FROM THE TOW-PATH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. THE EARLY LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF JAMESA.GARFIELD, MAJ. GEN L U. S. A. THE RECORD OF A WONDERFUL CAREER WHICH, LIKE THAT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BY NATIVE ENERGY* AND UNTIRING INDUSTRY, LED THIS MAN FROM OBSCURITY TO THE FOREMOST POSI TION IN THE COUNCILS OF THE NATION. . INCLUDING ALSO A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF HON. CHESTER A. ARTHUR. BY GEN L JAS. S. BRISBIN, AUTHOR OF "LIFE OF GRANT AND COLFAX/ "BELDEN, THE WHITE CHIEF," "THE BEEF BONANZA," AND OTHER POPULAR WORKS. PUBLISHED BY HUBBARD BROS.,, PHILADELPHIA; SPRINGFIELD, MASS.; CHICAGO; CINCINNATI; ATLANTA, GA. C. H. LILLINGSTON & Co., ST. Louis : T. PROTHERO, EMPORIA, KANSAS: A. L. BANCROFT & Co., SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. COPYRIGHTED, 1880. TO JAMES A. GARFIELD, THIS VOLUME, Recording, though poorly, the steps in a splendidly typical American career a career that will incite every one who reads it to a braver, better life is inscribed by his friend, THE AUTHOR. TO THE READER. THIS book is not written in any spirit of political par tisanship but merely to give to my countrymen a true account of the life and character of our fellovr-citizen JAMES A. GARFIELD. JAS. S. BRISBIN. Chingledamouche Snow SAoe, Pa. t July zbth, 2880. PUBLISHER S NOTICE. The American nation is about entering on a campaign which is destined to be ever memorable in the political annals of the country. The strife of factions has already begun, and from now until tie issue is decided on the 2d of next November, there will reign paramount a war of words, a hurricane of argument. The Democratic Party enters the struggle flushed with the applause of its first reputable nomi nation in a long period, and confident that the waiting honors are to be its own. The Republican Party presents a man for the suffrages of the nation, who fitly and fully embodies in his public services the grand principles for which the party has victoriously striven during a deserved ascendency of twenty years. It would have been more than wonderful, if during this long continuance in power, the Republican Party had not some act to regret, some measure of the public welfare unfulfilled to lament, some blunder for which to need an apology. It is im possible in the procession of measures and men to avoid here and there a failure. The ideal is never accomplished. Re- membering this, the defections, the grumblings, the dissatisfac tion that sprung up within the party four years ago are readily understood and appreciated. These were based partly upon the unfitness of a great soldier to be a great statesman. This is no disparagement of the military achievements of General Grant, they stand unrivaled in the history of the New World. But as a statesman, in the eyes of some, he was a failure. He had not the necessary training ; for, clearly, his life was intended to be shaped with the sword. The nomination by the Republi can Party this year, has overcome every objection just hinted at, M70535 PUBLISHER S NOTICE. and solidly together as of yore, shoulder to shoulder in the ranks, the party appeals to the nation and furnishes the high est justification for the nation s confidence ever offered a nominee as able and brilliant as the great principles of the party he represents. The Democratic Party has chosen as its standard-bearer, & soldier of pre-eminent soldierly qualities, but a man untried in the devious ways of government, unversed in the subtleties of power, unknown in the paths of legislation. To oppose him there is one whose views upon the vital issues of the hour are not guesses ; whose theories of governing have been proved by the fire of experience to be axioms of government; whosft statesmanship has excited admiration and challenged criticism for a score of years ; whose manly defense at all times of the best and of the right, has attracted applause even from his enemies, and whose courageous patriotism can never be over looked by a nation of brave men James Abram Garfield. The story of his life and services illustrates but sketchily the wonderful career and magnificent record of this man. In the haste necessarily attendant upon the production of a cam paign biography, much has perhaps been omitted that would be received by the reader with grateful relish. At the same time care and diligence, time and trouble, and money have been expended on the story, and it is as complete as it is possi ble to make it under the circumstances. The story is fascinating in its romance, in its faithful, well drawn picture of a representative American career ; for General Garfield illustrates with peculiar force the grandest principle of American life and American liberty, its equality. Begin ning with no greater blessings than a sound constitution and a strong ambition, he has risen to the top of the ladder, every round of which has been a merited elevation. His life, indeed, is a national lesson, a march of honor. As a boy, he was an humble worker on the tow-path of an Ohio canal, as a man, he becomes the first citizen of the Republic, the Chief Magis trate of the first power among the civilized nations of the globe. The incidents, the struggles, the reverses, the successes, the shadow and the sunshine of such a life are as instructing as PUBLISHERS NOTICE. they are entertaining, and in the following pages the reader will find a story that will command his admiration, excite his emulation and justify the confidence of the vote he proposes to cast for its hero. The sketch of the life of General Chester A. Arthur, has been compiled with great care and will be found a readable story of the life of the distinguished gentleman who has been nominated for Vice-President upon the ticket so worthily headed by General Garfield. Philadelphia, July 1, 1880. CONTENTS. GARFIELD AS A BOY AND MAN. * CHAPTER I. PAGE. A Fire and its Result 21 CHAPTER II. The Home in Early Days 30 CHAPTER III. Days of Earnest Work , 35 CHAPTER IV. The Pirate s Own Book 41 CHAPTER V. Inter Folio Fructus Fruit between leaves 59 CHAPTER VI. Garfield at Williams 75 CHAPTER VII. A College President 89 CHAPTER VIII. The Birth of a Political Career 104 GARFIELD AS A SOLDIER. CHAPTER IX. The Storm Bursts 115 x CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. PAGE. At the Head of a Regiment 123 CHAPTER XI. Opening the Big Sandy Campaign 133 CHAPTER XII. Hail Columbia s Soldier at the Battle of Middle Creek... 150 CHAPTER XIII. A Steamboat Captain and the Capture of Pound Gap 167 CHAPTER XIV. Off to Aid Grant 184 CHAPTER XV. Garfield as Chief-of-Staff. 197 CHAPTER XVI. The Battle of Chickamauga 208 GARFIELD AS A STATESMAN. CHAPTER XVII. He Appears in Congress 241 CHAPTER XVIII. The Ladder of Honor 247 CHAPTER XIX. An Ornament of Congress 262 CHAPTER XX. The Orator s Power ..... f .. 269 CONTENTS. x j CHAPTER XXI. PAGE. Questions of Political Economy 278 CHAPTER XXII. Arraigning his Enemies 290 CHAPTER XXIII. A Visit to Lawnfield .., 310 CHAPTER XXIV. The Family Circle 329 CHAPTER XXV. Two Pen Portraits 351 THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION. CHAPTER XXVI. Preparing for Battle 359 CHAPTER XXVII. The Battle Begun 374 CHAPTER XXVIII. The Second Day s Fight 386 CHAPTER XXIX. War to the Knife, and Knife to the Hilt 399 CHAPTER XXX. The Thunders of Oratory 418 CHAPTER XXXI. A Day of Doubt , 459 X |J CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXII. PAGE. The People s Choice 470 CHAPTER XXXIII. How it Happened, and What was Said of It 486 CHAPTER XXXIV. A Tour of Triumph 505 CHAPTER XXXV. The Future 530 LIFE OF HON. CHESTER A. ARTHUR. CHAPTER I. Arthur s Early Life 537 CHAPTER II. Arthur as a Lawyer 542 CHAPTER III. Arthur in Politics 548 APPENDIX. CHAPTER I. A Victim of Success 551 :HAPTER n. De Golyer Contract 578 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE. FRONTISPIECE James A. Garfield. " Chester A. Arthur. Home of Garfield s Childhood 20 James A. Garfield at the age of Sixteen 43 Young Garfield Conquering a Peace 53 Hiram College 91 The Fight at Paintville 143 Battle of Middle Creek 153 Now, Boys, we must go at them 161 View of Pound Gap 165 View of Middle Creek 165 Pickets on Duty 185 Army Head-quarters 185 The Battle of Chickamauga 213 Chattanooga Battle-field and Approaches 217 General George H. Thomas 223 Missionary Ridge 223 Block House at Chattanooga 227 Head-quarters of Thomas , 227 Battle-field as it appears to-day 233 Redoubt on Lookout Mountain 233 General Garfield s Home, Mentor, Ohio 313 Parlor General Garfield s Home 317 Dining-room General Garfield s Home 343 Reception of General Garfield at the Depot 59 General Garfield Addressing the People 5*3 GENERAL GARFIELD S CREED. The Republican party of this country has said, and it says to-day , that, forgetting all the animosities of the war, forgetting all the fierceness and the passion of it, it reaches out both its hands to the gallant men who fought us and offers all fellow* ship, all comradeship, all feelings of brotherhood, on this sole condition, and that condition they will insist forever: That in the war for the Union we were right, forever right, and that in their war against the Union they were wrong, forever wrong. We never made terms, we never will make terms, with the man who denies the everlasting rightfulness of our cause. That would be treason to the dead and injustice to the living; and on that basis alone our pacification is complete. We ask that it be realized, and we shall consider it fully realized when it is just as safe and just as honorable for a good citizen of South Carolina to be a Republican there as it is for a good citizen of Massachusetts to be a Democrat here. Speech of Genera/ Garfo/d, at Faneuil Hall, 1878. GARFIELD AS A BOY AND MAN. Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify ; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance I never knew a man to be drowned who was worth the saving. Garfi eld" 1 s Address to the Students of Hiram College. CHAPTER I. . 9 A FIRE AND ITS RESULT. ABRAM GARFIELD, worn out with a night of bitter toil, bead-drops of perspiration standing upon his forehead and coursing down his heated, cinder-stained cheeks, walked to his home with a weary step. All night long the fires had ravaged the woods surrounding his little homestead, and all night long, assisted by the stout arms of his neighbors, he had valiantly fought the flames that threatened his all, twenty acres of good wheat growing on the land he him self had cleared around his cabin. The fires were now well down, the trunks of unburnt trees stood out against the sky,, black ened witnesses of destruction, and the wind was scattering the ashes hither and thither, as the farmers, knowing their scanty crops were saved, turned homeward. Abram Garfield, honest, hard-working farmer that he was, naturally had taken pride in his grain, a pride he could not afford to see humbled by the agency of a vagrant fire in the woods. When it approached the edge of his fields, he had gone forth to the fight, and after hours of exhausting work, succeeded in getting the better of his enemy. 21 22 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF Reaching his cabin, he sank wearily on a three- legged stool that stood by the open door and raised his hat, that he might wipe away the per- r sfdra,tion bearfin,g his forehead. With no thought but that of "rest", he allowed the breezes that blew hi S^sa-MeaL wheat fields to cool his face with their grateful breath. In this most natural act he contracted a severe cold and sore throat, the over-tension of his system laying it open to influences, that his otherwise hardy nature would have easily withstood. Chill followed chill, and inflammation set in, be coming rapidly so intense, that his good wife Eliza determined to send for the only doctor the county boasted, a semi-quack, who lived several miles away. The leech responded promptly, came, and with many a profound gesture that illustrated nothing so well as his profound ignorance, ordered a blister for the sick man s throat it was applied with all the instant virulence of quack practice in an unsettled country. The treatment was in faith so heroic, that Abram Garfield shortly after the blister was applied choked to .death. Feeling that the last great act of his life had come, he motioned his wife to his side, and said, with thick, broken utterance : " I am going to leave you, Eliza. I have planted four saplings in these woods, and I must now leave them to your care." Then, giving a last, long look upon his little farm as it stretched beyond the window toward JAMES A. GARFIELD. 2 ^ the rising sun, he called his oxen by name, turned upon his side, and expired. The poor widow was stunned by the sudden ness of her great misfortune. It had come upon her so quickly, it was impossible to realize at the moment of her husband s passing away, the full extent of her loss. Gradually, the iron entered her soul, she became aware of her loneliness. Bowing her head, she wept bitterly. " Do not cry, my mother, I will take care of you," said her son Thomas, a mere slip of a boy, who stood by her side, scarce comprehending what he said, or why he said it. " God bless you, my son ; I will try to be brave for your sweet sakes," said the stricken woman, as she wound her arms convulsively about the boy. Ris ing, she called two little girls to her side, and ex plained to them their loss the death of their father. Tenderly she lifted them in her arms and bade them kiss the cold, calm face, for the last time. Then from the cradle she lifted the young est, her baby-boy, James, almost two years old, the pride of her hearth-stone. The boy looked down, wonderingly, out of his great blue eyes at his father s face so still upon the pillow. With a childish, questioning look, he lisped, "Papa sleep?" The mother s tears, flowing rapidly, was the only answer. Two days later, Abram Garfield was laid to rest, and the baby-boy was carried to the funeral in the *>A LHE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF arms of his uncle, William Letcher. The child, as was natural in one so young, paid no attention to the sad ceremonies, until he was brought beside the coffin to take a last look at the dead. Rec ognizing his father, he called aloud for him, the tears following each other rapidly down his face. When the earth was thrown upon the coffin, the child continued his cries, until the whole company burst into tears. Who of us that have passed through such a scene, can ever forget it ? The agony of a few brief moments then, often lives forever. They are to the mind what scars are to the body, and remain upon us while life lasts, teaching always, however, their lesson, just as the rock, when rent, discloses the gem, or the little obstacle that impedes the onward progress of the brook serves to make music and keep pure its water. So with Eliza Garfield. The influence of her chastening is upon her; it will be to her a softening thought and one to nerve her arm, for hers is a heroic soul she comes from no common mould; she will come forth from the death-chamber well armed for the battle of life. In her veins runs the blood of the Puritans, and all the energy, intelligence and perseverance of that grand old race lies mingled in her frame. No danger it will fail her now ; no danger but that such a woman will suc ceed ; no danger but that such a mother is a fit woman to raise a President. JAMES A. GARFIELD. 2 r Her lineage will guarantee this anywhere. Let us look back a moment at the names that stand sponsor for her courage and devotion. When the Edict of Nantes was revoked, Maturin Ballou fled to America and took refuge at Cumberland, Rhode Island. The fifth in descent from this great man was James Ballou, who, after some vicissitudes, finally found a home at Richmond, New Hampshire, and a wife in the person of Me- hetabel Ingalls, of that place. Four children were born to Ballou, one of whom was christened Eliza. Soon after her birth, on September 2ist, 1 80 1, at the age of eight, her father dead, she re moved with her mother to Worcester, Otsego County, New York. At the close of the War of 1812, a removal was again thought advisable, this time once more toward the West. Zainesville, Ohio, was selected as the Mecca of this pilgrim age, and after the household effects had been loaded into heavy carts, the adventurous party set out. Six weeks were occupied in the journey, and six more in settling in the new home. At the age of eighteen, Eliza Ballou fell in love with the man whose death we have just described, Abram Gar- field. His lineage was as strongly marked by all the qualities that made " men " in the brave days of old, as was that of the woman he chose to be his wife. In the stout, strangely-shaped ship that 2 5 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF brought the famous Governor Winthrop to the in hospitable shores of his New England home, to " The stern and rock-bound coast," came also Edward Garfield, a Welshman of brave heart, who left his birthplace (Chester in Wales) for an unknown, untried home in the New World. The name he bore was probably in those days pronounced differently to the way it is now sounded, for, as old names always did, it meant something. In Anglo-Saxon it meant "field watch." Was this prophetic of the military honors coming to the name of Garfield in later years? An ancient coat of arms, derived from Gaerfili Castle, in Wales, has on the shield a gold ground crossed by three red horizontal bars, and in the upper dexter corner (left hand looking toward the shield) on an ermine canton, is a red Maltese cross, (croix fi rmcc) . The crest consists of a helmet with a raised visor, above which is an arm with a drawn sword, similar to the familiar device in the State seal of Massachusetts. The motto is "In cruce vinco" (Through faith I con quer). The Maltese cross seems to indicate that the bearer had been in the Crusades, and the ermine signifies that the coat of arms was con ferred by the king. Edward Garfield thought little of this as he landed in Massachusetts Bay. He had come to a i-ountry where such heraldic glories were of little JAMES A. CAR FIELD. 