. Mr. Garfield did not approve of the resolution, although every man in the House seemed against him. His reasons are given in the Congressional Globe, wherein the following is reported:

Mr. Garfield.—“Mr. Speaker, I regret that I was not able to meet with the Military Committee when this resolution was under consideration. I did not reach the city until a few hours before the House met this morning; but if I understand the matter correctly from the public journals, the request of the President and the War Department was to continue the payment of bounties until the 1st of February next; but the resolution before the House proposes to extend the payment until the 1st of March. And while the President asks us to continue the payment of bounties to veteran volunteers only, the resolution extends it to all volunteers, whether veterans or raw recruits. If the resolution prevails, it seems to me we shall swamp the finances of the Government before the 1st of March arrives. I can not consent to a measure which authorizes the expenditure of so vast a sum as will be expended under this resolution, unless it be shown absolutely indispensable to the work of filling up the army. I am anxious that veterans should volunteer, and that liberal bounties should be paid to them. But if we extend the payment to all classes of volunteers for two months to come, I fear we shall swamp the Government.

“Before I vote for this resolution, I desire to know whether the Government is determined to abandon the draft. If it be its policy to raise an army solely by volunteering and paying bounties, we have one line of policy to pursue. If the conscription law is to be any thing but a dead letter on the statute book, our line of policy is a very different one. I ask the gentleman from Illinois to inform me what course is to be adopted. I am sorry to see in this resolution the indication of a timid and vacillating course. It is unworthy the dignity of our Government and our army to use the conscription act as a scarecrow, and the bounty system as a bait, to alternately scare and coax men into the army.

“Let us give liberal bounties to veteran soldiers who may reënlist, and for raw recruits use the draft.”

177After some further discussion the vote was taken, resulting in yeas 112, nays 2. Mr. Grinnell, of Iowa, made the second negative, changing his vote after Garfield had voted.

Soon afterwards a letter came to General Garfield, signed by twenty of his constituents, censuring his action, and demanding his resignation. They were only answered that he held their letter, and that within a year they would all agree with what he had done. Before the year closed, there was a cross opposite each man’s name, denoting the fulfillment of the General’s prophecy.

This action also attracted the admiring attention of Salmon P. Chase, who soon afterward congratulated him, but at the same time coupled his praises with a good piece of advice. Mr. Chase liked to see a man exhibit great firmness, but warned his young friend that such antagonism to his party would better be indulged sparingly. It would seem that the advice was unnecessary to Garfield, however, as he was not a factious man. He simply had the courage of his convictions. On this point we find that Garfield never fails to meet our expectations, no matter what the opposition:

“But, like a rock unmoved, a rock that braves

The raging tempest and the rising waves,

Propp’d on himself, he stands.”

Legislation on the enrollment of soldiers was yet to come, which should be more severe than any we had known. The system of bounties proved a failure. We had attempted coercion on the States, and the only way to succeed was by further coercion of our own citizens. It was a hard thing to come to, and the people were unwilling. Congressmen were afraid of the coming fall election of 1864. Finally, early in June, Mr. Lincoln sought an interview with the Military Committee. He told them that the army had in it only three-quarters of a million men; three hundred and eighty thousand were within a few months of the end of their term of service. These places must be filled, and a law framed for the purpose at once. The committee expressed its opinion of the political danger: “Mr. Lincoln, such a law will defeat you for President.” Then a light shone out from that great homely countenance, the 178tall form was drawn grandly to its full height, as the answer was given. Mr. Lincoln said that his business was to put down the Rebellion, no matter what the danger. Grant and Sherman were on the verge of victory; their strength must be kept up, and the struggle ended quickly.

Accordingly, a bill was prepared after the President’s own plan. Many of the draft exemptions of the existing law were taken away by it; commutation-money was no longer to be received, and every possible facility was to be afforded for compelling men to enlist. But peace Democrats, united with cowardly Congressmen of the Republican party, together voted out the most effective clauses of the new bill.

This would never do. The friends of the bill reconstructed it, and determined to put it through. On the 21st of June, the effort was made. General Garfield was, perhaps, more intensely wrought up on the subject, than any man except Lincoln; and he made a great speech, a speech replete with learning, logic, and eloquence. This bill was the result of conditions in national affairs which he had long foreseen; he had prophesied, at the time of his vote against extending bounties, that the end of such extension would be ruin to the Union cause. That ruin was now impending, and all his energies were bent toward averting the evil. Hear this closing appeal:

“I ask gentlemen who oppose this repeal, why they desire to make it easy for citizens to escape from military duty? Is it a great hardship to serve one’s country? Is it a disgraceful service? Will you, by your action here, say to the soldiers in the field, ‘This is a disreputable business; you have been deceived; you have been caught in a trap, and we will make no law to put any body else in it’? Do you thus treat your soldiers in the field? They are proud of their voluntary service, and if there be one wish of the army paramount to all others, one message more earnest than all the others which they send back to you, it is that you will aid in filling up their battle-thinned ranks by a draft which will compel lukewarm citizens who prate against the war to go into the field. They ask that you will not expend large bounties in paying men of third-rate patriotism, while they went with no other bounty than their 179love of country, to which they gave their young lives a free offering, but that you will compel these eleventh-hour men to take their chances in the field beside them. Let us grant their request, and, by a steady and persistent effort, we shall, in the end, be it near or remote, be it in one year or ten, crown the nation with victory and enduring peace.”

In the sequel, this bill passed; a grand reinforcement of five hundred thousand men soon secured the supremacy of the Union, and Father Abraham was thus enabled to finish his immortal work.

Early in the first session of the Thirty-Eighth Congress, the subject of confiscation was pretty thoroughly discussed. House Resolution No. 18 was offered, so amending a resolution of the preceding Congress that no punishment or proceeding under it should be so construed as to make a forfeiture of the estate of the offender, except during his life. Out of this little motion there grew a great crop of controversy, and among others, General Garfield took part. His main speech, the first lengthy address he ever made in Congress, was delivered on January 28, 1864. Mr. Finck, of Ohio, had just sat down at the close of a long set speech, when Garfield arose and began in these words:

“Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to ask the attention of the House or to occupy its time on this question of confiscation at all, but some things have been said, touching its military aspects, which make it proper for me to trespass upon the patience of the House. Feeling that, in some small degree, I represent on this floor the Army of the Republic, I am the more emboldened to speak to this subject before us.

“I have been surprised that in so lengthy and able a discussion, so little reference has been made to the merits of the resolution itself. In the wide range of discussion, the various theories of the legal and political status of the rebellious States have been examined. It is, perhaps, necessary that we take ground upon that question, as preliminary to the discussion of the resolution itself. Two theories, widely differing from each other, have been proposed; but I can not consider either of them as wholly correct. I can not agree with the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens,) who acknowledges that these States are out of the Union, and now constitute a foreign people; nor can I, on the 180other hand, agree with those who believe that the insurgent States are not only in the Union, but have lost none of their rights under the Constitution and laws of the Union.