2 J moment. He settled at Watertown, Massachu setts, where he and some of his descendants lie buried. Solomon Garfield, one of Edward Gar- field s descendants, soon after the Revolutionary War, in which the Garfields upheld fully the honor of their name, moved with his children, one of whom bore the name of Thomas, to Worcester, Otsego County, New York. It was here that Abram Garfield was born. When the question came up in the quiet of the simple family circle : What shall we name the boy? not many minutes discussion decided that he should be called after his uncle Abram, a man who deserved well of his country, for he served it well. He was among the foremost of the farmers who, with their rusty rifles, hastened to repulse the British assault on Concord Bridge; and he was selected, with John Hoar, grandfather of the pres ent Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, as witnesses, whose depositions concerning the British assault were taken at the request of the Continental Con gress, which wished to show that the British gov ernment made the first illegal aggression, and began the War of Independence. The young Garfield bearing his uncle s worthy name, was born in December, 1 799. When two years old he lost his father by an attack of the small-pox, and the boy henceforth was under the care of a mother who possessed a sufficient meas ure, of those sterling virtues the women of our 2 $ LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF Revolution always displayed, to give him a sturdy start in life. What education he gathered was obtained at the maternal knee, and his constitution became hardened and moulded on the broad fields of the family farm. As a boy, rugged and sun tanned, he had made the acquaintance of a prim little girl, born in a New England town, Eliza Bal lon by name, who interested him not a little, and who occupied such of his moments as were given over to heart hopes and heart troubles. But Eliza Ballou moved West, and left Abram Garfield alone in his Eastern home. He was not long fol lowing where his heart prompted, and in the au tumn of 1819 he journeyed westward to meet and win his bride. The leisure hours from his occupation a con tractor s work on the Ohio Canal were agree ably filled in with the courtship of Eliza Ballou, whom he in due course married. His contractor s work over, the canal built, with a fair profit in his pocket, he moved to Orange, Cuyahoga County, and bought a piece of land. He moved practi cally into the wilderness, for there was but one house within seven miles. Life here flowed quietly on, just as in many another Western log cabin. The father managed his farm, and added an acre or two of clearing to it every year. The mother looked after the cabin comforts, and did what she could to make her children fit for the struggle of existence. The father prospered fairly. JAMES A. GARFIELD. 2 g The little country town grew rapidly, neighbors gathered on other farms, and a larger, more vigor ous life settled upon the little place. Everything went well until the outbreak of the fire mentioned at the opening of this chapter. The death of Abram Garfield was the first cloud upon a life of successful happiness. The children, who were around their father s death-bed on that mid-summer morning, in 1831, were four, the eldest, a girl, Mehetabel, bearing her grandmother s Puritan name; the second, Thomas, called after his uncle; the third, Mary, and the last, the blue-eyed baby, James Abram, christened for his great uncle, almost as soon as he was born (November igth, 1831). It is the life of this boy, James Abram Garfield, that is portrayed in the following pages. LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF CHAPTER II. THE HOME IN EARLY DAYS. ELIZA GARFIELD had but a sunless prospect before her the morning after her husband was buried. A small farm in- cumbered with debt, a dense forest only partially broken by clearings, a scattered population almost as poor as herself, made up her immediate envi- ronment^. Putting aside the mistaken but kindly- meant advice of friends, she said the house should not be broken up, the children should not be scat tered. Advisers yielded to her will, and she had her way. She took up the mantle of head of the family, and with that brevet rank which widowhood never fails to confer upon deserving women, she made herself thoroughly respected by her sterling force of character and high resolve to dare and do for the weal of her children. Though small of stature, and thirty years of age, she had the ability and energy of a larger ^nd older woman. The farm was to be kept up, the home continued as it had been since 1830, the "four saplings" cared for until they were ready to be transplanted. Then, and not till then, would she give up the farm. This was a resolve that boded a harvest in its JAMES A. CARFIELD. 3 ! fruition. For there was nothing strikingly beau tiful in the country where she dwelt, there was nothing remarkably attractive. The soil was not noticeably excellent. There were a thousand farms that surpassed it, and she had nothing to work with but energy and willingness. She rose early and retired late. Her work never sought her, she sought it. The homestead assumed a more homelike appearance each year, as new comforts were added by the thrifty woman who managed it. The young orchard which Abram Garfield had planted grew amazingly, and the trees fulfilled the promise of their planting. Cherries, apples and plums, and later currants, proved quite an addition to the frugal fare of the family, and the gathering of these was always a delight to the children. Often could young James be seen perched on the top of a tree, with a pail, picking cherries for his mother to preserve, or gathering apples for her to dry. Out-door life to the boy, who had already toddled through infancy and was now a rousing youngster of eight, pre sented many an attraction that some children never seem to perceive. Indian histories, then the liveliest and most vivid of all border reminiscences, were often told over in the twilight to the eager boy, eager for any news of that world to which his yet unformed fan cies had carried him but which he was yet unable to people properly or quite understand. He car- 32 LIFE AXD PUBLIC CAREER OF ried his bright fancies into his play and every tree in the orchard received at his hands the name of some noted author of whom he had but imperfectly heard and still more imperfectly admired; or of some statesman who had figured in the scraps of American history which he had listened to; or better still of some noted Indian Chief whose deeds had excited the boy s admiration. The noblest tree of the orchard received in the boy s estimation the noblest name Tecumseh. As a boy he was always a busy spectator and assistant at the various harvest ceremonies; cider making, apple gathering for butter, corn husking and the like. So seldom perhaps has an apple- butter boiling on the border been seen by any of our readers that we may be pardoned perhaps for turning aside a moment to describe one. In those days there were no carriages and but very few roads. Paths through the forest led from one farm to another, and it: was only the highways between the larger villages that rose to the dignity of township roads. Everybody rode on horseback and the men generally carried the women behind them upon the same horse. In the fall when the apples were gathered it was given out far and near that there would be an apple-butter boiling at a certain farm-house and all the neighbors were cordially invited to attend. In the afternoon came the older women who pared the apples and made ready for the night. Large tubs full of pared, JAMES A. GARFIELD. 33 quartered and cored apples stood about the kitchen, and a great black kettle was hung in the yard. As night approached youths and maidens, some on foot and some on horseback, came from miles around and then the fire under the kettle was lighted. The kettle was filled about two- thirds full of cider and a bushel of quartered ap ples thrown in as soon as the cider came to a boil. It had to be unceasingly stirred with a long handled stirrer lest it burn. With a maid to assist, a young man took charge of the kettle and standing face to face with their hands on the stirrer, they moved the apples about in the kettle and chatted of love, war or the gossip of the neighborhood. What man that has ever stirred apple butter with his sweetheart has forgotten it? And who of these cannot now remember with a thrill of delight the paring bees and the fun of counting the apple seeds to know if the girl next you really loved you? And who but recalls the sweet blushes as the tell-tale seeds revealed the hidden secret, the agitated flight of the maiden to escape the shock ing public announcement of the discovery just made? The frolics of apple-butter boiling were hardly forgotten before the corn-huskings lightened the cool autumn days, and gave to labor wings of pleasure. Here young Garfield was in his ele- ment, as he assisted everybody in the long line of men and women who, with many a happy jest, 34 LIFE AA D PUB 1. 1C CAREER OF many a frolic, vigorously applied the shucker to the yielding leaf. Here, again, the youth and maiden were found side by side. She working assiduously, he less earnestly, though more watch fully for fear some red ear not noticed might lose him the privileged kiss. They were happy days, those before the modern march of machinery in vaded our harvest fields to shorten our labor, and to steal away all the sweet privileges that the cus tom of decades had interwoven with it. But while they lasted upon the Orange farm of the Gar- fields young James took his share of the romping, for he was fond of it, or of the work, of which he was fonder. For there was not a lazy bone in his body, and he possessed the full boyish enthusiasm that oftentimes makes die whole world seem ob tainable. JAMES A. GARFIELD. * ? CHAPTER III. DAYS OF EARNEST WORK. THE early spring of 1843 finds the Garfield family still humbly prosperous. The not over-productive farm yields a subsistence, a subsistence made somewhat more bountiful, now that the children are all able to do work that counts. The elder son works the farm with the aid of hired hands, and James, now twelve years of age, is beginning to help. He drives in the cattle, carries wood, hoes the potatoes and corn, builds fires and does whatever his little hands can find to do. The girls assist their mother with her house hold duties ; and the family, though poor, is thor oughly happy. James has obtained some tools a saw, a chisel, a gimblet, and a shaving-knife and with these he mends the chairs, puts latches and hinges on the doors, and is so handy, his brother says, he will " surely be a carpenter some day and build houses." In winter the children go to the village-school, and are fast acquiring the rudiments of knowledge. The mother helps them with their little lessons. The district school only lasts for a few months in winter, and often the weather is so inclement the children cannot go out. Then the mother teaches LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF them herself, reads to them, and as the embers crackle and sparkle in the open fire-place, diffusing a gentle warmth, the family gathers about it, and little heed is paid to the driving storm without. At night stories are told, the scanty library over hauled and its precious information repeated with out end. There is one book which is a source of never-ending comfort, the Holy Bible, and from this the mother reads every night to her children selecting those interesting Bible stories which their young minds can comprehend. Among the books were two of greatest interest to young James, Weem s " Life of Marion," and Grimshaw s " Napoleon." " Mother, read to me about that great soldier," he says almost every night, and as the martial deeds of the first man of France are recited the boy s eyes dilate, his breast swells, and once he exclaims, enthusiastically^ 44 Mother, when I get to be a man, I am going to be a soldier." At this the girls laugh heartily, and James, chagrined, says, " Well, you will see that I will be a soldier, and whip people as Napoleon did. The good-natured and matter-of-fact Thomas re minds him that it is far better to be a farmer, and so the matter drops. The little school that he attends is not far from the house, and within its walls on due effort, he easily leads the boys and girls who are his class mates. One day, he and his brother are caught JAMES A. GARFIELD. -, 7 j I whispering, and the teacher sends them home. Thomas stays around the school-house, hoping that somehow he will be forgiven. Jim runs right home and then right back again. When he comes into the room the teacher says: "James, I thought I sent you home. Didn t I ?" "Yes, ma am," says Jim. "Well, why didn t you go ?" "I did go, I just got back," and, with a laugh, the teacher allows Jim to stay. He was very clever at this age, and not infrequently he would go to Sunday-school with the teacher and would sit on the desk and ask the boys Bible questions, such as these: "Who was the wisest man?" "Who was the meekest man?" "Who was in the whale s belly?" The boys did not know, and then Jim s superior knowledge would come into play, and he would gravely inform them, and always with accuracy. Thus the winter passes away, and the summer comes on all too soon. With the opening leaves, the summer s work begins. The manure has to be hauled out and spread upon the land, then the land is plowed, har rowed mellow, and made ready for the corn. Far rowing out, or marking the earth for the corn, is a neat job, and often a boy has to ride the horse to keep him going straight. The dropping of the corn is always done by boys and girls. With a basket full of kernels on one arm, four grains at a time are taken out, and put in a hill. Some take ~g LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF a handful out at a time, and measure out fouf grains with the thumb and the two front fingers, letting them slide off into the hill. The hills must be put the same distance apart, and the droppers generally w ilk in the farrow, planting the kernels just in front of the big toe, three feet being allowed between hills. The girls and boys run in their bare feet, and each one vies with the other in plant ing the hills regularly and with expedition. What jolly races we have had along the corn rows to beat the hoers out and have time to gather the raspberries that grew in the fence corners ! Each corn-dropper" is followed by a man with a hoe, who carefully covers up the seed, and grumbles inces santly if the kernels are scattered too far apart. After the corn-planting season comes the stone- picking from the land that is to be mowed, and this must be done early, before the grass gets so high as to conceal the smaller stones. To prop erly cleanse a piece of grass land from stones is no small job, and often have we seen the boys with their finger-nails worn into the quick, and the skin so thin on their fingers that the blood oozed through. In those days, before reapers and mow ers were known, the smallest stone would spoil a scythe, and every one had to be carefully picked up and carried away or placed in little heaps, around which the scythe men could mow. Planting potatoes, cultivating the corn to keep down the weeds, hoeing potatoes, weeding in the JAMES A. GARFIELD. 39 garden, milking the cows, churning and butter- making occupied the time until the grass was grown, and then came the hay making. Who that has ever lived on a farm will forget the jolly time when the scythes were broughtOut, and the whet-stones rang against their blue- steel blades ? What music was sweeter than the sonof of the o mowers ? And when the hay was turned to dry in the sun, we raked it into windrows for the pitch ers. Then the wagon, with its wide ladders ; the bright forks, with their long handles ; the fragrant odor of the grass, as it was pitched on the wagon, to be caught in our arms, and built into a long, wide sugar loaf overhanging the wheels; the sun shining, the meadow-larks singing, and our own little sweetheart adding her tender voice, as with nut-brown hands and disheveled hair she rakes the fragrant hay! It is always the province of a farm boy to build the hay on the wagon, and often the little maid assisted, sometimes tramping with naked feet on a hidden brier, which causes her to scream gently, and necessitated a search for the nasty jagger. The haying season is speedily followed by the grain-cutting. "The harvest is ripe," is a welcome announcement to the husbandman, but not always to the farmer s son, for it means "strength, labor and sorrow" to him. Up at daylight to turn the grind stone for the cradle-scythes, out with the lark to bring in the cows and get the morning work done, be- 3 4O LirE AA D PUBLIC CAREER OF fore the harvesters begin. Then following the reap ers and binders, to gather up the sheaves for the shocks, while the sun, each hour grows hotter and hotter, until the light quivers with waves of heat. The bringing out of the ten o clock piece, the carry ing of water for the thirsty men, and the toiling until the welcome dinner-bell rings ! How often have we thought it never would ring, and the great, hot, red sun seemed to have been commanded by an other Joshua to stand still in the sky. Then the sweet noon rest under the trees, the renewal of labor, the long, hot afternoon, with night at last ! What farmer-boy does not remember these days in his early life ? To James Garfield such life was pregnant with interest, engendered by duty. He was not an en thusiastic farmer, but he was an enthusiastic helper of his mother, and from the time he was able he was always willing he shouldered his full share of all the farm-work, finding his special province in the lighter labors of seed-time and harvest. In the fall, "chores" about the barn-house, until the winter s snowy mantle covered the ground, and the district school-teacher summoned the boys and girls to reopen their neglected books, for another season. And so the years fled their even course until 1846. JAMES A. GARFIELD. CHAPTER IV. THE PIRATE S OWN BOOK. THERE was a wide difference between the Garfield boys. Thomas, the older brother* was quiet, unambitious, and aspired to nothing more than the honest, regular round of a farmer s life. James, the younger, was enterpriz- ing, ambitious and pushing in his temperament. It is more than doubtful if he ever intended to be a farmer, and, probably, from his earliest years his brain was tenanted with visions of greatness. He had now become so expert in the use of tools that he could, while yet a mere boy, make or build almost anything, and his talent as a carpenter was in constant demand. Hardly a building or enter prise of any kind in the section of. Ohio where he lived, but bore some marks of his skill. He had a carpenter s bench, and on this he worked early and late, though his labor brought him but small financial return. The land on which the Garfields lived was so poor it yielded them but a scanty living, and James felt the necessity of "working out," as it was called, to increase the limited re- sources of the family. He was early and late in the village, and among the neighbors, seeking odd jobs for his dexterous hands, and soon came to be 42 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF known as the most industrious lad in all Orange. His life was a hard one, but James was patient bein" willing to "labor and wait" for the better o o times that he knew would come when he deserved them. His popularity with the citizens of Orange was great, and they often put themselves out to do a favor for the youth who was so firmly resolved to become a fully equipped man, and they gave him employment mornings, evenings and Saturdays. In this way he earned enough to clothe and main tain himself, and also help the family a little. The summer vacation afforded him more time to work, and added largely to his earnings. He was sober and steady, a gaint in labor, and never seemed to even give himself time to rest. The savings of his busy vacations, earned with a jack-plane and hammer, made a full purse to the lad whose pre vious supplies of money had been more than meagre. From his earliest appreciable days, young Gar- field had been fond of books. Before he could read, he loved to listen to what others would tell him, treasuring every word his unpracticed memory could recall. When he was able to read, his ap petite for it grew with every hour of his life. What he could obtain in the way of literature he devoured, not merely read, but re-read and re-read, until every word was more than a " twice told tale. Books of adventure, talcs of daring, lives UAMES A. GARFIELD *T THE AGE OF SIXTEEN. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH. JAMES A. GARFIELD. 45 of freebooters, seemed to fascinate his mind the most. The air of wild freedom, the nonchalance and absence of care with which pirates lived, was a great attraction to the boy s spirit, already equal in its boldness to the most daring freebooter the sea ever knew. " The Pirate s Own Book " was a treasure-house of stories in which Garfield took an extreme, ever vivified delight. No matter how many times he pored over the book ; no matter how often he absorbed its wild life and seemed to breathe the very atmosphere in which his heroes lived and moved, it was ever a well-spring of pleasure to him. He shared in all the dangers of the pirates, he made the bivouac with them on the lonely beach among the shadows, he drank their coffee, he eat their biscuits and fruit, he stole with them on stealthy foot over the difficult paths to where the gold was buried from the last great prize, a Spanish treasure galleon, he boarded the stranger ship, he carried a torch that set her on fire with the best of them, and he joined with all a boy s ardor in the lusty cheer as the prize went down. He lived their lives over again, he was every brave chief in turn, and he loved the salt waves with the most enthusiastic of them all. It was perhaps fortunate at this juncture that there were no opportunities to gratify the wild fancies thus born within the boy s heart, fancies the black shadows of which he hardly saw. As it was the Pirate s Own Book only fired his ambition 4 6 LIEE A. YD PUBLIC CAREER OF to be something, and so did no harm. He saw too that his ambition could only be gratified with money and upon a larger field of life that opened to him in the Cuyahoga wilderness or was con tained within the bounds of Orange. One day he came to his mother and said, "Mother, I have engaged to chop a hundred cords of wood for twenty-five dollars." "But are you sure you are quite strong enough for such an undertaking?" inquired the careful woman. "Oh, yes," replied James, laughingly, "I shall get through with it some how." He went bravely to work, but soon found he had indeed undertaken a formidable task. His pride forbid him to give up. He had said he could do it and do it he would let it cost what it might. The task was that of a man, and his boy s strength began to fail him before it was half over, but he toiled on day after day. At every stroke of the axe he could look up and catch the sun s glimmer on the slaty-blue waves of Lake Erie. It prompted all the imaginings of his young heart so deeply stirred by the Pirate s Own Book. He thought the lake to be the sea and already he saw Jiimself a bold rover with a gallant crew, com manding a staunch black ship that proudly carried the black flag at the peak, floating out upon its restless bosom. And when he would lie down at night his day thoughts turned into dreams of the JAMES A. GARFIELD. ,~ sea and its life of wild attractiveness. In his dreams he was ever a sailor. When his wood-chopping was done and his hun dred cords were neatly piled, he went to the New- burg farmer, for whom he had worked, received his twenty-five dollars and carried it straight to his mother. Mrs. Garfield looked at the pale boy, and though proud of his manly achievement, she saw, with some apprehension, that he had over tasked himself. She softly remonstrated with his ardor, urging it as a caution for the future. It was precisely this future that was on the boy s mind, and still strong in his sailor fancies, it was this that he had come to speak about. " Mother, I want to be a sailor, and I am going to sea," said he, abruptly. Mrs. Garfield turned pale, for she knew too well, alas ! this meant a separation for years, and, perhaps forever, from her son. " Nay, James," she replied, gently; "why not be content with us at home? the sea is a hard life, and I fear I could not part with you just yet. The hay ing season is at hand, and your brother will need your assistance on the farm. I pray you give up this sea-faring idea for the present." James said not a word, but went about the work on the farm. He assisted in the hay-fields and the gathering of the harvest, but when it was all over he came again to his mother, and announced to her that he could no longer restrain his desire 48 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF fora life on the wave. He had resolved to imme diately depart. Then he packed a few clothes in a bundle, and placing them on a stick across his shoulder, like all the boys in pictures he had ever seen, set out on foot for Cleveland. Amid prayers and forebodings, the poor mother had bidden him good-bye, and he carried with him her kiss and her blessing, as his only fortune He plodded along cheerfully. His heart never failed him, his courage never sank. . He was always hopeful and in good spirits. After a tramp of sev eral days, he reached Cleveland, and at once sought the harbor, that paradise wherein he believed he should find a career of indescribable happiness. There was but one ship in port. This he boarded, and not without some trepidation inquired for the captain. His idea of a ship s captain had been formed from his reading, and then gilded with the honest goodness of his own nature. He imagined that any man who was good and great enough to command a ship, must, at least, be a dashing, brave and gallant fellow, capable, when occasion required, of performing desperate deeds, but disposed to be, as a general thing, generous to a fault. To his ques tion, where he could see the captain, a deck-hand replied: "The cap n s below, he ll be up soon." Garfield, somewhat disturbed, waited the fulfillment of the deck-hand s information. In a moment it proved true. The "cap n" came on deck, an- JAMES A. GARFIELD. *g nouncing his coming" with volley after volley of oaths that would have done no disgrace to "our army in Flanders." A second after the oaths came the captain, and then he greeted the as tonished youth: " What do you want hyar ?" rolled out in gruff est thunder. " I would like to ship as a hand on board your vessel," promptly replied our hero, as he recollec ted his errand. His only answer was a renewed volley of oaths, fired directly at him instead of into space, followed by a suppresed titter from the men. Hurt, shocked and stunned, young Gar- field left the vessel. Once on shore, he sat down to consider his plans, and resolve on his next move. The sea after all did not seem quite as blue, and quite as attractive as it had earlier in the day. He went back to the city. As he strolled on, his philoso phic mind reasoning on his situation, he chanced upon the canal. "As the canal is to the lake, so is the lake to the sea. I will go to work on the canal and learn there first." Armed with this new resolve, which now seemed to be reinforced with all the love and ambition he had originally felt for his sea-faring project, he sought out a canal boat. The EVENING STAR, Captain Amos Letcher, was tied to the bank. Stepping on board, he asked to see the captain. Amos Letcher looked into the boy s frank, open c O LIFE AMD PUBLIC CAREER OF countenance and his bright blue eye, and was men tally prepossessed in his favor. Letcher is still living, and recalls his boy-driver to-day in the fol lowing fashion : " There was nothing prepossessing about him at that time, any more than he had a free, open countenance. He had no bad habits, was truthful, and a boy that everyone would trus on becoming acquainted with him. He came to me in the summer of 1847, when I was Captain of the EVENING STAR, and half owner B. H. Fisher, now Judge Fisher, of Wichita, Kansas, being my partner. Early one morning, while dis charging a cargo, Jim Garfield tapped me on the shoulder and said: Hello, Ame, what are you doing here? You see what I m doing. What are you doing here? Hunting work. What kind of work do you want? Anything to make a living. I came here to ship on the lake, but they bluffed me off, and called me a country greenhorn. You d better try your hand on smaller waters first ; you d better get so you can drive a horse and tie a tow-line. I should like to have you work for me, but I ve nothing better than a driver s berth, and suppose you would not like to work for twelve dollars a month? I have got to do something, and, if that is the best you can do, I will take the team. All right, I will give you a better position as soon as a vacancy occurs. I called my other driver, and said, Ikey, go and show Jim his team. Just as they were going to start, Jim asked, Is it a good team? As good as is on the canal. What are their names? Kit and Nance. Soon after we were in the eleven-mile lock, and I thought I d sound Jim on education in the rudiments of geography, arithmetic and grammar. For I was just green enough those days to imagine that I knew it all. I had been teaching school for three win ters in the backwoods of Steuben County, Ind. So, I asked him several questions, and he answered them all ; and then JAMES A. GARFIELD. r i he asked me several that I could not answer. I told him he had too good a head to be a common canal hand. "As we were approaching the twenty-one locks of Akron, I sent my bowsman to make the first lock ready. Just as he got there, the bowsman from a boat above made his appearance, and said : Don t turn this lock, our boat is just round the bend, ready to enter. My man objected, and began turning the gate. By this time, both boats were near the lock, and their headlights made it almost as bright as day. Every man from both boats was on hand ready for a field fight. I mo tioned my bowsman to come to me. Said I : Were we here first? It s hard telling, but we ll have the lock anyhow. All right, just as you say. Jim Garfield tapped me on the shoulder, and asked : Does that lock belong to us ? I sup pose, according to law, it does not. But we will have it any how. No, we will not. Why ? said I. Why ? with a look of indignation I shall never forget, why, because it don t belong to us. Said I : Boys, let them have it. " Next morning, one of the hands accused Jim of being a coward, because he would not fight for his rights. Said I : Boys,, don t be hard on Jim. I was mad last night, but I have got over it. Jim may be a coward for aught I know, but if he is, he is the first one of the name that I ever knew that was. His father was no coward. He helped dig this canal, and weighed over two hundred pounds, and could take a barrel of whisky by the chime and drink out of the bung- hole and no man dared call him a coward. You ll alter your mind about Jim, before fall. "The next trip, Jim was bowsman. Before we got to Beaver we were bound for Pittsburg the boys all liked him first-rate. Before we got back to Cleveland, Jim had the ague. He left my boat at the eleven-mile lock, and struck across country to his home." On this, his first trip, he had his first fight. He was holding his " setting-pole " against his shoul der ; Dave, a hand, was standing a short distance r 2 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF away, when the boat took a sudden lunge, the pole slipped from the young man s shoulder and flew with terrible force toward Dave. A loud call " Look out, Dave !" was not in time to warn him, and he was struck a painful blow in the ribs. Furiously enraged, he threatened to thrash the offender within an inch of his life, and with his head down, rushed like a mad bull at Garfield. The latter took in the situation at a glance, and stepping aside he waited Dave s approach with quiet confidence. When he was close, he dealt him a terrible blow under the ear, that felled him to the deck of the boat. In an instant he was upon him with his clenched fists raised to strike. " Pound him, him !" called out Captain Letcher, " - if I interfere. A man who ll git mad at an accident orto be thrashed." Jim didn t strike. He saw his antagonist was helpless and he let him up. Dave and he arose, shook hands and were ever after fast friends. This fight was, how ever, but preliminary to many others during his three months on the tow-path, as the boys on the canal undertaking to bully him, it was constantly necessary to remind them that he wouldn t be bullied, which he always did most effectually by the virtue of his toughened muscles. Such was his disposition, capacity and attention to duty that in the completion of the first round trip he had learned all there was to be learned on the tow-path. He was promptly promoted from z K U D C- z C C Q - JAMES A GARFIELD. driver to bowsman, he was accorded die proud privilege of steering the boat instead of steering the mules. By actual count during his first trip in his new position he fell overboard fourteen times. This was serious. The malaria of the canal remon o would in all probability have taken hold of his system in due time anyhow, but these frequent baths greatly helped it. He could not swim a stroke, and aid to fish him out was not always forthcoming. One dark and rainy midnight as the EVENING STAR was leaving one of those long reaches of slack water which abounded in the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal the boy was called out of his berth to take his turn in tending bow-line. Bund ling out of bed, his eyes only half opened, he took his place on the narrow platform below the bow deck and began uncoiling a rope to steady the boat through a lock it was approaching. Sleepily and slowly he unwound the coil till it knotted and caught in a narrow cleft in the edge of the deck. He gave it a sudden pull, but it held fast, then another and a stronger pull and it gave way, but sent him over the bow of the EVENING STAR into the water. Down he went into the dark night and still darker water and the EVENING STAR glided on to bury him among the fishes. No human help was near; God only could save him and He only by a miracle. So the boy thought as he went down saying the prayer his mother had c^6 LIPE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF taught him. Instinctively clutching the rope, IK; sank below the surface, but then it tightened in his grasp and held firmly. Seizing it, hand over hand he drew himself up on deck and was again a live boy among the living. Another kink had caught in another crevice and proved his salvation. Was it the prayer or the love of his praying mother that saved him? The boy did not know but long after the boat had passed the lock he stood there in his dripping clothes pondering the question. Coiling the rope, he tried to throw it again into the crevice, but it had lost the knack of kinking. Many times he tried six hundred it is said and then set down and reflected: "I have thrown this rope six hundred times, I might throw it ten times as many without its catching. Ten times six hundred are six thousand, so there were six thou sand chances against my life. Against such odds Providence alone could have saved it. Providence, therefore, thinks it worth saving, and if that s so I won t throw it away on a canal boat. I ll go home, get an education, and become a man." Straightway he acted on the resolution, and not long after stood before his mother s log cottage in the Cuyahoga Wilderness. It was late at night. The stars were out, and the moon was down, but by the firelight that came through the window, he saw his mother kneeling before an open book, which lay on a chair in the corner. She was read- JAMES A. GARFIELD. - 7 ing, but her eyes were off the page looking up to the Invisible: "Oh turn unto me, and have mercy upon me! Give Thy strength unto Thy servant, and save the son of Thy handmaid!" Then she read what sounded like a prayer, but this is all the boy remembered, as he for the first time comprehended that his departure had crushed her. - He opened the door, put his arm about her neck, and his head upon her bosom. What words he said we do not know, but there, by her side, he gave back to God the life which He had given. So, the mother s prayer was answered. So sprang up the seed which in toil and tears she had planted. For a short time he remained at home, com forting his mother and endeavoring to reconcile o o her to his hopes of a sea-faring life. This he more than accomplished, and was just about to take his second departure, when the malaria took hold of him and he was seized in the*vice-like grip of fever and ague. For six months his strong frame was shaken. He lay upon the bed, the "ague-cake" in his side. Tenderly, indefatigably, his mother nursed him during his days of suffering, which her care and his iron constitution, at last permitted him to overcome. He was still determined, how ever, to return to the canal, and thence to the lake and ocean. Mrs. Garfield well knew