“When the Government of the United States declared that we were in a state of war, the rebel States came under the laws of war. By their acts of rebellion and war, they had swept away every vestige of their civil and political rights under the Constitution of the United States. Their obligations still remained; but the reciprocal rights, which usually accompany obligations, they had forfeited.

“The question then lies open before us: In a state of war, under the laws of war, is this resolution legal and politic? I insist, Mr. Speaker, that the question involved in the resolution before this House, is whether this Government, in its exercise of its rights of a belligerent under the laws of war, can not punish these rebels and confiscate their estates, both personal and real, for life and forever. That is the only question before us.

“I conclude by returning once more to the resolution before us. Let no weak sentiments of misplaced sympathy deter us from inaugurating a measure, which will cleanse our nation and make it the fit home of freedom and glorious manhood. Let us not despise the severe wisdom of our revolutionary fathers when they served their generation in a similar way. Let the Republic drive from its soil the traitors that have conspired against its life, as God and His angels drove Satan and his host from heaven. He was not too merciful to be just, and to hurl down in chains and everlasting darkness the ‘traitor angel’ who rebelled against Him.”

In these clear words we may find already a development of that independent, yet always moderate way of regarding things which no reader of Garfield’s great speeches of later date can fail to notice. While other men wasted time in reasoning on the words of the Constitution, and their effect on the status of the Southern States, this incisive intellect cut right through all extremes, and from a plain view of the facts, he said that the South was not out of the Union; and although it was in the Union, it did not have “the reciprocal rights which usually accompany obligations.” And this was statesmanship.

181In March, 1864, the Committee on Military Affairs reported a bill “to declare certain roads military roads, and post roads, and to regulate commerce.” Its principal object, as far as the Government was concerned, was to enlarge its facilities of communication between Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. The only existing postal route between the commercial Capital and the political Capital, was by the Camden and Amboy Railroad. This bill was presented on petition of the Raritan and Delaware Bay Railroad Company, asking that it be given similar rights to those held by the Camden and Amboy; which latter road of course used all its influence to defeat the measure. Both the power and the duty of Congress to pass the bill were violently assailed and denied.

Mr. Garfield favored its passage, and made a speech on the subject which ran through parts of two days, March 24 and 31. This address was very powerful, and was called by some members “the speech of the session.”

The main question, as raised by the friends of that road themselves, was whether Congress could rightfully interfere with a State railroad monopoly which did not confine its operations within the limits of that State. The Governor of New Jersey had issued a proclamation referring to this matter, and speaking of his State as “sovereign.” These were but the first mutterings of a great storm which was to follow. Their significance was recognized.

It was to these points that Mr. Garfield addressed himself. The Camden and Amboy Company he named as a sweeping and complete monopoly, made so by the State of New Jersey. The State’s right to create corporations was undoubted. But it could have no sovereignty sufficient to destroy the power of the United States, and especially so outside of the State limits. Equal rights with this monopoly should be given to the Raritan and Delaware Bay Company at any time on petition, and certainly now when the facilities for transportation were not equal to the needs of the Government.

182Surely the Government, at such a time as this, had paramount authority to provide for its own necessities.

On the 8th of April, 1864, the House of Representatives resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole upon the State of the Union, whereupon Mr. Alexander Long, of Cincinnati, Ohio, took the floor, and, in a speech of much bitterness, arraigned the administration, not for its conduct of the war, but for carrying on the war at all. “An unconstitutional war can only be carried on in an unconstitutional manner,” said Mr. Long. His demand now was for peace. This was the first sound of Democratic preparation for the Presidential election, the key-note of their campaign.

Mr. Long said:

“Mr. Chairman, I speak to-day for the preservation of the Government. In the independence of a representative of the people I intend to proclaim the deliberate convictions of my judgment in this fearful hour of the country’s peril.

“The brief period of three short years has produced a fearful change in this free, happy, and prosperous government,—so pure in its restrainments upon personal liberty, and so gentle in its demands upon the resources of the people, that the celebrated Humboldt, after traveling through the country, on his return to Europe said, ‘The American people have a government which you neither see nor feel.’ So different is it now, and so great the change, that the inquiry might well be made to-day, ‘Are we not in Constantinople, in St. Petersburg, in Vienna, in Rome, or in Paris?’ Military governors and their provost marshals override the laws, and the echo of the armed heel rings forth as clearly now in America as in France or Austria; and the President sits to-day guarded by armed soldiers at every approach leading to the Executive Mansion. So far from crushing the rebellion, three years have passed away, and from the day on which the conflict began, up to the present hour, the Confederate army has not been forced beyond the sound of their guns from the dome of the Capitol in which we are assembled.”

The remainder of the speech continued in the same spirit. The war could not be put down. Moreover, it was wrong and ought not to be put down:

“Can the Union he restored by war? I answer most unhesitatingly 183and deliberately: No, never. War is final and eternal separation. My first and highest ground against its further prosecution is, that it is wrong. It is a violation of the Constitution and of the fundamental principles on which this Union was founded. My second objection is, that as a policy, it is not reconstructive, but destructive, and will, if continued, result speedily in the destruction of the Government and the loss of civil liberty, to both the North and the South, and it ought therefore to immediately cease....”

These were the sentiments of a Democratic politician in Congress; they would be scattered broadcast over the whole land. Some of the arguments were specious; they would be echoed from a thousand platforms during the summer. It was incumbent on the opposition to furnish a speedy and strong reply. When Mr. Long took his seat, Mr. Garfield arose and said:

“Mr. Chairman: I should be obliged to you if you would direct the sergeant-at-arms to bring a white flag and plant it in the aisle between myself and my colleague who has just addressed you.

“I recollect on one occasion when two great armies stood face to face, that under a white flag just planted, I approached a company of men dressed in the uniform of the rebel Confederacy, and reached out my hand to one of the number, and told him I respected him as a brave man. Though he wore the emblems of disloyalty and treason, still, underneath his vestments I beheld a brave and honest soul.

“I would produce that scene here this afternoon. I say, were there such a flag of truce—but God forbid me if I should do it under any other circumstances—I would reach out this right hand and ask that gentleman to take it; because I honor his bravery and his honesty. I believe what has just fallen from his lips are the honest sentiments of his heart, and in uttering it he has made a new epoch in the history of this war; he has done a new thing under the sun; he has done a brave thing. It is braver than to face cannon and musketry, and I honor him for his candor and frankness.

“But now, I ask you to take away the flag of truce; and I will go back inside the Union lines and speak of what he has done. I am reminded by it of a distinguished character in Paradise Lost. When he had rebelled against the glory of God, and ‘led away a third part of 184heaven’s sons, conjured against the Highest;’ when, after terrible battles in which mountains and hills were hurled down ‘nine times the space that measures day and night,’ and after the terrible fall lay stretched prone on the burning lake,—Satan lifted up his shattered bulk, crossed the abyss, looked down into Paradise, and, soliloquizing, said:

‘Which way I fly is hell, myself am hell;’

it seems to me in that utterance he expressed the very sentiments to which you have just listened; uttered by one not less brave, malign, and fallen. This man gathers up the meaning of this great contest, the philosophy of the moment, the prophecies of the hour, and, in sight of the paradise of victory and peace, utters them all in this wail of terrible despair, ‘Which way I fly is hell.’ He ought to add, ‘Myself am hell.’