that any op- -g LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF position would be useless, so she argued that he had better attend school, for a time, at least, until he was able to resume severe labor, and thus fit himself to teach during the winter months, when he could not sail. He reluctantly consented to his mother s wishes. So came about a great change a change that worked for Jim Garfield a wonder ful, far-differing future than that which he had woven from his net of fancies, by the aid of the " Pirate s Own Book." JAMES A. GARFIELD. CHAPTER V. INTER FOLIO FRUCTUS FRUIT BETWEEN LEAVES. UP to this time, in our hero s life, there are no political impressions to record. The boy well remembers attending a political meeting in the ever-memorable Harrison cam paign, but merely as a curiosity seeker. Nor is it to be recorded that he had any deep religious emotions. He went regularly, when at home, to the Disciples meeting, first at Bentleyville, and later at the school-house near his home, where his Uncle Boynton had organized a congregation. The polemics of religion interested him deeply at that time, but his heart was not touched. He was familiar with Bible texts, and was often a formid able disputant. One day, when about fifteen, he was digging potatoes for Mr. Patrick, in Orange, and carrying them in a basket from the patch to the cellar. Near the cellar door sat a neighbor talk ing to the farmer s grown-up daughter about the merits of the sprinkling and immersion contro versy, and arguing that sprinkling was baptism within the meaning of the Scriptures. James overheard him say that a drop was as good as a fountain. He stopped on his way to the field, and 4 6o LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF began to quote this text from Hebrews: " Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having- our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience." "Ah, you see," said the man, "it says sprinkled. " "Wait for the rest of the text," replied James " and our bodies washed with pure water! Now, how can you wash your body in a drop of water?" and, without waiting for a reply, he hastened off to the potato field. James was now seventeen years of age, but it would seem he had cherished little ambition for anything beyond the prospects offered by that la borious life of a sailor which he had entered upon. It happened that during the winter of his ague- illness there came to Orange, to teach the district school, a young man named Samuel D. Bates now a distinguished minister of the Gospel at Marion, Ohio who had been to the adjacent township to school. He had attended what was then a high school, and known as the Geauga Seminary, and he and Garfield became firm friends. Bates was full of his school experiences, and find ing his new acquaintance so intelligent, with true proselyting spirit, as was so common among men in the backwoods who were beginning to taste the pleasures of education, he was very anxious to take back several new students with him. Gar- field listened to the representations of his eloquent friend and was tempted. He was too weak and ill to carry out his plan of becoming a sailor at JAMES A GARFIELD. 61 once, and he finally resolved to attend the high school one session, and postpone sailing until the next fall. It was this resolution made a major general, a senator, and a President of him, instead of a common sailor before the mast, on a Lake Erie schooner. Accordingly he joined two other young men, Wm. Boynton (his cousin), and Orrin H. Judd, of Orange, and they reached Chester, March 6th, 1849, and rented a room in an unpainted frame house nearly west from the seminary and across the street from it. Garfield had seventeen dollars in his pocket, scraped together by his mother and his brother Thomas. They took provisions along and a cooking stove, and a poor widow prepared their meals and did their washing for an absurdly small sum. The academy was a two-story building, and the school, with about a hundred pupils of both sexes, drawn from the farming country around Chester, was in a flourishing con dition. It had a library of perhaps one hundred and fifty volumes more books than young Gar- field had ever seen before. A venerable gentle man named Daniel Branch was principal of the school, and his wife was his chief assistant. Then there were Mr. and Mrs. Coffin, Mr. Bigelow and Miss Abigail Curtis. Mrs. Branch had introduced an iconoclastic grammar, which assailed all other systems as founded on a false basis, maintained that but was a verb in the imperative mood, and 62 LIFE AND rUBLIC CAREER OF meant be out; that and was also a verb in the im perative mood, and meant add; and tried in other ways to upset the accepted etymology. Garfield had been reared in "Kirkham" at the district school, and refused to accept the new system. The grammar classes that term were a continuous battle between him and the teacher. Here, though he did not know it at the time, he first saw his future wife. Lucretia Randolph, a quiet, stu dious girl in her seventeenth year, was among- the students. There was no association between the two, however, save in classes. James was awk ward and bashful, and contemplated the girls at a distance as a superior order of beings. He bought, soon after arriving, the second alge bra he had ever seen. He studied it as well as natural philosophy. At the close of the spring term he made his first public Speech. It was a six minutes oration at the annual exhibition, de livered in connection with a literary society to which he belonged, and he recorded in a diary that he kept at the time that he "was very much scared," and "very glad of a short curtain across the platform that hid my shaking legs from the audience." Among the books he read at this time was the autobiography of Henry C. Wright, and the determined lad was much impressed with the author s account of how he lived in Scotland on bread and milk and crackers, and how well he was all the time, and how hard he could study. JAMES A, GARFIELD. - Fired with the idea, he told his cousin that they had been too extravagant, and that another term they must board themselves and adopt Wright s diet. At the close of the session he returned to Orange, helped nis brother build a barn for his mother, and then went at the hard work of earning money for from the time he left Chester until to-day he has always paid his way to continue his studies at Chester when the fall term began. He worked at harvesting, and secured enough to guarantee his continuance at the Geauga Seminary, and to pay off some of the doctor s bills incurred during his protracted illness of the winter before. On his return to the seminary the "boarding them selves" experiment was not repeated. An arrange ment was entered into with Heman Woodworth, a carpenter of Chester, to live at his house and have lodging, board, washing, fuel and light for one dollar and six cents a week, and this sum he expected to earn by helping the carpenter on Saturdays and at odd hours on school days. The carpenter was building a two-story house on the east side of the road a little way south of the sem inary grounds, and James s first work was to get out siding at two cents a board. The first Satur day he planed fifty-one boards and so earned one dollar and two cents, the most money he had ever got for a day s work. He began that fall the study of Greek. That term he paid his way, 6 4 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF bought a few books, and returned home with three dollars in his pocket. He now thought him self competent to teach a country school, but in two clays tramping through Cuyahoga County, failed to find employment. Some schools had al ready engaged teachers, and where there was still a vacancy the trustees thought him too young. He returned to his mother completely discouraged, and greatly humiliated by the rebuffs he had met with. He made a resolution that he would never again ask for a position of any sort, and the resolu tion was kept, for every public place he has since had has come to him unsought. Next morning, while still in the depths of de spondency, he heard a man call to his mother from the road : " Widow Gaffield," (a local corruption of the name Garfield), "where s your boy Jim? I wonder if he wouldn t like to teach our school at the Ledge ?" James went out and found a neigh bor from a district a mile away, where the school had been broken up for two winters by the row dyism of the big boys. He said he would like to try the school, but before deciding must consult his uncle, Amos Boynton. That evening there was a family consultation. Uncle Amos pon dered over the matter and finally said : ""You go and try it. You will go into that school as the boy Jim Gaffield; see that you come out as Mr. Garfield, the schoolmaster." The young man mustered the school in the school-room, after a JAMES A. GARFIELD. ^ hard tussle with the bully of the district, who re sented a flogging", and tried to brain the teacher with a billet of wood. No problem in his after life ever took so much absorbing thought and study as that of making the Ledge school success ful. He devised all sorts of plans for making study interesting to the children ; joined in the out-door sports of the big boys, read aloud even ings to the parents where he boarded, and won the hearts of old and young. Before spring he got the name of the best schoolmaster who ever taught at the Ledge. His wages were "twelve dollars a month and found," and he "boarded around " in the families of the pupils. He returned to the seminary in the spring (1850) to find the principal, Mr. Branch, had left and was succeeded by Spencer J. Fowler, while John B. Beach had stepped into the shoes of the crusty, iconoclastic grammarian, Mrs. Branch. Dur ing this, his third term at the seminary, he and his cousin Henry boarded themselves and put in practice Henry C. Wright s dietary scheme. At the end of six weeks the boys found their ex penses for food had been just thirty-one cents per week apiece. Henry thought they were living too poorly for good health, and they agreed to in crease their outlay to fifty cents a week apiece. James had, up to this time, looked upon a college course as wholly beyond his reach, but he met a college graduate who told him he was mistaken 66 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF in supposing that only the sons of rich parents were able to take such a course. A poor boy could get through, he said, but it would take a long time and very hard work. The usual time was four years in preparatory studies and four in the regular college course. James thought that o o Jo by working part of the time to earn money, he could get through in twelve years. He then re solved to bend all his energies to the one purpose of getting a college education. From this reso lution he never swerved a hair s breadth. Until it was accomplished, it was the one overmastering idea of his life. The tenacity and single-hearted ness with which he clung to it, and the sacrifices he made to realize it, unquestionably exerted a powerful influence in moulding and solidifying his character. In March of this year, after having exercised his full freedom in reaching conclusions, he joined his uncle s church, the Church of the Disciples, or Campbellites, and was baptized in a little stream that flows into the Chagrin River. His conver sion was brought about by a quiet, sweet-tempered man, who held a series of meetings in the school- house near the Garfield homestead, and told in the plainest manner, and with the most straight forward earnestness, the story of the Gospel. The creed he then professed, and which was then held by few, but now by about half a million followers, is as follows : JAMES A. GARFIELD. 6 7 1. We call ourselves Christians or Disciples. 2. We believe in God the Father. 3. We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and our only Saviour. We regard the divinity of Christ as the fundamental truth in the Christian system. 4. We believe in the Holy Spirit, both as to its agency in conversion and as an indweller in the heart of the Christian. 5. We accept both the Old and New Testament Scriptures as the inspired word of God. 6. We believe in the future punishment of the wicked and the future reward of the righteous. 7. We believe that Diety is a prayer-hearing and prayer- answering God. 8. We observe the institution of the Lord s Supper on every Lord s Day. To this table it is our practice neither to invite nor debar. We say it is the Lord s Supper for all the Lord s children. 9. We plead for the union of all God s people on the Bible and the Bible alone. 10. The Bible is our only creed. 11. We maintain that all the ordinances of the Gospel should be observed as they were in the days of the Apostles. When the summer came he went again to his old trade, and was happy among the hammers and planes, the saw and chisel. He earned a fair amount, and returned in the fall to the seminary. During this fall he entered a school of book-keep ing, penmanship and elocution, kept by Dr. Alonzo Harlow, located at Chagrin Falls, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Garfield was the doctor s janitor, paying his tuition in that manner, and at the same time earning his board of a neighboring farmer by doing chores about the place. It was here that ^g LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF he took his first lessons in elocution, and received the first real encouragement to fit himself for pub lic life. In the winter he taught a village school in Warrensville, receiving sixteen dollars a month and board. One of the boys under his charge at this school desired to study geometry. Gar- field had never got so far in mathematics, but he bought a text-book, studied nights, kept ahead of his pupil, and took him through without his once suspecting that the master was not an expert in the science. This was the last of Garfield in Chester or its neighborhood. Writing many years afterward on the time spent here, he said : " I remember with great satisfaction the work which was ac complished for me at Chester. It marked the most decisive change in my life. While there I formed a definite purpose and plan to complete a college course. It is a great point gained, when a young man makes up his mind to devote several years to the accomplishment of a definite work. With the educational facilities now afforded in our country, no young man, who has good health and is master of his own actions, can be excused for not obtaining a good education. Poverty is very inconvenient, but it is a fine spur to activity, and may be made a rich blessing." In the spring he went with his mother to visit relatives in Muskingum County, and rode for the first time in a railroad train. The Cleveland and Columbus Railroad was then just opened, and he went to Columbus from Orange. Hon. Gamaliel JAMES A, GARFIELD. g Kent, then representative from Geauga, showed him over the State capital and the legislative halls. From Columbus Garfield and his mother went by stage to Zanesville, and then floated eighteen miles in a skiff down the Muskingum River to their destination. While there, James taught a spring school in a log building on Back Run, in Harrison Township. The coal burned in the school-house he was obliged to dig from a bank in the rear of the house. In the summer he returned with his mother to Orange. He decided to go on with his education at a new school, established by the Disciples the year before at Hiram, Portage County, a cross roads village, twelve miles from any town or rail road. His religious feeling naturally called him to the young institution of his own denomination. In August, 1851, he arrived at Hiram, and found a plain brick building standing in the midst of a cornfield, with perhaps a dozen farm-houses, near enough for boarding places for the students. It was a lonely, isolated place, on a high ridge divid ing the waters flowing into Lake Erie from those running southward to the Ohio. The Rev. A. S. Hayden was the principal ; Thomas Munnell and Norman Dunshee were teachers ; the latter teach ing mathematics and Greek. Recently General Garfield said, in an address : "A few days after the beginning of the term, I saw a class of three reciting in mathematics geometry, I think. I had ^ Q LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF never seen a geometry, and, regarding both teacher and class with a feeling of reverential awe for the intellectual height tc which they had climbed, I studied their faces so closely that I seem to see them now as distinctly as I saw them then. And it has been my good fortune since that time to claim them all as intimate friends. The teacher was Thomas Mun- nell, and the members of his class were William B. Hazen,- George A. Baker and Almeda A. Booth." He lived in a room with four other pupils, stud ied harder than ever, having now his college pro ject fully anchored in his mind, got through his six books of Caesar that term and made good pro gress in Greek. He met, on entering the institute, a woman, who exercised a strong influence on his intellectual life, Miss Almeda Booth the Margaret Fuller of the West a teacher in the school. She was nine years older than the young student, pos sessed a mind of remarkable range and grasp, and a character of unusual sweetness, purity and strength. She became his guide and companion in his studies, his mental and moral heroine, and his unselfish, devoted friend. When the winter came he returned to Warrens- ville, and taught school again, earning eighteen dollars a month. Spring found him again at Hiram, and during this term, in company with Corydon E. Fuller, he aided Miss Booth in writing a colloquy for the public exercises at the close of the school year. During the ensuing summer (1852), he helped to build a house in the village, planing the sides and shingling the roof himself. JAMES A. GARFIELD. y x In the fall, when the institute opened, one of the tutors in the department of English and ancient languages fell ill, and James Garfield was ad vanced to his place. Henceforward he taught and studied at the same time, his eye all the while fixed upon the bright beacon of a college education. He began Zenophon s Anabasis among other things. That winter he became a member of President Hayden s household. The summer vacation of 1853 only brought harder work. In company of eleven students, he formed a class, and hired Professor Dunshee to give them private lessons for one month. During that time he mastered the Pastorals of Virgil, the Georgics and Buccolics entire, and the first six books of Homer s Illiad, accompanied by a thor ough drill in the Latin and Greek grammar at each recitation. He was also a member of an active literary society during this month. When the fall term was fairly under way, Garfield went at it again, to hasten his preparation for college. He, with some other students, formed a Translation Society, that met at Miss Booth s rooms two evenings a week, and made a joint translation with her of the Book of Romans. The work done was more thorough than rapid. An entry in Garfield s diary for December I5th, 1853, reads: "Transla tion Society sat three hours in Miss Booth s rooms, and agreed upon the translation of nine verses." To this class, Professor Dunshee contributed some 72 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF . . essays on the German commentators, De Wette and Tholock. During the winter (1853-54), Garfield read the whole of "Demosthenes on the Crown." When he went to Hiram he had studied Latin only six weeks, and just begun Greek; and was, therefore, just in a condition to fairly begin the four years preparatory course, ordinarily taken by students before entering college in the freshman class. Yet, in three years time, he fitted himself to enter the junior class, two years further along, and, at the same time, earned his own living, thus crowding six years study into three, and teaching for support at the same time. To accomplish it, he shut the whole world out from his mind, save that little portion of it within the range of his studies; knowing nothing of politics or the news of the day, reading no light literature, and enga ging in no social recreations that took his time from his books. The college question was now before him. But where should he go ? He had recently read some lectures by President Hopkins, of Williams, that had made him think favorably of that institution. But he had originally intended to enter Bethany College, the institution sustained by the church of which he was a member, and presided over by Alexander Campbell, the man above all others he had been taught to admire and revere. A fa miliar letter shall tell us how he reasoned and acted : JAMES A. GARFIELD. 