“For the first time in the history of this contest, it is proposed in this hall to give up the struggle, to abandon the war, and let treason run riot through the land! I will, if I can, dismiss feeling from my heart and try to consider only what bears upon the logic of the speech to which we have just listened.

“First of all, the gentleman tells us that the right of secession is a constitutional right. I do not propose to enter into the argument. I have hitherto expressed myself on State sovereignty and State rights, of which this proposition of his is the legitimate child.

“But the gentleman takes higher ground—and in that I agree with him, namely, that five million or eight million people possess the right of revolution. Grant it; we agree there. If fifty-nine men can make a revolution successful, they have the right of revolution. If one State wishes to break its connection with the Federal Government, and does it by force, maintaining itself, it is an independent State. If the eleven Southern States are resolved and determined to leave the Union, to secede, to revolutionize, and can maintain that revolution by force, they have revolutionary right to do so. I stand on that platform with the gentleman.

“And now the question comes, is it our constitutional duty to let them do it? That is the question. And, in order to reach it, I beg to call your attention, not to argument, but to the condition of affairs that would result from such action—the mere statement of which becomes the strongest possible argument. What does this gentleman propose? Where will he draw the line of division? If the rebels carry into secession 185what they desire to carry; if their revolution envelops as many States as they intend it shall envelop; if they draw the line where Isham G. Harris, the rebel governor of Tennessee, in the rebel camp near our lines, told Mr. Vallandigham they would draw it,—along the line of the Ohio and Potomac,—if they make good their statement to him, that they will never consent to any other line, then I ask, what is the thing the gentleman proposes to do?

“He proposes to leave to the United States a territory reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and one hundred miles wide in the center! From Wellsville on the Ohio to Cleveland on the lakes, is one hundred miles. I ask you, Mr. Chairman, if there be a man here so insane as to suppose that the American people will allow their magnificent national proportions to be shorn to so deformed a shape as this?

“Suppose the policy of the gentleman were adopted to-day. Let the order go forth; sound the ‘recall’ on your bugles, and let it ring from Texas to the far Atlantic, and tell the armies to come back. Call the victorious legions back over the battle-field of blood forever now disgraced. Call them back over the territory which they have conquered. Call them back, and let the minions of secession chase them with derision and jeers as they come. And then tell them that the man across the aisle, from the free State of Ohio, gave birth to the monstrous proposition.

“Mr. Chairman, if such a word should be sent forth through the armies of the Union, the wave of terrible vengeance that would sweep back over this land could never find a parallel in the records of history. Almost in the moment of final victory, the ‘recall’ is sounded by a craven people not desiring freedom. We ought, every man, to be made a slave should we sanction such a sentiment.

“The gentleman has told us there is no such thing as coercion justifiable under the Constitution. I ask him for one moment to reflect, that no statute ever was enforced without coercion. It is the basis of every law in the universe,—God’s law as well as man’s. A law is no law without coercion behind it. When a man has murdered his brother, coercion takes the murderer, tries him, and hangs him. When you levy your taxes, coercion secures their collection; it follows the shadow of the thief and brings him to justice; it accompanies your diplomacy to foreign courts, and backs a declaration of the nation’s right by a pledge of the nation’s power. Again, he tells us that oaths taken under the amnesty 186proclamation are good for nothing. The oath of Galileo was not binding upon him. I am reminded of another oath that was taken; but perhaps it was an oath on the lips alone to which the heart made no response.

“I remember to have stood in a line of nineteen men on that carpet yonder on the first day of the session, and I remember that another oath was passed round and each member signed it as provided by law, utterly repudiating the rebellion and its pretenses. Does that gentleman not blush to speak of Galileo’s oath? Was not his own its counterpart?

“He says that the Union can never be restored because of the terrible hatred engendered by the war. To prove it, he quotes what some Southern man said a few years ago, that he knew no hatred between people in the world like that between the North and the South. And yet that North and South have been one nation for eighty-eight years!

“Have we seen in this contest any thing more bitter than the wars of the Scottish border? Have we seen any thing more bitter than those terrible feuds in the days of Edward, when England and Scotland were the deadliest foes on earth? And yet for centuries those countries have been cemented in an indissoluble union that has made the British nation one of the proudest of the earth!

“I said a little while ago that I accepted the proposition of the gentleman that rebels had a right of revolution; and the decisive issue between us and the rebellion is, whether they shall revolutionize and destroy, or we shall subdue and preserve. We take the latter ground. We take the common weapons of war to meet them; and if these be not sufficient, I would take any element which will overwhelm and destroy; I would sacrifice the dearest and best beloved; I would take all the old sanctions of law and the Constitution and fling them to the winds, if necessary, rather than let the nation be broken in pieces and its people destroyed with endless ruin.

“What is the Constitution that these gentlemen are perpetually flinging in our faces whenever we desire to strike hard blows against the rebellion? It is the production of the American people. They made it; and the creator is mightier than the creature. The power which made the Constitution can also make other instruments to do its great work in the day of dire necessity.”

The Presidential campaign of 1864 involved, in its tremendous issues, the fate of a Republic. All the forces which had ever antagonized 187the war for the Union were arrayed on the one side; those which demanded that the war be vigorously pursued until rebellion was forever put down, withstood them on the other side. It was a hand-to-hand struggle. Garfield took the stump and ably advocated the Republican cause. He traveled nearly eight thousand miles, and made sixty-five speeches. Late in the season his constituents met to nominate a Congressman. Garfield was very popular in the district, which had been pleased with his ability and the patriotic spirit of his conduct.

But, after the adjournment of Congress, an incident occurred which caused trouble in the Republican ranks, and seemed likely to drive him out of the field. The subject of the readmission of conquered Southern States to the full enjoyment of their political rights, had occupied the attention of the Thirty-Eighth Congress; and that body, on the day of its adjournment, had passed and sent for the President’s approval, a bill providing for the government of such States. Mr. Lincoln had let the bill go over unsigned till after adjournment; and soon issued a proclamation referring to the subject, which offended many of the friends of the bill. Among these were Ben. Wade and Winter Davis, who issued to the public a reply to Mr. Lincoln, censuring him in very severe language. The President was therein charged with favoring a policy subversive of human liberty, unjust to the friends of the administration, and dangerous to the Republic. This Wade-Davis manifesto caused a great furore of excitement. Wade and Davis were denounced; the people would hear nothing against Mr. Lincoln.

When the convention met at Warren, Mr. Garfield was sent for. He had been charged by some with the authorship of the Wade-Davis paper, and by many with holding to its views. When he appeared before them, the chairman stated to him the charge, with a strong intimation that if he cared for a renomination he must declare war against all disagreement with the President’s policy.