73 " There are three reasons why I have decided not to go to Bethany : ist. The course of study is not so extensive or thorough as in Eastern colleges. 2d. Bethany leans too heavily toward slavery. 3d. I am the son of Disciple parents, am one myself, and have had but little acquaintance with people of other views, and, having always lived in the West, I think it will make me more liberal, both in my religi ous and general views and sentiments, to go into a new circle, where I shall be under new influences. These considerations led me to conclude to go to some New England college. I therefore wrote to the presidents of Brown University, Yale and Williams, setting forth the amount of study I had done, and asking how long it would take me to finish their course. "Their answers are now before me. All tell me I can graduate in two years. They are all brief, business notes, but President Hopkins concludes with this sentence : If you come here we shall be glad to do what we can for you. Other things being so nearly equal, this sentence, which seems to be a kind of friendly grasp of the hand, has settled the question for me. I shall start for Williams next week." Some points in this letter of a young man about to start away from home to college will strike the reader as remarkable. Nothing could show more mature judgment about the matter in hand than the wise anxiety to get out from the Disciples in fluence and see something of other men and other opinions. It was notable that one trained to look upon Alexander Campbell as the master intellect of the churches of the day should revolt against studying in his college, because it leaned too strongly to slavery. And in the final turning of the decision upon the little friendly commonplace that closed one of the letters, we catch a glimpse -4 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF of the warm, sympathetic nature of the man, which much and wide experience of the world in after years has never hardened. So, in the fall of 1854, the pupil of Geauga Seminary and of the Hiram Institute received admission at the venerable doors of Williams. JAMES A. GARFIELD. CHAPTER VI. GARFIELD AT WILLIAMS. WHEN Garfield reached Williams Col lege, in June, 1854, he had about three hundred dollars, which he had saved while teaching at Hiram ; and with this amount he hoped to get through the first year. The col lege year had not quite closed, a few weeks re^ mained, which he utilized by attending the recita^ tions of the sophomore class, in order to become familiar with the methods of the professors before testing his ability to pass the examinations of the junior year. He had a keen sense of his want of the advantages of society and general culture which the students with whom he came in contact had enjoyed all their lives, but his homely man ners and Western garb did not subject him to any slights or mortifications. The spirit of the col lege was generous and manly. No student was estimated by the clothes he wore ; no one was snubbed because he was poor. The intellectual force, originality and immense powers of study possessed by the new-comer from Ohio were soon recognized by his classmates, and he was shown as much respect, cordiality and companionship as if he had been the son of a millionaire. His old 5 ~ LIFE AXD PUBLIC CAREER OF mates recall him as a big young man, quite Ger man in appearance so strong is good Saxon blood, after centuries of exile from the Saxon land blonde and bearded, strong-limbed, serious, but sociable, and with the Western easy-going manners, ready wit and broad sympathy going out toward all his fellows. The boys called him " Old Gar," so readily did he assume the patri archate of the college in the brief two years he was there. He boarded in club, and did not smoke or drink. The beauty of the scenery around Mechanics- ville made a strong impression upon his fancy. He had never seen mountains before. The spurs of the Green Hills, which reach down from Ver mont and inclose the little college town in their arms, were to the young man from the monoto nous landscapes of the Western Reserve a won derful revelation of grandeur and beauty. He climbed Greylock and explored all the glens and valleys of die neighborhood. The examination for entering the junior class was passed without trouble. Although self-taught, save for the help of his friend and companion in his studies, Miss Booth, his knowledge of the books prescribed was thorough. A long summer vacation followed his examination, and this time he employed in the college library, the first large collection of books he had ever seen. His ab sorption in the double work of teaching and fitting JAMES A. GARFIELD. 77 himself for college had hitherto left him little time for general reading, and the library opened a new world of profit and delight. He had never read a line of Shakespeare, save a few extracts in the school reading-books. From the whole range of fiction he had voluntarily shut himself off at eighteen, when he joined the church, having serious views of the business of life, and imbibing the notion, then almost universal among religious people in the country districts of the West, that novel reading was a waste of time, and, therefore, a simple, worldly sort of intellectual amusement. When turned loose in the college library, with weeks of leisure to range at will over its shelves, he began with Shakespeare, which he read through from cover to cover. Then he went to English history and poetry. Of the poets, Tennyson pleased him best, which is not to be wondered at, for the influence of the Laureate was then at its height. He learned whole poems by heart, and can repeat them now. After he had been six or eight months at col lege, and had devoured an immense amount of serious reading, he began to suffer from intel lectual dyspepsia. He found his mind was not assimilating what he read, and would often refuse to be held down to the printed page. Then he revised his notions about books of fiction, and concluded that romance is as valuable a part of intellectual food as salad of a dinner. He pre- yo LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF scribed for himself one novel a month, and on this medicine his mind speedily recuperated and got back all its old elasticity. Cooper s Leatherstock- ing Tales were the first novels he read, and after ward Walter Scott. An English classmate intro duced him to the works of Dickens and Thack eray. He formed a habit in those days of making notes while he read of everything he did not clearly understand, such as historical references, mythological allusions, technical terms, etc. These notes he would take time to look up afterward in the library, so as to leave nothing obscure on his mind concerning the books he absorbed. The thor oughness he displayed in his work in after life was thus begun at that early period, and applied to every subject he took hold of. The ground his mind traversed he carefully cleared and plowed before leaving it for fresh fields. Garfield studied Latin and Greek and took up German as an elective study. One year at Wil liams completed his classical studies, on which he was far advanced before he came there. German he carried on successfully until he could read Goethe and Schiller readily and acquired considerable fluency in the conversational use of the language. He entered with zeal into the lit erary work of the college, was a vigorous debater and a member of the Philologian Society, of which he was president in 1855-56. The influ ence of the mind and character of Dr. Hopkins JAMES A. GARFIELD. was seriously felt in shaping the direction of Gar- field s thought and his views of life. He often says that the good president rose like a sun before him, and enlightened his whole mental and moral nature. His preaching and teaching were a con stant inspiration to the young Ohio student and he became the centre of his college life, the object of his hero-worship. At the end of the fall term of 1854, Garfield enjoyed a winter vacation of two months which he spent in North Pownal, Vt, teaching a writing class in the same school-house where a year be fore Chester A. Arthur was the principal. Gar- field wrote a broad, handsome hand, a hand that was strongly individual, and the envy of the boys and girls who tried to imitate it. At the end of the college year in June, Garfield returned home to see his mother, who was then living with a daughter at Solon. His money was exhausted and he had to adopt one of two plans, either to borrow enough to take him through to graduation at the end of the next year or set to work as a teacher until he earned the requisite amount ; and so break the continuity of his col lege course. He, however, did neither, but in sured his life for eight hundred dollars, his brother Thomas undertaking to furnish the funds on in stalments, but, being eventually unable, the obliga tion was assumed by Dr. Robinson, of Hiram, who advanced the money and took the insurance policy as security. g o LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF He returned to Williams in the fall, and was again active in his contributions to the College Magazine, the Williams Quarterly. Of his con tributions we cannot quote as liberally as we would like. We find three poetical productions. One is a political satire, called " Sam," and contains the lines : " Twas noon of night, and by his flickering lamp, That gloated o er his dingy room and damp, With glassy eye and haggard face there sat, A disappointed, worn-out Democrat ; His eloquence all wasted plans all failed, His spurious coin fast to the counter nailed, Deception s self was now at length deceived, His lies, political, no more believed." Another, evidently a squid at some college prank, and is modeled on Tennyson. It is en titled " The Charge of the Tight Brigade." The first verse leads off: Bottles to right of them. Bottles to left of them, Bottles in front of them, Fizzled and sundered t Ent ring with shout and yell, Boldly they drank and well, They caught the Tartar then ; OA, -what a perfect sell! Sold the half hundred. Grinned all the dentals bare, Swung all their caps in air, Uncorking bottles there, Watching the Freshmen while Every one wondered ; Plunged in tobacco smoke, With many a desperate stroke, JAMES A. GARFIELD. g Dozens of bottles broke, Then they came back, but not, But not the half hundred." The third contribution, in verse, we reproduce entire. It is entitled " Memory :" " Tis beauteous night; the stars look brightly down Upon the earth, decked in her robe of snow. No light gleams at the window save my own, Which gives its cheer to midnight and to me. And now with noiseless step sweet Memory comes, And leads me gently through her twilight realms. What poet s tuneful lyre has ever sung, Or delicatest pencil e er portrayed The enchanted shadowy land where Memory dwells ? It has its valleys, cheerless, lone and drear, Dark-shaded by the mournful cypress tree. And yet its sunlit mountain-tops are bathed In heaven s own blue. Upon its craggy cliffs, Robed in the dreamy light of distant years, Are clustered joys serene of other days; Upon its gently-sloping hillsides bend The weeping-willows o er the sacred dust Of dear departed ones ; and yet in that land, Where er our footsteps fall upon the shore, They that were sleeping rise from out the dust Of death s long, silent years, and round us stand, As erst they did before the prison tomb Received their clay witMn its voiceless halls. The heavens that bend above that land are hung With clouds of various hues : some dark and chill, Surcharged with sorrow, cast their sombre shade Upon the sunny, joyous land below ; Others are floating through the dreamy air; White as the falling snow their margins tinged With gold and crimson hues ; their shadows fall Upon the flowery meads and sunny slopes, Soft as the shadows of an angel s wing. When the rough battle of the day is done, And evening s peace falls gently on the heart, I bound away across the noisy years, g 2 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF Unto the utmost verge of Memory s land, Where earth and sky in dreamy distance meet, And Memory dim with dark oblivion joins ; Where woke the first-remembered sounds that fell Upon the ear in childhood s early morn ; And wandering thence, along the rolling years, I see the shadow of my former self Gliding from childhood up to man s estate. The path of youth winds down through many a vale And on the brink of many a dread abyss, From out whose darkness comes no ray of light, Save that a phantom dances o er the gulf, And beckons toward the verge. Again the path Leads o er a summit where the sunbeams fall ; And thus in light and shade, sunshine and gloom, Sorrow and joy, this life-path leads along." The prose contributions were many, and upon many subjects. During his second year, iS55~ 56, he formed, with W. R. Baxter, Henry E. Knox, E. Clarence Smith and John Tatlock, the editors for the class of 56. In the opening number of his year, September, 1855, he supplied the Editor s Table. How pleasantly he voices the trouble every newspaper editor or writer has gone through, when he says in his opening lines : " It is, indeed, an uninviting task to bubble up sentiment and elaborate thought in obedience to corporate laws ; and not unfrcquently those children of the brain when paraded before the proper authorities, show by their meager propor tions that they have not been nourished by the genial warmth of a willing heart." Speaking of the Quarterly, which was in those days a really high class magazine, he states its purpose: JAMES A. GARFIELD. g., "It proposes a kind of intellectual tournament where we may learn to hurl the lance and wield the sword, and thus prepare for the conflict of life. It shall be our aim to keep the lists still open and the arena clear, that the knights of the quill may learn to hurl the lance and wield the sword of though , and thus be ready for sterner duties. We shall also endeavor to decorate the arena with all the flowers that our own gardens afford, and thus render the place more pleasant and inviting. We should remember, however, that it is no honor or profit merely to appear in the arena, but the wreath is for those who contend" From a brilliant review of the life and writings of the unfortunate Karl Theodor Korner, that ap peared in the number for March, 1856, we cut a single paragraph : " The greater part of our modern literature bears evident marks of the haste which characterizes all the movements of this age ; but, in reading these older authors, we are impressed with the idea that they enjoyed the most comfortable leisure. Many books we can reaxl in a railroad car, and feel a harmony between the rushing of the train and the haste of the author; but to enjoy the older authors, we need the quiet of a winter evening an easy chair before a cheerful fire, and all the equanimity of spirits we can command. Then the genial good nature, the rich fullness, the persuasive eloquence of those old masters will fall upon us like the warm, glad sun shine, and afford those hours of calm contemplation in which the spirit may expand with generous growth, and gain deep and comprehensive views. The pages of friendly old Gold smith come to us like a golden autumn day, when every object which meets the eye bears all the impress of the completed year, and the beauties of an autumnal forest." Another extract, and we will hurry on to later g , LIFE AND PUBLIC CAKEEX OF dales and other things. Writing on " The Prov ince of History," Garfield defined the historian s duty: "There are two points which the historian should ever have before him : "First The valuation of facts to each other and the whole body of history ; and, "Second The tendency of the whole toward some great end. ** ##** * # "For every village, State and nation there is an aggregate of native talent which God has given, and by which, together with his Providence, he leads that nation on, and thus leads the world. In the light of these truths we affirm that no man can understand the history of any nation, or of the world, who does not recognize in it the power of God, and behold His stately goings forth as He walks among the nations. It is His hand that is moving the vast superstructure of human history, and, though but one of the windows were unfurnished, like that of