Then the young general and statesman arose, and stepped forward to face the assembly. They listened to hear their former 188hero explain away the terrible opinion attributed to him, and, like the fawning politician he was not, trim his sails according to the popular pleasure.

Mr. Garfield said that he was not the author of the manifesto which the chairman had mentioned. Only of late had he read that great protest. But, having read, he approved; and only regretted that there had been any necessity for such a thing. The facts alleged were truly asserted. This was his belief. If they preferred a representative not of the same mind as himself, they should by all means hasten to nominate their man.

Having somewhat haughtily spoken these brave words, Garfield took his hat and strode out, with the intention of returning to his hotel. As he reached the street, a great shout was heard. “That sound, no doubt, means my defeat and another’s nomination,” he muttered. But, with nothing to regret, he went his way.

Meanwhile, what did the convention actually do? They were dumb with astonishment for a moment; a heroic deed had been done before them, and admiration for the chief actor was the uppermost sentiment in every heart. Then a young man from Ashtabula called out: “Mr. Chairman, I say that the man who has courage enough to oppose a convention like that ought not to be discarded. I move that James A. Garfield be nominated by acclamation.” Without a dissenting voice it was done. When election day came, his majority was nearly twelve thousand.

The session of Congress which met in December of 1864 was marked by the great debates on the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which was presented to the States for ratification on the first of February, 1865. Perhaps the strongest opposition to that amendment was from George H. Pendleton, of Ohio. He spoke against it on the 13th of January. The chief argument was that purely State institutions could not properly be interfered with by the Nation, without the consent of the State or States concerned. That this right of a State was reserved in the spirit of the Constitution, just as equal representation in the Senate was secured, beyond recall, by the letter of that instrument.

To this speech Mr. Garfield made a reply. So much of this 189reply as touched upon the constitutional power of making such an amendment may be given further on; the remainder is such a denunciation of slavery, as an institution, as has rarely been equaled by any of those eloquent men who devoted their lives to its extermination.

On taking the floor, Mr. Garfield began:

“Mr. Speaker: We shall never know why slavery dies so hard in this Republic and in this hall till we know why sin is long-lived and Satan is immortal. With marvelous tenacity of existence, it has outlived the expectations of its friends and the hopes of its enemies. It has been declared here and elsewhere to be in the several stages of mortality—wounded, moribund, dead. The question was raised by my colleague [Mr. Cox] yesterday whether it was indeed dead, or only in a troubled sleep. I know of no better illustration of its condition than is found in Sallust’s admirable history of the great conspirator, Catiline, who, when his final battle was fought and lost, his army broken and scattered, was found, far in advance of his own troops, lying among the dead enemies of Rome, yet breathing a little, but exhibiting in his countenance all the ferocity of spirit which had characterized his life. So, sir, this body of slavery lies before us among the dead enemies of the Republic, mortally wounded, impotent in its fiendish wickedness, but with its old ferocity of look, bearing the unmistakable marks of its infernal origin.

“Who does not remember that thirty years ago—a short period in the life of a nation—but little could be said with impunity in these halls on the subject of slavery? We can hardly realize that this is the same people and these the same halls, where now scarcely a man can be found who will venture to do more than falter out an apology for slavery, protesting in the same breath that he has no love for the dying tyrant. None, I believe, but that man of more than supernal boldness, from the city of New York [Mr. Fernando Wood], has ventured, this session, to raise his voice in favor of slavery for its own sake. He still sees in its features the reflection of beauty and divinity, and only he. ‘How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!’ Many mighty men have been slain by thee; many proud ones have humbled themselves at thy feet! All along the coast of our political sea these victims of slavery lie like stranded wrecks, broken on the headlands of freedom. 190How lately did its advocates, with impious boldness, maintain it as God’s own, to be venerated and cherished as divine? It was another and higher form of civilization. It was the holy evangel of America, dispensing its mercies to a benighted race, and destined to bear countless blessings to the wilderness of the West. In its mad arrogance it lifted its hand to strike down the fabric of the Union, and since that fatal day it has been a ‘fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth.’ Like the spirit that Jesus cast out, it has, since then, ‘been seeking rest and finding none.’

“It has sought in all the corners of the Republic to find some hiding-place in which to shelter itself from the death it so richly deserves.

“It sought an asylum in the untrodden territories of the west, but, with a whip of scorpions, indignant freemen drove it thence. I do not believe that a loyal man can now be found who would consent that it should again enter them. It has no hope of harbor there. It found no protection or favor in the hearts or consciences of the freemen of the Republic, and has fled for its last hope of safety behind the shield of the Constitution. We propose to follow it there, and drive it thence, as Satan was exiled from heaven. But now, in the hour of its mortal agony, in this hall, it has found a defender.

“My gallant colleague [Mr. Pendleton], for I recognize him as a gallant and able man, plants himself at the door of his darling, and bids defiance to all assailants. He has followed slavery in its flight, until at last it has reached the great temple where liberty is enshrined—the Constitution of the United States—and there, in that last retreat, declares that no hand shall strike it. It reminds me of that celebrated passage in the great Latin poet, in which the serpents of the Ionian sea, when they had destroyed Laocoon and his sons, fled to the heights of the Trojan citadel and coiled their slimy lengths around the feet of the tutelar goddess, and were covered by the orb of her shield. So, under the guidance of my colleague [Mr. Pendleton], slavery, gorged with the blood of ten thousand freemen, has climbed to the high citadel of American nationality, and coiled itself securely, as he believes, around the feet of the statue of Justice and under the shield of the Constitution of the United States. We desire to follow it even there, and kill it beside the very altar of liberty. Its blood can never make atonement for the least of its crimes.

“But the gentleman has gone further. He is not content that the snaky sorceress shall be merely under the protection of the Constitution. In his view, by a strange metamorphosis, slavery becomes an invisible 191essence, and takes up its abode in the very grain and fiber of the Constitution, and when we would strike it he says, ‘I can not point out any express clause that prohibits you from destroying slavery; but I find a prohibition in the intent and meaning of the Constitution. I go under the surface, out of sight, into the very genius of it, and in that invisible domain slavery is enshrined, and there is no power in the Republic to drive it thence.’

“But he has gone even deeper than the spirit and intent of the Constitution. He has announced a discovery, to which I am sure no other statesman will lay claim. He has found a domain where slavery can no more be reached by human law than the life of Satan by the sword of Michael. He has marked the hither boundary of this newly discovered continent, in his response to the question of the gentleman from Iowa.

“Not finding any thing in the words and phrases of the Constitution that forbids an amendment abolishing slavery, he goes behind all human enactments, and far away among the eternal equities, he finds a primal law which overshadows States, nations, and constitutions, as space envelops the universe, and by its solemn sanctions one human being can hold another in perpetual slavery. Surely, human ingenuity has never gone farther to protect a malefactor, or defend a crime. I shall make no argument with my colleague on this point, for in that high court to which he appeals, eternal justice dwells with freedom, and slavery has never entered.

“On the justice of the amendment itself no arguments are necessary. The reasons crowd in on every side. To enumerate them would be a work of superfluity. To me it is a matter of great surprise that gentlemen on the other side should wish to delay the death of slavery. I can only account for it on the ground of long continued familiarity and friendship. I should be glad to hear them say of slavery, their beloved, as did the jealous Moor:

“Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.”

“Has she not betrayed and slain men enough? Are they not strewn over a thousand battle-fields? Is not this Moloch already gorged with the bloody feast? Its best friends know that its final hour is fast approaching. The avenging gods are on its track. Their feet are not now, as of old, shod with wool, for slow and stately stepping, but winged, like Mercury’s, to bear the swift message of vengeance. No human power can avert the final catastrophe.”

192Five days after this address, Mr. Garfield, together with Henry Winter Davis, made a lively attack on the War Department. At this time the writ of habeas corpus was suspended, and the art of imprisoning men without warrant or accusation was reaching a high state of perfection. The Carroll and Old Capital prisons were full of victims who could not find out why they were thus arbitrarily confined.

This tyrannical practice having been brought before the committee on military affairs, some of them investigated the subject. As a result, a resolution was offered calling for a public inquiry, which resolution passed. The next day Thaddeus Stevens attempted to get it rescinded, whereupon he was met by a fiery speech from Mr. Garfield, which saved the resolution; and in a few days there was a general freeing of all prisoners against whom no sufficient charges could be made.

In his speech, Mr. Garfield graphically told of the great injustice which was being done, especially to men who had served the country in the field. One of these was a colonel in the Union army, who had been wounded and discharged from the service, but now, for some unknown reason, perhaps maliciously, had been deprived of his liberty. Mr. Garfield had been an admirer of Stanton, and recognized the great Secretary’s ability and patriotism; but this could not save either him or his subordinates from just censures.

This action was the occasion of much admiring notice from the public, and even from Stanton himself. For such was the reputed roughness of Stanton’s temper that few men ever had enough temerity to criticise him.

On the night of April 14, 1865, the war-heated blood of this nation was frozen with sudden horror at a deed which then had no parallel in American history—the murder of Abraham Lincoln.

That night General Garfield was in New York City.

In the early morning hours a colored servant came to the door of his room at the hotel, and in a heart-broken voice announced that Mr. Lincoln, the emancipator of his race from bondage, had been shot down by a traitor to the country.

193Morning came; but dark were the hours whose broken wings labored to bring the light of day. Soon the streets were filled with people. Every body seemed to have come out and left the houses empty. It was not a holiday, and yet all seemed to be doing nothing. No business was transacted, yet mirth and laughter were unheard. Such silence and such multitudes never before were met together.

Garfield wandered out into the streets, and noted these ominous appearances. The city was like Paris, just before its pavements are to be torn up for a barricade battle in some revolutionary outbreak.

Great posters, fixed in prominent places, called for a nine o’clock meeting of citizens at Wall Street Exchange Building. The newspaper bulletins, black, brief recorders of fate as they are, were surrounded with crushing crowds waiting for the latest word from Washington.

Arriving in the region of Wall Street, General Garfield made his way through the mass of men who surrounded the Exchange Building, until he reached the balcony. Here Benjamin F. Butler was making an address. Fifty thousand people were crowding toward that central figure, from whose left arm waved a yard of crape which told the terrible story to multitudes who could not hear his words.

General Butler ceased speaking. What should be done with this great crowd of desperate men? What would they do with themselves?

Lincoln was dead; word came that Seward, with his throat cut, was dying. Men feared some dread conspiracy which would redden the North with innocent blood, and hand over the Government to treason and traitors.

Two men in this crowd said that “Lincoln ought to have been shot long ago.” A minute later one of them was dead; the other lay in the ditch, bleeding and dying. Thousands of men clutched, in their pockets, revolvers and knives, to be used on whoever said a word against the martyred President.

Suddenly from the extreme right wing of the crowd rose a cry: 194“The World!” “The office of the World!” “The World!”—and the mass began to move as one man toward that office. Where would this end? Destruction of property, loss of life, violence and anarchy, were in that movement, and apparently no human power could now check its progress.

Then a man stepped to the front of the balcony and held his arm aloft. His commanding attitude arrested universal attention. Perhaps he was going to give them the latest news. They waited. But while they listened, the voice—it was the voice of General Garfield—only said:

“Fellow-citizens: Clouds and darkness are around about Him! His pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds of the skies! Justice and judgment are the establishment of His throne! Mercy and truth shall go before His face! Fellow-citizens: God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives!”

The tide of popular fury was stayed. The impossible had been accomplished. “The World” was saved; but that was not much. The safety of a great city was secured; and that was much.

Other meetings were held in New York City on that memorable day, and the magnetic speaker of the morning was called out again. In the course of an address that afternoon he uttered these words:

“By this last act of madness, it seems as though the Rebellion had determined that the President of the soldiers should go with the soldiers who have laid down their lives on the battle-field. They slew the noblest and gentlest heart that ever put down a rebellion upon this earth. In taking that life they have left the iron hand of the people to fall upon them. Love is on the front of the throne of God, but justice and judgment, with inexorable dread, follow behind; and when law is slighted and mercy despised, when they have rejected those who would be their best friends, then comes justice with her hoodwinked eyes, and with the sword and scales. From every gaping wound of your dead chief, let the voice go up from the people to see to it that our house is swept and garnished. I hasten to say one thing more, fellow-citizens. For mere 195vengeance I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere revenge. But for security of the future I would do every thing.”

It is a remarkable fact that when the nation gave expression to its sorrow over Lincoln’s death, Garfield should have been so notably the voice which spoke that sorrow.

A year passed on. In April of 1866, Congress, busy with the important legislation of that period, neglected to remember the approaching anniversary. On the morning of April 14, the newspapers announced that, according to President Johnson’s order, the Government offices would be closed that day out of respect to murdered Lincoln.

Congressmen at the breakfast table read this announcement, and hurried to the Capitol, inquiring what corresponding action should be taken by the two Houses of Congress.

General Garfield was in the committee room, hard at work on the preparation of a bill, when, shortly before time for the House to come to order, Speaker Colfax came hurriedly in, saying that Mr. Garfield must be in the House directly and move an adjournment. At the same time Garfield should make an address appropriate to such an anniversary. That gentleman protested that the time was too short, but Colfax insisted, and left the room.

Remaining there alone for a quarter of an hour, the General thought of the tragic event, and what he should say. Is there not something weirdly prophetic, to us who live under the reign of Arthur, in the picture of that silent man of serious mien and thoughtful brow, sitting alone, and thinking of our first assassinated President?

Just as the clerk finished reading the previous day’s Journal of the House, Mr. Garfield arose and said:

“Mr. Speaker: I desire to move that this House do now adjourn; and before the vote upon that motion is taken, I desire to say a few words.

“This day, Mr. Speaker, will be sadly memorable so long as this nation shall endure, which, God grant, maybe ‘till the last syllable of recorded time,’ when the volume of human history shall be sealed up and delivered to the Omnipotent Judge.