the Arabian palace, yet all the powers of earth could never complete it without the aid of the Divine Archi tect. "To employ another figure the world s history is a divine poem, of which the history of every nation is a canto, and of every man a word. Its strains have been peaiing along down the centuries, and, though there have been mingled the discord of roaring cannon and dying men, yet to the Chris tian, Philosopher and Historian the humble listener there has been a divine melody running through the song, which speaks of hope and halcyon days to come. The record of every orphan s sigh, of every widow s prayer, of every noble deed, of every honest heart-throb for the right, is swelling that gentle strain ; and when, at last, the great end is attained when the lost image of God is restored to the human soul ; when the church anthem can be pealed forth without a dis- JAMES A. GARFIELD. g r cordant note, then will angels jojn in the chorus, and all the sons of God again shout for joy. Young Garfield s connection with the Quarterly proved of great benefit to him, as it gave him ex perience and brought him into closer contact with the men around him. He first came to know Sam Bowles through the Quarterly, the magazine being printed in Bowies office. Among the constant contributors during Garfield s connection with it as editor, we notice Professor Chadbourne, Horace E. Scudder, G. B. Manly, S. G. W. Benjamin, J. Gilfillan, W. R. Dimmock, John Savery and W. S. B. Hopkins, some of whom survive to-day to a more distinguished fame than the pages of the College Quarterly. His second winter vacation was passed at Pres- tenkill, New York, a country neighborhood, about six miles from Troy, where one of the Disciple preachers from Ohio, named Streeter, was occu pied in preaching. Garfield organized a writing school, to keep himself busy, and occasionally preached in his friend s church. During a visit to Troy he became acquainted with the teachers and directors of the public schools of that city, and was one day surprised by the offer of a position in them, at a salary far beyond his expectations of what he could earn on his return to Ohio after his graduation. The proposition was debated gravely. If he accepted, he could pay his debts, marry the girl to whom he was engaged, and live a life of 86 LIFE AND PUBLIC CARF.FK OF comparative comfort in an Eastern city. But he could not finish his college course, and he would have to sever the ties with friends in Ohio and with the struggling school at Hiram, to which he was deeply attached. He settled the question in a conversation. Walking on a hill, called Mount Olympus, with the gentleman who had made the proposition, Garfield said to him: " You are not Satan, and I am not Jesus, but we are upon the mountain, and you have tempted me powerfully. I think I must say, get thee behind me. I am poor, and the salary would soon pay my debts and place me in a position of inde pendence ; but there are two objections. I could not accom plish my resolution to complete a college course, and should be crippled intellectually for life. Then my roots are all fixed in Ohio, where people know me and I know them, and this transplanting might not succeed as well in the long run as to go back home and work for smaller pay." Study at Williams was easy for Garfield. He had been used to much harder work at Hiram, where he had crowded a six years course into three, and taught at the same time. Now he had the stimulus of a large class, an advantage he had never enjoyed before. His lessons were always perfectly learned. Professor Chadbourne says he was "the boy who never flunked/ and he found a good deal of time for courses of reading that in volved as much brainwork as the college text books. He graduated August, 1856, with a class honor established by President Hopkins and JAMES A. GARF1ELD. o- highly esteemed in the college that of Meta physics reading an essay on "The Seen and the Unseen." It is singular how at different times in the course of his education he was thought to have a special aptitude for some single line of intellec tual work, and how at a later period, his talents seemed to lay just as strongly in some other line. At one time it was mathematics, at another the classics, at another rhetoric, and finally he excelled in metaphysics. The truth was that he had a re markably vigorous and well-rounded brain, capa ble of doing effective work in any direction his will mfght dictate. The class of 1856 contained among its forty-two members a number of men who have since won distinction. Three became general officers in the volunteer army during the rebellion Garfield, Daviess and Thompson. Two, Bolter and Shattuck, were captains, and were killed in battle ; Eldridge, who now lives in Chi cago, was a colonel ; so was Ferris Jacobs, of Delhi, N. Y. ; Rockwell is a quartermaster in the regular army ; Gilfillan is Treasurer of the United States. Hill was Assistant Attorney-General and is now a lawyer in Boston. Knox is a leading lawyer in New York. Newcombe is a professor in the New York University, of New York. During his last term at Williams he made his first political speech, an address before a meeting gathered in one of the class-rooms to support the nomination of John C. Fremont. Although he 88 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF had passed his majority nearly four years before he had never voted. The old parties did not in terest him ; he believed them both corrupted witl the sin of slavery; but when a new party arose t( combat the designs of the slave power it enlistee his earnest sympathies. His mind was free frorr all bias concerning the parties and statesmen ol the past, and could equally admire Clay or Jack son, Webster or Benton. JAMES A. GARFIELD. CHAPTER VII. A COLLEGE PRESIDENT. JAMES A. GARFIELD left the venerable dome of Williams decorated with her high towers and went straight back to his Ohio home, to take a higher step in his hard won career. He entered Hiram College in the fall of 1856 as a teacher of ancient languages and literature. The next year, at the age of twenty-six, he was made president of the institution. This office he held until he went into the army in 1861. Hoping that he might return unwilling to part even with his name the board kept him nominally at the head two years longer. Then he fell out of the cata logue, to re-appear as a trustee and as advisory principal and lecturer in 1864 and 1865. Then his name finally disappears from the faculty page of the catalogue. His last service as an instructor was an admirable series often lectures on "Social Science," given in the spring of 1871. Hiram, when he returned to it, had not much improved since two years before. It was a lone some country village, three miles from a railroad, built upon a high hill, overlooking twenty miles of cheese-making country to the southward. It con tained fifty or sixty houses clustered around the QO I U K AXD PUBLIC CAREER OF green, in the centre of which stood the homel) red-brick college structure. Plain living and high thinking was the order of things in those days, The teachers were poor, the pupils were poor, and the institution was poor, but there was a great deal of hard, faithful study done, and many courageous plans formed. The young president was ambitious for the suc cess of the institution under his charge. There probably never was a younger college president, but he carried his new position remarkably well, and brought to it energy, vigor and good sense, which are the mainsprings of his character. Under his supervision, the attendance on the school at Hiram soon doubled, and he raised its standard of scholarship, strengthened its faculty, and inspired everybody connected with it with something of his own zeal and enthusiasm. At that time the lead ing Hiram men were called Philomatheans, from the society to which they belonged. Henry James, an old Philomathean, mentioning recently the master-spirits of that time, thus referred to the president: Then began to grow up in me an admiration and love for Garfield that has never abated, and the like of which I have never known. A bow of recognition, or a single word from him, was to me an inspiration." The young president taught, lectured and preached, and all the time studied as diligently JAMES A. GARFIELD. Jo as any acolyte in the temple of knowledge. His scholars all regarded him with respect, admi ration and affection. His greatness as a teacher and administrator did not lie so much in his tech nical scholarship, his drillmaster teaching, or his schoolmaster discipline. His power was in ener gizing young men and women. He stimulated thought, aroused courage, stiffened the moral fibre, poured in inspiration, widened the field of mental vision, and created noble ideal of life and character. He was more than a teacher and ad ministrator ; the student found him a helper and friend. A notable instance of this is on record. The present president of Hiram College, Professor B, A. Hinsdale, was greatly troubled, during the win ter of i856- 57, in his mind, concerning the ques tions of life. He wrote to Garfield for relief. Garfield s reply was as follows : " HIRAM, January i5th, 1857. " MY DEAR "Bko. BURKE : I was made very glad a few days since by the receipt of your letter. It was a very acceptable New Year s present, and I take great pleasure in responding. You have given a vivid picture of a community in which in telligence and morality have been neglected and I am glad you are disseminating the light. Certainly, men must have some knowledge in order to do right. God first said, Let there be light.* Afterward He said, It is very good. I am glad to hear of your success in teaching, but I approach with much more interest the consideration of the question you have proposed. Brother mine, it is not a question to be dis- 6 94 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF cussed in the spirit of debate, but to be thought over and prayed over as a question out of which are the issues of life. You will agree with me that every one must decide and direct his own course in life, and the only service friends can afford is to give us the data from which we must draw our own con clusion and decide oupcourse. Allow me, then, to sit beside you and look over the field of life and see what are its aspects. I am not one of those who advise every one to undertake the work of a liberal education ; indeed, I believe that in two- thirds of the cases, such advice would be unwise. The great body of the people will be, and ought to be, intelligent farmers and mechanics, and in many respects these pass the most in dependent and happy lives. But God has endowed some of His children with desires and capabilities for a more extended field of labor and influence, and so every life should be shaped according to what the man hath. Now, in reference to yourself. I know you have capabilities for occupying posi tions of high and important trust in the scenes of active life; and I am sure you will not call it flattery in me, nor egotism in yourself, to say so. Tell me, Burke, do you not feel a spirit stirring within you that longs to know, to do and to dare to hold converse with the great world of thought, and hold before you some high and noble object to which the vigor of your mind and the strength of your arm may be given? Do you not have longings like these, which you breathe to no one, and which you feel must be heeded, or you will pass through life unsatisfied and regretful? I am sure you have them, and they will forever cling round your heart till you obey their mandate. They are the voice of that nature which God has given you, and which, when obeyed, will bless you and your fellow-men. Now, all this might be true, and yet it might be your duty not to follow that course. If your duty to your father or your mother demands that you take another, I shall rejoice to see you taking that other course. The path of duty is where we all ought to walk, be that where it may. But I sincerely hope you will not, without an earnest struggle, JAMES A. GARFIELD. 95 give up a course of liberal study. Suppose you could not be gin your study again till after your majority? It will not be too late then, but you will gain in many respects ; you will have more maturity of mind to appreciate whatever you may study. You may say you will be too old to begin the course, but how could you spend the earlier days of life? We should not measure life by the days and moments that we pass on earth. " The life is measured by the soul s advance ; The enlargement of its powers ; the expanded field Wherein it ranges, till it burns and glows With heavenly joy, with high and heavenly hope. . " It need be no discouragement that you are obliged to hew your own way, and pay your own charges. You can go to school two terms every year, and pay your own way. I know this, for I did so, when teachers wages were much lower than they are now. It is a great truth, that where there is a will there is a way. It may be that by and by your father could assist you. It may be that even now he could let you com mence on your resources, so that you could begin immedi ately. Of this you know, and I do not. I need not tell you how glad I should be to assist you in your work ; but if you cannot come to Hiram while I am here, I shall still hope to hear that you are determined to go on as soon as the time will permit. Will you not write me your thoughts on this whole subject, and tell me your prospects ? We are having a very good time in the school this winter. Give my love to Polden and Louise, and believe me always your friend and brother, "J. A. GARFIELD. "P. S. Miss Booth and Mr. Rhodes send their love to you. Henry James was here and made me a good visit a few days ago. He is doing well. He and I have talked of going to see you this winter. I fear we cannot do it. How far is it from here ? Burke, was it prophetic that my last word to you ended on the picture of the Capitol of Congress ? "J. A. G." 9 6 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF The significance of the last sentence is seen when it is understood that it was written on a sheet of Congress note paper, and the last words came across the little picture of the capitol which adorns its upper left-hand corner. A pleasant picture of his methods and manners is drawn for us from another source the recol lections of an old pupil, the Rev. J. F. Darsie. He pictures Garfield graphically : "I attended school at the Western Reserve Eclectic Insti tute when Garfield was principal, and I recall vividly his method of teaching. He took very kindly to me, and assisted me in various ways, because I was poor and was janitor of the buildings, and swept them out in the morning and built the fires as he had done only six years before, when he was a pupil at the same school. He was full of animal spirits, and he used to run out on the green almost every day and play cricket with us. He was a tall, strong man, but dreadfully awkward. Every now and then he would get a hit on the nose, and he muffed his ball and lost his hat as a regular thing. He was left-handed, too, and that made him seem all the more clumsier. But he was most powerful and very quick, and it was easy for us to understand how it was that he had acquired the reputation of whipping all the other mule-drivers on the canal, and of making himself the hero of that thorough fare when he followed its tow-path ten years earlier. " No matter how old the pupils were Garfield always called us by our first names, and kept himself on the most familiar terms with all. He played with us freely, scuffled with us sometimes, walked with us in walking to and fro, and we treated him out of the class-room just about as we did one another. Yet he was a most strict disciplinarian, and enforced the rules like a martinet. He combined an affectionate and JAMES A. GARFIELD. c confiding manner with respect for order in a most successful manner. If he wanted to speak to a pupil, either for reproof or approbation, he would generally manage to get one arm around him and draw him close up to him. He had a pecu liar way of shaking hands, too, giving a twist to your arm and drawing you right up to him. This sympathetic manner has helped him to advancement. When I was janitor, he used sometimes to stop me and ask my opinion about this and that, as if seriously advising with me. I can see now that my opinion could not have been of any value, and that he proba bly asked me partly to increase my self-respect, and partly to show me that he felt an interest in me. I certainly was his friend all the firmer for it. " I remember once asking him what was the best way to pursue a certain study, and he said : Use several text-books. Get the views of different authors as you advance. In that way you can plow a broader furrow. I always study in that way. He tried hard to teach us to observe carefully and ac curately. He broke out one day in the midst of a lesson with Henry, how many posts are there under the building down stairs? Henry expressed his opinion, and the question went around the class, hardly one getting it right. Then it was : How many boot-scrapers are there at the door? How many windows in the building ? How many trees in the field ? What were the colors of different rooms, and the peculiarities of any familiar objects? He was the keenest observer I ever saw. I think he noticed and numbered every button on our coats. " Mr. Garfield was very fond of lecturing to the school, He spoke two or three times a week, on all manner of topics, generally scientific, though sometimes literary or historical. He spoke with great freedom, never writing out what he had to say, and I now think that his lectures were a rapid compi lation of his current reading, and that he threw it into this form partly for the purpose of impressing it on his own mind. His facility of speech was learned when he was a pupil there 9$ 7.//VT AND PUBLIC CAREER OF The societies had a rule that every student should take his stand on the platform and speak for five minutes, on any topic suggested at the moment by the audience. It was a very trying ordeal. Garfield broke down badly the two first times he tried to speak, but persisted, and was at last, when he went to Williams, one of the best of the five-minute speakers. When he returned as principal his readiness was striking and remarkable. As president of an institute, it was natural that Garfield should appear on the platform on every public occasion. The Church of the Disciples, as "before stated, like the Society of Friends, is accus tomed to accord large privileges of speaking to its laity; and so it came to be expected that Presi dent Garfield should address his pupils on Sun days briefly even when ministers of the Gospel were to preach more at length when no one else was present to conduct the services. The remarks of the young president were always forcible, generally eloquent, and the community presently began to regard him as its foremost public speaker, to be put forward on every occa sion, to be heard with attention on every subject. His pupils also helped to swell his reputation and the admiration for his talents. His larcre brain was stored with information al- o ways at his command; he was fluent without being verbose ; and he had in an unusual degree the happy quality of clearness. This, added to his commanding appearance and effective delivery, made him sought for on all public occasions. His JAMES A. GARFIELD. gg sincerity, his unblemished character, and his elo quence were well known, not only all about the region where he lived, but throughout the State, and the fact that Mr. Garfield was to appear in the pulpit anywhere always drew a great crowd. He remained, as we have said, at Hiram, until the war called him away, and steadily refused all efforts made to induce him to desert the institu tion for whose welfare he had done so much. In March, 1861, he was offered the place of vice- principal of the Cleveland Institute, at a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year. To the offer he re turned this reply: "I am very much obliged to you for your kind offer, but you would not want to employ me for a short time, and I feel it my duty to say that some of my friends have got the insane notion in their heads that I ought to go to Congress. I know I ain t fit for the position, and I have fought against it all I cofcld. I know nothing about political wire-pulling, and I have told my friends plainly that I would have nothing to do with that kind of business, but I am sure that I can be nominated and elected without my resorting to any unlawful means, and I have lately given authority to allow my name to be used. I don t know that anything will come of it; if there does not, I will gladly accept your offer." During his term as president at Hiram, he had continued the study of law, begun some time be fore, and he was admitted to the bar of Cuyahoga County, in 1860. He also paid some attention to Masonry, into which order he was initiated. He 100 /.// /: AND PUBLIC CAREER OF has not been, however, a very active member, though he has taken a number of degrees. When he was in the army so many of his regiment were Masons that they organized a lodge, which he joined to please them. He is a charter member of Pentalpha Lodge, No. 23, and a member of Columbia Chapter, No. i ; Columbia Command- ery, No. 2, and Mithras Lodge of Perfection, A. and A. Rite, all of Washington. With this last mention, President Garfield drops from the record of educational history in this country, to take his place in the procession of figures that stand silhouetted against our national o o horizon, as men who made and saved our country. The mature teacher was transformed into the youthful statesman. But before we turn the page to follow him upon the stormy sea of politics, we must relate aji incident of his life that has proved to have been the happiest red-letter of his ex istence. In his earlier days, when a pupil, he met, as re lated, a sweet-faced girl named Lucretia Rudolph. She was the daughter of a Maryland farmer, Zebulon Rudolph, from the banks of the Shenan- doah. The uncle of this man served with dis tinguished bravery in the war of the Revolution, and after sheathing his sword here, he went to France to draw it in the service of the great Na poleon, and he rose to be, so says a cherished tradition in the Rudolph family, that brilliant sol- JAMES A. GAR HELD: IOI dier, Michel, Duke of Elchingen, Marshal Ney. Zebulon Rudolph s wife was from an old Connec ticut family, and was Arabella Mason, of Hartford, Vermont. This was Lucretia Rudolph s parent age. When Garfield first met her as a fellow-student at Hiram, she was a refined, intelligent, affection ate girl, who shared his thirst for knowledge and his ambition for culture, and had, at the same time, the domestic tastes and talents which fitted her equally to preside over the home of the poor college professor and that of the famous statesman. A Hiram poet, celebrating the La dies Literary Society of the college in verse, so sung: " Again a Mary ? Nay, Lucretia, The noble, classic name That well befits our fair ladie, Our sweet and gentle dame, With heart as leal and loving As e er was sung in lays Of high-born Roman matron, In old, heroic days ; Worthy her lord illustrious, whom Honor and fame attend ; Worthy her soldier s name to wear, Worthy the civic wreath to share That binds her Viking s tawny hair; Right proud are we the world should know As hers, him we long ago Found truest helper, friend." When Garfield went to Williams, Miss Rudolph started for Cleveland to teach in the public schools and to patiently wait the realization of their hopes, IO2 i-WE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF which was agreed to be as soon as he should graduate and become established in life. This he considered accomplished when he succeeded to the head of the Hiram Institute, and accordingly, in 1 858, they were married. A neat little cottage was bought, fronting the college campus, and the wedded life begun, poor in worldly goods, but wealthy in the affection of brave hearts. The match was a love-match and has turned out very happily. The general attributes much of his success in life to his wise selection. Hi wife has grown with his growth, and has been, during all his career, the appreciative companion of his studies, the loving mother of his children, the graceful, hospitable hostess of his friends and guests, and the wise and faithful helpmeet in the trials, vicissitudes and successes of his busy life. Both she and the general keep up their classical studies yet, and derive great satisfaction from doing so. It is said that, when a girl at Hiram^ she used to remark that her Latin and her Greek would be of no use to her in after life. Two or three years ago, having grown a little "rusty" on the dead languages, she expressed a wish that she had not forgotten her Latin, as she would like to take the boys. One day, the general gave her a Caesar, and told her he would hear her recite a page of it that night. She had not looked at the great commentaries for years, but when night JAMES A. GARFIELD. Jo ^ \J came she recited the page very fairly, and from that time on, for two years, she took the two older boys and carried them through their Latin, and , the little children have never been to school, but have been taught at home by their accomplished mother, a wiser, better way. LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF CHAPTER VIII. THE BIRTH OF A POLITICAL CAREER. "P to 1856, General Garfield had taken no particular interest in public affairs. He ^^ had been occupied with other matters. But now that his general education was finished, and he was ready to devote himself to the work of the world, his political pulses began to stir. A year or two before the Republican party had sprung up as an immediate consequent of the Kansas-Nebraska legislation. Its original mission has been thus stated by its present standard- bearer : " Long familiarity with traffic in the bodies and souls of men had paralyzed the consciences of a majority of our people. The baleful doctrine of State sovereignty had shaken and weakened the noblest and most beneficent powers of the National Government ; and the grasping power of slavery was seizing the virgin territories of the West, and dragging them into the den of external bondage. At that crisis the Repub lican party was born. It drew its first inspiration from that fire of liberty which God has lighted in every human heart, and which all the powers of ignorance and tyranny can never wholly extinguish." In the campaign of 1857 and 1858, he took the stump and became quite well-known as a vigor ous, logical stump orator. And it is extremely JAMES A. GARFIELD. 105 probable that he, during the excitement of the campaign, felt the promptings of a political ambi tion that he did not even acknowledge to himself. It was natural then, thinking that a few weeks at Columbus would not interfere with his duties at Hiram, that he should accept the nomination to the Ohio Senate from the counties of Portage and Summit, when it was tendered him in 1859; and equally natural that he should be thought of by the strong anti-slavery voters of those counties. His speeches, during his first campaign, were warm, fresh and impassioned, and added not a little to his already growing popularity. He was elected by a very handsome majority. Senator Garfield a n t once took high rank in the Legislature as a man well informed on the sub jects of legislation, and effective and powerful in debate. He seemed always prepared to speak ; he always spoke fluently and to the point ; and his genial, warm-hearted nature served to increase the kindness with which both political friends and opponents regarded him. Three Western Re serve senators formed the Radical triumvirate in that able and patriotic Legislature, which was to place Ohio in line for the war. One was a highly- rated professor of Oberlin College ; another, a lawyer already noted for force and learning, the son-in-law of the president of Oberlin ; the third was our village carpenter and village teacher from Hiram. He was the youngest of the three, but IO6 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF he speedily became the first. The trials of the next six years were to confirm the verdict of the little group about the State capital that soon placed Garfield before both Cox and Monroe. The college professor was abundantly sat sfied with the success in life which made him a consul at a South American port. The adroit, polished, able lawyer became a painstaking general, who, perhaps, oftener deserved success than won it, and who at last, profiting by the gratitude of the people to their soldiers, rose to be Governor of the State, but there (for the time, at least), ended. The vil lage carpenter started lower in the race of the war, and rose higher, became one of the leaders in our national councils, and confessedly one of the ablest among the younger of our statesmen. During the session of 1 860-61, he was charac teristically active and vigorous in aiding to pre pare the State to stand by the General Govern ment, in opposition to the rising storm of rebellion; a storm that he met bravely, as we shall see later. In committee work, we find from his pen an able report in favor of a State Geological Survey; an other from a select committee in favor of author izing active measures to protect and instruct neg lected, destitute and pauper children. Further, the now famous report to punish treason, in w r hich he urged that it was " high time for Ohio to enact a law to meet treachery when it shall take the form of an overt act ; to provide that, when her soldiers JAMES A. GARFIELD. 107 go forth to maintain the Union, there shall be no treacherous fire in the rear." Something about the man as he then was is written us by Mr. W. D. Howells, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, who was legislative correspon dent and news editor of the Ohio State Journal during the years Garfield was in the Ohio Senate : "One winter there was an exchange of visits between the Tennessee Legislature and ours to promote a sentiment of good-feeling. Garfield was prominently in the affair, and ex tremely popular with the Tennesseeans, on account of the manly and self-respectful good feeling with which he, a Western Reserve anti-slavery man, not then on the common ground of their Americanism and devotion to the Union. I think he was more acceptable to them than any other Ohioan, though there was no question about his political opinions. He had then, as now, that simple, affectionate way, which charms people. " I knew him, then, for his literary taste, and I particularly remember his passion for Tennyson s poetry. I had printed my first poems in the Atlantic, and it was, no doubt, his con fidence in my literary sympathy which brought him one morn ing to the Journal office, with his Tennyson, to read me some passages that had especially moved him in The Poet. The rich fullness of his voice, and his fine, self-forgetfulness, as he read impressive enough to a boy of twenty, who had looked up to him as a law-giver." This literary reminiscences calls forth another from a correspondent who knew the young sena tor at^the time. Remarking on Garfield s love of Pascal, he says : "One of the passages from Pascal, which the general is LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF most fond of quoting is where that great philosopher said that the true way to study history is to treat the whole human race as one colossal, immortal man, forever living, always learning ; who sometimes stumbles and falls, but who in the long run always advances in intelligence and civilization. I well re member the general s quoting this. Do you know, he said, that thought of Pascal s is one of remarkable beauty and value? I have often dwelt over it, and carried it much further than it is developed by the philosopher. The people of a Republic like ours are peculiarly like a single great individual man, full of passions prejudices often but with a great heart, despising anything like show or pretense, and always striving forward in a general right direc tion. The popular verdict, expressed as the voice of this giant man, is sometimes wrong for the nonce, but in the course of time it assumes the right tendency again. This individual pays but little attention to infinite things, unless there is something very peculiar about them. He casts his ox-like eye, in a sort of slow and easy way, along the horizon, and ascer tains about where a great many men are. If any of these men who appear before his general vision make any special effort to attract his attention, he probably smiles a sort of contempt- ous smile, and passes on. Men often attempt to attract his attention some one way, and others another. If the old fel low once fastens his eyes on a man or woman from some legitimate act or course of action of his or hers, that person has that thing happen to him known as fame. If the old fel low s eye is caused to rest on a person from some outlandish caper performed on purpose to catch his eye, that man is only notorious. The way to make the old giant take special no tice of a man of worth is not to pay much attention to him, but keep on one s course, regardless of whatever he sees or not. It has been so often illustrated that the men who by Liliputian efforts attempt to court the old fellow generally fall short of capturing his favor. It is like a woman courting a man. There is something in man s nature that makes him JAMES A. GARFIELD. revolt against anything of that kind. No woman is so pretty, charming and well-dressed that she can safely say to him, " Here, marry me ! You love me, and I know it. I am now ready for you; why should we delay?" The man would say, "I was going to ask you to marry me, yesterday; but now I don t want you at all. You are just a little too willing. I think I d rather not." That is man s nature he can t help but show it ; and that is the nature of the old giant we are discussing. He would much rather seek his man when he wants to look at one or bestow any special favors. On the 4th of July, 1860, at Ravenna, Mr. Gar- field delivered an oration which rings with the sterling patriotism of the man and forms a fitting prelude to the story of war, to which we must next invite the reader s attention. At Ravenna, Gar- field said : " We have seen that our Republic differs in its origin from all the monarchies of the world. We may also see that it differs widely from all other republics of ancient or modern times. These all centred round a conquering hero or a pow erful city ours round a principle. In the brightest days of the Grecian Republic, its strength and glory rested upon the life and fortunes of Pericles. In^the old Dutch Republic of Holland and the later establishments of mod ern Germany, freedom was of the city and not of the people. The burghers were the only freemen, and they constituted an aristocracy more haughty and imperious than the hereditary peers of England. The peasants of the rural districts, the toiling thousands, were hardly known to the government, except that they bore many of its heavy burdens. But here, cities are not tyrannies, and freedom in her best estate is found in the green fields of the country, among the hardy tillers of the soil. Heroes did not make our liberties, the- but reflected and illustrated them, Indi- 7 110 LIFE AND 2>UBL1C CAKEEK OF viduals may wear for a time the glory of our institutions, bu they carry it not with them to the grave. Like rain-drop from heaven, they pass through the circle of the shining bow and add to its lustre, but when they have sunk in the eartl again, the proud arch still spans the sky and shines gloriously on. Governments, in general, look upon man only as i citizen, a fraction of the state. God looks upon him as ar individual man, with capacities, duties and a destiny of hi own ; and just in proportion as a government recognizes the individual and shields him in the exercises of his rights, in that proportion is it Godlike and glorious. The village church and the village school have become our great civil izing and elevating guardians, and we mention with honest pride the fact that more than half of all the revenue of our State government is annually expended in the education of our youth. And yet there are other States in the Union which, in this respect, wear still brighter laurels than Ohio. To all these means of culture is added that powerful incen tive to personal ambition which springs from the genius of our Government. The pathway to honorable distinction lies open to all. No post of honor so high but the poorest boy may hope to reach it. "It is the pride of every American that many cherished names, at whose mention our hearts beat with a quicker bound, were worn by the sons of poverty, who conquered obscurity and became fixed stars in our firmament. None appreciate this more fully than our adopted citizens, who have felt the crushing hand of power in other lands. It