196“In all future time, on the recurrence of this day, I doubt not that the citizens of this Republic will meet in solemn assembly to reflect on the life and character of Abraham Lincoln, and the awful tragic event of April 14, 1865,—an event unparalleled in the history of nations, certainly unparalleled in our own. It is eminently proper that this House should this day place upon its records a memorial of that event.

“The last five years have been marked by wonderful developments of human character. Thousands of our people before unknown to fame, have taken their places in history, crowned with immortal honors. In thousands of humble homes are dwelling heroes and patriots whose names shall never die. But greatest among all these developments were the character and fame of Abraham Lincoln, whose loss the nation still deplores. His character is aptly described in the words of England’s great laureate—written thirty years ago—in which he traces the upward steps of some

“‘Divinely gifted man,

Whose life in low estate began,

And on a simple village green:

Who breaks his birth’s invidious bar,

And grasps the skirts of happy chance,

And breasts the blows of circumstance,

And grapples with his evil star:

Who makes by force his merit known,

And lives to clutch the golden keys

To mold a mighty State’s decrees,

And shape the whisper of the throne:

And moving up from high to higher,

Becomes on Fortune’s crowning slope,

The pillar of a people’s hope,

The center of a world’s desire.’

“Such a life and character will be treasured forever as the sacred possession of the American people and of mankind. In the great drama of the rebellion, there were two acts. The first was the war, with its battles and sieges, victories and defeats, its sufferings and tears. That act was closing one year ago to-night, and just as the curtain was lifting on the second and final act, the restoration of peace and liberty,—just as the curtain was rising upon new events and new characters,—the evil spirit of the rebellion, in the fury of despair, nerved and directed the hand of the assassin to strike down the chief character in both.

197“It was no one man who killed Abraham Lincoln; it was the embodied spirit of treason and slavery, inspired with fearful and despairing hate, that struck him down in the moment of the nation’s supremest joy.

“Ah, sirs, there are times in the history of men and nations when they stand so near the veil that separates mortals from immortals, time from eternity, and men from their God, that they can almost hear the beatings and feel the pulsations of the heart of the Infinite! Through such a time has this nation passed. When two hundred and fifty thousand brave spirits passed from the field of honor through that thin veil to the presence of God, and when at last its parting folds admitted the martyr President to the company of the dead heroes of the Republic, the nation stood so near the veil that the whispers of God were heard by the children of men.

“Awe-stricken by His voice, the American people knelt in tearful reverence and made a solemn covenant with Him and with each other that this nation should be saved from its enemies, that all its glories should be restored, and on the ruins of treason and slavery the temples of freedom and justice should be built, and should survive forever. It remains for us, consecrated by that great event, and under a covenant with God, to keep that faith, to go forward in the great work until it shall be completed.

“Following the lead of that great man, and obeying the high behests of God, let us remember that—

“‘He has sounded forth a trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat.

Be swift, my soul, to answer him, be jubilant at my feet;

For God is marching on.’

“I move, sir, that this House do now adjourn.”

The motion being agreed to, the House was declared adjourned.

It is now necessary to hasten on to the Thirty-Ninth Congress, wherein General Garfield, no longer under the disadvantages of a new member, continued to develop rapidly as an able worker.

General Garfield was a thorough-going temperance man. On returning to his house in Painesville, Ohio, in the summer of 1865, he found the good people of that place in trouble on account of a brewery which had been established in their midst. All efforts 198to have it removed had been unavailing. Public meetings were held. Garfield attended one of these, and while there announced that he would that day remove the brewery.

He just went over to the brewer and bought him out for $10,000. The liquor on hand, and such brewing machinery as could not be used for any thing else, he destroyed. When autumn came he used his new establishment as a cider-mill. The cider was kept till it became good vinegar, and then sold. The General thus did a good thing for the public, and, it is said, made money out of the investment, until, after several years, he sold the building.

When Congress met in December, 1865, it had to face a great task. The rebellion had been put down, but at great cost; and they had an enormous debt to provide for. Four years of war had disorganized every thing, and great questions of finance, involving tariffs, and taxation, and a thousand vexed themes of public policy, hung with leaden weight over the heads of our national legislators.

Garfield was one of the few men who were both able and willing to face the music and bury themselves in the bewildering world of figures which loomed in the dusky foreground of coming events. The interest alone on our liabilities amounted to $150,000,000.

When Speaker Colfax made up his committees, he asked Garfield what he would like. Garfield replied that he would like to have a place which called for the study of finance. Justin S. Morrill, Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, also asked for him.

He was, accordingly, put upon that committee, and immediately began to study the subjects which were connected with its prospective work.

Conceiving that our financial condition was in some respects parallel to that of England at the close of the Napoleonic wars, he carefully investigated the conditions, policy, and progress of that Government from the time of Waterloo until the resumption of specie payments. The most remarkable periods of our own financial history were also studied, especially that wherein the great Alexander Hamilton appears the master mind.

These pursuits, and a wide-reaching knowledge of the existing 199conditions in our own country, were the foundations on which Garfield built the structure of a set of opinions which were then received as good, and which still withstand the test of time.

Garfield was a splendid lawyer. It is only because his course was pushed aside into the great lines of war and of politics that his history is not largely the story of great triumphs at the bar. When he was examined for admission to the bar of Ohio, the lawyers who examined him pronounced his legal knowledge phenomenal for a man to have acquired in the short time he had been reading.

But he never practiced in any court until 1866. In this place there can be mentioned only his first case, in which he argued before the United States Supreme Court. Afterwards he had about thirty cases in that court, and often appeared in State courts. At one time Judge Jeremiah S. Black, a lawyer of National reputation, offered him a partnership. Financially it would have been a good thing for Garfield, but fortunately for his constituents and for the country, he refused. Yet, in the language of Stanley Matthews, now of the U. S. Supreme Court, Mr. Garfield actually ranked “as one of the very best lawyers at the bar of the whole country.”

In 1864, L. P. Milligan, W. A. Bowles, and Stephen Horsey, three citizens of Indiana, were arrested in that State on charges of treason. There was no doubt that they were guilty of the crime. But, unfortunately, they were not tried according to law. No government can long hold such absolute powers as were given to our government during the rebellion, without developing in some degree a carelessness of the forms of law which is fatal to liberty. Indiana was not the scene of war. Her courts, and the United States courts there were open for the prosecution of criminals. Yet these men were arrested by the military department, tried by a military commission, and condemned to be hanged. Lincoln commuted their sentence to imprisonment for life, and they were sent to the State penitentiary. At this juncture a petition was presented to the U. S. Circuit Court for a writ of habeas corpus, to test the legality of these arbitrary proceedings. 200The judges of that court not agreeing, the points on which they disagreed were certified up to the Supreme Court. These points were:

“1. On the facts stated in said petition and exhibits, ought a writ of habeas corpus to be issued according to the prayer of said petition? 2. On the facts stated in said petition and exhibits, ought the petitioners to be discharged from custody, as in said petition prayed? 3. On the facts stated in said petition and exhibits, had the military commission mentioned therein jurisdiction legally to try and sentence said petitioners in manner and form as in said petition and exhibits is stated?”

This was the case. On March 6, 1866, it was to be argued. The eminent counsel engaged therein were: Hons. Joseph E. McDonald, Jere. S. Black, James A. Garfield, and David D. Field, for petitioners; Hons. Benjamin F. Butler, James Speed, and Henry Stanbery, for the Government.

Garfield had been invited to appear in this case by Mr. Black, who had observed that, although a patriotic friend of the Administration, Garfield had often sternly opposed its tendency to break all restraints of law in the exercise of its powers. So he expected,—and found it true,—that Garfield’s judgment would be with his side of the Milligan case. Of course that was the unpopular side. For Mr. Garfield to defend Milligan and his fellow-traitors would perhaps again endanger his reëlection; but he was not the man to hesitate when he saw himself in the right.

One of Garfield’s Democratic co-counsel in this case has called this act the greatest and bravest of Garfield’s life. Like old John Adams, defending British soldiers for the Boston massacre, storms of obloquy and the sunshine of favor he alike disregarded for the sake of principle.

After two days and nights of preparation, Mr. Garfield had decided upon the points of his argument. Needless to say, it was a complete and unanswerable presentation of those great English and American constitutional principles which secure the free people of those countries from star chambers and military despotisms. It showed forth clearly the limits of military power, and demonstrated 201the utter want of jurisdiction of a military court over civilian citizens.

When Garfield finished, he had established every essential point of his case beyond a peradventure. His speech closed with these eloquent words, in appeal to the court:

“Your decision will mark an era in American history. The just and final settlement of this great question will take a high place among the great achievements which have immortalized this decade. It will establish forever this truth, of inestimable value to us and to mankind, that a Republic can wield the vast enginery of war without breaking down the safeguards of liberty; can suppress insurrection and put down rebellion, however formidable, without destroying the bulwarks of law; can, by the might of its armed millions, preserve and defend both nationality and liberty. Victories on the field were of priceless value, for they plucked the life of the Republic out of the hands of its enemies; but

‘Peace hath her victories

No less renowned than war;’

and if the protection of law shall, by your decision, be extended over every acre of our peaceful territory, you will have rendered the great decision of the century.

“When Pericles had made Greece immortal in arts and arms, in liberty and law, he invoked the genius of Phidias to devise a monument which should symbolize the beauty and glory of Athens. That artist selected for his theme the tutelar divinity of Athens, the Jove-born Goddess, protectress of arts and arms, of industry and law, who typified the Greek conception of composed, majestic, unrelenting force. He erected on the heights of the Acropolis a colossal statue of Minerva, armed with spear and helmet, which towered in awful majesty above the surrounding temples of the gods. Sailors on far-off ships beheld the crest and spear of the Goddess, and bowed with reverent awe. To every Greek she was the symbol of power and glory. But the Acropolis, with its temples and statues, is now a heap of ruins. The visible gods have vanished in the clearer light of modern civilization. We can not restore the decayed emblems of ancient Greece, but it is in your power, O Judge, to erect in this citadel of our liberties a monument more lasting than brass; invisible, indeed, to the eye of flesh, but visible to the eye of the spirit 202as the awful form and figure of Justice crowning and adorning the Republic; rising above the storms of political strife, above the din of battle, above the earthquake shock of rebellion; seen from afar and hailed as protector by the oppressed of all nations; dispensing equal blessings, and covering with the protecting shield of law the weakest, the humblest, the meanest, and, until declared by solemn law unworthy of protection, the guiltiest of its citizens.”

Other and very able arguments were made on both sides of the case; but the law was sustained and the prisoners set free.

For this act Garfield was denounced by many newspapers and many individuals in his own State and elsewhere. But, as usual, he weathered it all, and was reëlected to Congress in the fall; for the Reserve people had come to the point of believing in Garfield, though he did not follow their opinions. In from one to three years afterwards they generally discovered that he had been right from the start.

On February 1, 1866, Garfield made that masterly address on the Freedmen’s Bureau, in which he so clearly set forth his views on the nature of the Union, and the States of which it is composed. This speech will be more fully mentioned in another place. On March 16, 1866, he made a remarkably able speech on “The Currency and Specie Payments,” farther reference to which must, for the present, be deferred.

A man of Mr. Garfield’s intellect and scholarly acquirements, could not fail to be interested in the cause of education, always and every-where. He was himself a splendid result of the free-school system of Ohio, and had been an enthusiastic teacher. What, then, more natural than that as a public man he should try to interest Congress in the condition of American schools?

At the request of the American Association of School Superintendents, Mr. Garfield, in February, 1866, prepared a bill for the establishment of a National Bureau of Education. The principal object of this bureau was to collect statistics and other facts, and so to arrange and to publish them as to enlighten the people as to our progress in the means of education. The bill was opposed on 203account of the expense, as it called for an appropriation of fifteen thousand dollars!

Speaking on this bill, June 8, 1866, Mr. Garfield called attention to the subject of national expenditures for extra governmental purposes. We had expended millions on a Coast Survey Bureau, on an Astronomical Observatory, on a Light-House Board, on Exploring Expeditions, on the Pacific Railroad Survey, on Agriculture, on the Patent Office,—why not a few dollars on Education? “As man is greater than the soil, as the immortal spirit is nobler than the clod it animates, so is the object of this bill of more importance than any mere pecuniary interest.”

The National Bureau of Education was established, and the results of its work have fully vindicated the opinions of its founders.

Garfield’s idea of what should be taught in our schools and colleges was as broad and deep as the domain of knowledge; but, withal, very practical. That he loved the classics, his own study of them demonstrates; but he saw that something better adapted to the scientific and practical character of our country was needed. In an address at Hiram, on June 14, 1867, he gave emphatic expression to this idea.

“A finished education is supposed to consist mainly of literary culture. The story of the forges of the Cyclops, where the thunderbolts of Jove were fashioned, is supposed to adorn elegant scholarship more gracefully that those sturdy truths which are preaching to this generation in the wonders of the mine, in the fire of the furnace, in the clang of the iron-mills, and the other innumerable industries, which, more than all other human agencies, have made our civilization what it is, and are destined to achieve wonders yet undreamed of. This generation is beginning to understand that education should not be forever divorced from industry; that the highest results can be reached only when science guides the hand of labor. With what eagerness and alacrity is industry seizing every truth of science and putting it in harness!”

Moreover, Mr. Garfield believed strongly in a liberal political education for the youth of the land. On this point, in the address above mentioned, he said:

204“It is well to know the history of these magnificent nations, whose origin is lost in fable, and whose epitaphs were written a thousand years ago; but, if we can not know both, it is far better to study the history of our own nation, whose origin we can trace to the freest and noblest aspirations of the human heart—a nation that was formed from the hardiest, purest, and most enduring elements of European civilization; a nation that by its faith and courage has dared and accomplished more for the human race in a single century than Europe accomplished in the first thousand years of the Christian era. The New England township was the type after which our Federal Government was modeled; yet it would be rare to find a college student who can make a comprehensive and intelligible statement of the municipal organization of the township in which he was born, and tell you by what officers its legislative, judicial, and executive functions are administered. One half of the time which is now almost wholly wasted in district schools on English grammar, attempted at too early an age, would be sufficient to teach our children to love the Republic, and to become its loyal and life-long supporters. After the bloody baptism from which the Nation has risen to a higher and nobler life, if this shameful defect in our system of education be not speedily remedied, we shall deserve the infinite contempt of future generations. I insist that it should be made an indispensable condition of graduation in every American college, that the student must understand the history of this continent since its discovery by Europeans, the origin and history of the United States, its constitution of government, the struggles through which it has passed, and the rights and duties of citizens who are to determine its destiny and share its glory.

“Having thus gained the knowledge which is necessary to life, health, industry, and citizenship, the student is prepared to enter a wider and grander field of thought. If he desires that large and liberal culture which will call into activity all his powers, and make the most of the material God has given him, he must study deeply and earnestly the intellectual, the moral, the religious, and the æsthetic nature of man; his relations to nature, to civilization past and present; and, above all, his relations to God. These should occupy, nearly, if not fully, half the time of his college course. In connection with the philosophy of the mind, he should study logic, the pure mathematics, and the general laws of thought. In connection with moral philosophy, he should study political and social ethics—a science so little known either in colleges or Congresses. Prominent 205among all the rest, should be his study of the wonderful history of the human race, in its slow and toilsome march across the centuries—now buried in ignorance, superstition, and crime; now rising to the sublimity of heroism and catching a glimpse of a better destiny; now turning remorselessly away from, and leaving to perish, empires and civilizations in which it had invested its faith and courage and boundless energy for a thousand years, and, plunging into the forests of Germany, Gaul, and Britain, to build for itself new empires better fitted for its new aspirations; and, at last, crossing three thousand miles of unknown sea, and building in the wilderness of a new hemisphere its latest and proudest monuments.”

When the Fortieth Congress met, in December of 1867, Mr. Garfield was, contrary to his wishes, taken off the Committee on Ways and Means and made Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. In the line of this work he pursued some very important investigations of both military and political character.

Among his most important speeches, in this connection, were that on the “Military Control of the Rebel States” made in February, 1867 (during the Thirty-Ninth Congress), and that delivered January 17, 1868, on the then all-absorbing theme, “Reconstruction.”

In the conflict between President Johnson and the majority in Congress, about the government of the late rebel States, Mr. Garfield was, of course, sternly opposed to that outrageous policy of the President, whose main object seemed to be the undoing of all the beneficial results of the war.

When the articles of impeachment against Johnson were passed, Garfield was not in Washington; but on his return, February 29, 1868, he took occasion to say that if he had been present he should have voted for them. He had formerly opposed such action because he thought it would be unsuccessful. Johnson’s later actions, however, especially his arbitrary dismissal of Secretary Stanton, were such clear violations of the Constitution that he supposed the President’s guilt could be judicially established, and therefore he favored the attempt.

On the 15th of May of this same year, Mr. Garfield delivered another address on the currency. His financial views were still 206in advance of his party, and the unsound views advanced by various politicians gave opportunity for many a well-directed shot from his well-stored armory of facts, figures, and principles. His speeches on this topic alone would fill a large volume.

In 1868 occurred one of the many attempts made by politicians to reduce the public debt by extorting money from the Nation’s creditors. On July 15, 1868, Mr. Garfield discussed, at considerable length and with all his usual clearness and ability, one of these measures, which, in this case, was a bill for the taxation of bonds. He was too honest a man, and, at the same time, too sound a financier, to be blind to the wrong as well as the impolitic character of such a law. Two paragraphs will suffice to exhibit these two points:

“Nobody expects that we can pay as fast as the debt matures, but we shall be compelled to go into the market and negotiate new loans. Let this system of taxation be pursued; let another Congress put the tax at twenty per cent., another at forty per cent., and another at fifty per cent., or one hundred per cent.; let the principle once be adopted—the rate is only a question of discretion—and where will you be able to negotiate a loan except at the most ruinous sacrifice? Let such legislation prevail as the gentleman urges, and can we look any man in the face and ask him to loan us money? If we do not keep faith to-day, how can we expect to be trusted hereafter?

“There was a declaration made by an old English gentleman in the days of Charles II. which does honor to human nature. He said he was willing at any time to give his life for the good of his country; but he would not do a mean thing to save his country from ruin. So, sir, ought a citizen to feel in regard to our financial affairs. The people of the United States can afford to make any sacrifice for their country, and the history of the last war has proved their willingness; but the humblest citizen can not afford to do a mean or dishonorable thing to save even this glorious Republic.”

It was in 1867 that Garfield made his only trip to Europe. When the summer of that year came, the hard year’s work, just finished, had made considerable inroad on his health, and he thought a sea voyage would bring back his strength. On July 13, Mr. and 207Mrs. Garfield sailed from New York in the “City of London,” which carried them across the Atlantic in thirteen days.

Remembering the ambitions of his boyhood to become a sailor, Garfield enjoyed his voyage as few men do who cross the sea. They reached Liverpool on the 26th, and as they steamed up the Mersey, General Garfield significantly remarked, looking down into its muddy waters,

“The quality of Mersey is not strained.”

From Liverpool they went to London, stopping at two or three interesting places by the way. At London he visited both Houses of Parliament, heard debates on the great reform bill which passed at that time; saw Gladstone, Disraeli, Bright, and other great Englishmen, and after a week of sight-seeing and studying here, visited other parts of England, and then went to Scotland. Mr. Blaine and Mr. Morrill, were with them in Scotland. There the General visited the home of Burns and re-read “Tam O’Shanter.”

Leaving Scotland at Leith, they crossed the North Sea to Rotterdam, went to Brussels and Cologne, and thence up the Rhine to Mayence.

Thence by various stages, reveling in old world glories, he reached Italy—Florence and Rome. Here a year of life was crowded into a week, while Garfield lived amid the wrecks of antiquity and the decayed remnants of that dead empire whose splendid history can not be forgotten till “the last syllable of recorded time.”

On October first they proceeded, by a circuitous route, to make their way to Paris, where they met several American friends, among them the artist, Miss Ransom. After a short stay there, and a few excursions to other places, they finally started for home, and by November 6th they were once more standing on American soil.

General Garfield’s health was by this means thoroughly restored, and he had realized in some degree one of the sincerest wishes of his life,—a more familiar acquaintance with some places across the sea than books could give.

208On May 30, 1868, occurred the first general observance of that beautiful national custom, the annual decoration of the soldiers’ graves. On that day, the President and his Cabinet, with a large number of Congressmen and other distinguished persons, and about fifteen thousand people, met on Arlington Heights to pay their respects to the Nation’s dead, and listen to an address. The orator of the day was Garfield.