cannot but destroy the high hopes of a noble nature to know that, though the blood that visits his heart leaps as free and ruby red as that which courses the veins of king or lord, and though in God s sight he is every whit their peer, yet the strong crust of cen turies is above him, the shadow of power gloomily enshrouds him, and all the high places of distinction and trust are for* ever barred against him. "And here we are brought to that question of deepest in- JAMES A. GARFIELD. j j j terest to the patriot s heart our nation s future. Shall it be perpetual ? Shall the expanding circle of its beneficent in fluence extend, widening onward to the farthest shore of time? Shall its sun rise higher and yet higher, and shine with ever- brightening lustre? Or, has it passed the zenith of its glory, and left us to sit in the lengthening shadows of its coming night ? Shall power from beyond the sea snatch the proud banner from us ? Shall civil dissension or intestine strife rend the fair fabric of the Union ? The rulers of the Old World have long and impatiently looked to see fulfilled the prophecy of its downfall. Such philosophers as Coleridge, Allison and Macauley have, severally, set forth the reasons for this prophecy the chief of which is, that the elemenf of sta bility in our Government will sooner or later bring upon it certain destruction. This is truly a grave charge. But whether instability is an element of destruction or of safety, depends wholly upon the sources whence that instability springs. "The granite hills are not so changeless and abiding as the restless sea. Quiet is no certain pledge of permanence and safety. Trees may flourish and flowers may bloom upon the quiet mountain side, while silently the trickling rain drops are filling the deep cavern behind its rocky barriers, which, by and by, in a single moment, shall hurl to wild ruin its treacherous peace. It is true, that in our land there is no such outer quiet, no such deceitful repose. Here society is a restless and surging sea. The roar of the billows, the dash of the wave, is forever in our ears. Even the angry hoarseness of breakers is not unheard. But there is an understratum of deep, calm sea, which the breath of the wildest tempest can never reach. There is, deep down in the hearts of the Amer ican people, a strong and abiding love of our country and its liberty, which no surface-storms of passion can ever shake. That kind of instability which arises from a free movement and interchange of position among the members of society, which brings one drop up to glisten for a time in the crest of the highest wave, and then give place to another, while it j i 2 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF goes down to mingle again with the millions below ; such in stability is the surest pledge of permanence. On such insta bility the eternal fixedness of the universe is based. Eacl planet, in its circling orbit, returns to the goal of its depar ture, and on the balance of these wildly-rolling spheres God has planted the broad base of His mighty works. So the hope of our .national perpetuity rests upon that perfect individual freedom, which shall forever keep up the circuit of perpetual change. God forbid that the waters of our national life should ever settle to the dead level of a waveless calm. It would be the stagnation of death the ocean grave of indi vidual liberty." GARFIELD AS A SOLDIER. "General Gar field proceeded to the Front." General Rosecrans 1 s official report of the battle of Chicka- mauga. A. CARFIELD. } T - CHAPTER IX. THE STORM BURSTS. TO write the career of James A. Garfield during the trying hours of the Rebellion is to write at once a history of intrepid bravery, exquisite coolness in danger and sure success in action. His career has been rarely equaled by any American who entered the war as a civilian and laid down his sword with the rank of a major-general. His record, while bearing testi mony to the marvelous spirit that always pervades a great people in a great crisis, and brings to the front a leader for every emergency, is a strangely complete illustration of how perfectly a man of brains and determination may succeed in some difficult walk in life, for which special and particular training have been always considered necessary. When the South chose to inaugurate the return o of the flowers, the budding of the leaves, in 1861, by tearing from the old flag some of its sacred stars, the country paused a moment, waiting, as it were, actors for the tragedy about to begin, leaders for the now inevitable armies. The guns that had opened upon Sumter on the memorable i2th of April, had not merely crumbled the walls of that Southern fortress, but they shattered also all hopes I L 5 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF of a peaceful solution of the problems then before the country. Civil war had become a sad necessity ; a bitter fact to write upon the pages of a nation s history begun so gloriously in 1776. The President s pro clamation of the 1 5th called forth the militia for objects entirely lawful and constitutional, and it was responded to with a patriotic fervor which melted down all previously existing party lines. This " uprising of a great people," as it was well termed by a foreign writer, was a kindling and noble spectacle. The hearts of a whole land throbbed as one. But we cannot now glance back upon the brilliant and burning enthusiasm that lighted our beloved country like a torch without a touch of sadness. For there was commingled with it so much ignorance, not merely of the magnitude of the contest before us, but of the nature of war itself. The high-spirited young men who thronged to swell the ranks of the volunteer force at the call of duty, marched off as gayly as if they were participants in a holiday turnout, a party of pic nickers rather than devoted patriots upon a high percentage of whom the death seal was already set. The Rebellion was to be put down at once, and by little more than the mere show of the pre ponderating force of the loyal States ; and the task of putting it down was to be attended with no more danger than was sufficient to give the enterprise a due flavor of excitement. War was JAMES A, GARMELD. j j 7 unknown to us except by report ; the men of the Revolution were but spectres of a jeweled past ; the veterans of 1812 were some of them still alive, but even they were gray with years and the memories of events. " All of which they saw, and part of which they were," could be but dimly, disjointedly recalled. We had read of battles ; we had seen something of the pomp of holiday soldiers ; but of the grim realities of war we were absolutely ignorant. In deed, not a few had come to the conclusion that war was a relic of barbarism, which civilization had so outgrown that modern times had forever dis pensed with the soldier and his sword. It need hardly be said that the call to conflict found us totally unprepared for the great storm about to break. Our regular army was insignifi cant in numbers and scattered over our vast ter ritory or along our Western frontier, so that it was impossible to collect any considerable force anywhere together. Our militia system had every where fallen into neglect, allowed to die for want of interest, and in some States had almost ceased to have any existence whatever. The wits laughed at it ; it was a common subject of newspaper criti cism ; it was christened "the cornstalk militia;" platform orators declaimed against it. Indeed, so low had it fallen in public estimation, that it re quired some moral courage to march through the streets at the head of a company. T T g LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF The South had been. wiser, or at least, more provident in this respect. The military spirit had never been discouraged there. Many of the politi cal leaders had long been looking forward to the time when the unhappy sectional contests which were distracting the country would blaze into a civil war, and preparing for it. They watched the smouldering fire of discontent, and waited the great conflagration of blood. In some of the States there had been military academies where a military education had been obtained, so that they had a greater number of trained officers to put into their regiments. This gave them a considerable ad vantage at the start, an advantage more real than seeming, and one they were not slow to turn to its fullest promise. At the North the people paused a moment to ask themselves where were they to get the needed officers. Graduates of West Point were scattered over the country ; to them the civil authorities turned for assistance. This they rendered freely and ably, but it was, of necessity, limited in its scope. In most States the militia elected their own officers, and there was no other resource than to continue the system until time and the fire of the enemy s guns should level the abilities of the civilians, and bring to the front those who had the best title to be there. This produced a result of which we have no reason to be the least ashamed. A race of civilian officers, proving their right to JAMES A. CARFIELD. T Jg command by deeds, not diplomas, winning expe rience at the point of the bayonet, and testing bravery beneath the bullets of the foe, sprang everywhere into sight in the great upholding of the Stars and Stripes. To this class, now occupy ing a place in our history, that is to us a crown ing wreath of credit, James A. Garfield belonged, and of those who were his comrades few show a better, braver record than he. When the secession of the Southern States be gun, National considerations were of paramount importance in Ohio as elsewhere. Indeed, the early signs of the dissolution between the North and South had attracted earnest attention and se vere comment in that State. In its Senate and House of Representatives many a debate had been held, wherein the seeds of secessionists doc trines had been sought to be planted by men who saw amiss. Garfield, as it will be remembered, was a member of the Senate, having been elected to represent Portage and Summit Counties two years before. The spring of 1861 found the Sen ate, of which he was a member, earnestly occupy ing its time with those questions that had so much interest within as well as beyond the bor ders of Ohio. Garfield s course on all these ques tions was manly and outspoken. He was fore most in the very small number (only six voting with him) who thought the spring of 1861 a bad time for adopting the Corwin Constitutional j 20 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF Amendment, forbidding Congress from ever legis lating on the subject of slavery in the States. He was among the foremost in maintaining the right of the National Government to coerce seceded States. " Would you give up the forts and other government property in those States, or would you fight to maintain your right to them?" was his adroit way of putting the question to a con servative Republican who deplored his incendiary views. When the "Million War Bill," as it was popu larly known at the time, came up, he was the most conspicuous of its defenders. Judge Key, of Hamilton County (subsequently a noted member of McClellan s staff), preluded his vote for it with a protest against the policy of the Administration in entering upon the war. It was left to Garfield to make the reply. The newspapers of that day all made mention of* his effort in terms of highest admiration. He regretted that Senator Key should have turned from honoring his country to pay his highest tribute of praise at a time like this to party. The senator approved a defense of national property, but denounced any effort to re take it if only it were once captured. Did he mean that if Washington were taken by the rebels he would oppose attempts to regain possession of the national capital ? Where was this doctrine of non-resistance to stop ? He had hoped that the senator would not, in this hour of the nation s JAMES A. GARFIELD. T 2 { peril, open the books of party to re-read records that ought now, at least, to be forgotten. But since the senator had thought this a fitting time to declare his distrust of the President, and of the Cabinet, and particularly of Ohio s honored repre sentative in that Cabinet, he had only this to say in reply; that it would be well for that senator and his partisan recollections to remember whose Cabinet it was that embraced traitors among its most distinguished members, and sent them forth from its most secret sessions to betray their knowledge to their country s ruin. It was under his leadership, and of his own per sonal initiation, that a bill was passed declaring any resident of the State, who gave aid and com fort to the enemies of the United States, guilty of treason against the State, to be punished by im prisonment in the penitentiary for life. Ohio, when the great call came, was as unpre pared as were other States. There was a small force of militia nominally organized, but the con stitution and laws of the State provided that all its officers should be elected by the men, and the governor was limited in his selection of officers, in case the militia was called out, to the parties so chosen. Everywhere, however, there was en thusiasm for the cause and a wild willingness to help the government by every possible sacrifice that a great people could make. When the president s call for seventy-five thousand men was I ?2 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF announced to the Ohio Senate, Senator Garfield was instantly on his feet, and amid the tumultuous acclamations from the assemblage, moved that twenty thousand troops and three millions of money" should be at once voted as Ohio s quota! His speech he immediately illustrated by offering his own services in any capacity Governor Denni- son might choose. That he should uphold the flag was demanded both by patriotism and by the logic of the Republican doctrine, that he had so nobly, so bravely upheld. It was but the second stage of resistance to slavery. While waiting a wider field, he occupied himself with the arming of the militia or any measure that had for its object the advancement of the plans then in progress. He made a hasty journey to Illinois, and procured five thousand muskets, which he shipped to Columbus to arm some of the first regiments that formed upon Ohio soil. He then returned to the capital. JAMES A. GARFIELD. j 2 . CHAPTER X. AT THE HEAD OK A REGIMENT. U "T "T THEN the time came for appointing \ \l officers for the troops so hastily got together, Garfield displayed," says Whitelaw Reid, in his "Ohio in the War/ "his signal want of tact and skill in advancing his own interests. Of the three leading Radical senators, Garfield had the most personal popularity. Cox was at that time, perhaps, a more compact and pointed speaker, he had matured earlier as (to change the figure) he was to culminate sooner. But he had never aroused the warm regard which Garfield s whole-hearted, generous disposition always excited, yet Cox had the sagacity to see how his interests were to be advanced. He aban doned the Senate-chamber, installed himself as assistant in the governor s office, made his skill felt in the rush of business, and soon convinced the appointing power of his special aptitude for military affairs. In natural sequence he was pres ently appointed a brigadier-general, while Gar- field was sent off on a mission to some western States to see about arms for the Ohio volunteers." On the 1 4th of August, 1861, some months after the adjournment of the Legislature, Governor T 24 LIFE - 4xn rr/!L/C CAREER OF Dennison offered Garfield the lieutenant-colonelcy of the Forty-second Ohio, a regiment not yet formed, and one which Garfield had been instru mental in bringing into existence with the active aid of Judge Sheldon, of Illinois, Don A. Pardee, of Medina, Ralph Plumb, of Oberlin, and other patriotic citizens of his district. He did not ac cept the tendered command hastily, he did not grasp the glitter of command with the avidity of an aspirant for honors. He went home, opened his mother s Bible, and pondered upon the sub ject. He had a wife, a child, and a few thousand dollars. If he gave his life to the country, would God and the few thousand dollars provide for his wife and child ? He consulted the Book about it. It seemed to answer in the affirmative, and before morning he wrote to a friend : "I regard my life as given to the country. I am only anxious to make as much of it as possible before the mortgage on it is foreclosed." At the same sitting he wrote Governor Denni son his acceptance of the appointment. The regi ment with which he had thus considerately chosen to cast his lot was principally recruited from Por- tege and Summit Counties. Most of the officers and privates had been students of Hiram College, and it was in a certain degree the transfer of that Campbellite institution en masse to another field where the church militant was to become militant in truth and finally the church triumphant. JAMES A. GARFIELD. r 2 Five weeks were spent in drilling, and the regi ment was encamped at Camp Chase near Columbus, Companies A, B, C and D were mustered into ser vice September 25th, 1861, Company E, October 3Oth, Company F, November I2th, and Companies G, H, I and K, November 26th, at which time the organization was completed. Garfield at once set vigorously to work to mas ter the art and mystery of war, and to give his men such a degree of discipline as would fit them for effective service in the field. Bringing his saw and jack-plane again into play, he fashioned com panies, officers and non-commissioned officers out of maple blocks, and with these wooden- headed troops he thoroughly mastered the infan^ try tactics in his quarters. Then he organized a school for the officers of his regiment, requiring thorough recitation in the tactics, and illustrating the manoeuvres by the blocks he had prepared for his own instruction. This done, he instituted regi mental, company, squad, skirmish and bayonet drill, and kept his men at these exercises from six to eight hours a day, until it was universally admitted that no better drilled or disciplined regi ment could be found in Ohio. At the time Garfield was appointed lieutenant colonel, it was understood that had he cared to push the matter he might have been made colo nel, but, with a modesty quite unusual in those early days of the war, he preferred to start low 8 I 26 LIFE * N > PUBLIC CAREER OF and rise as he learned. It was but a just tribute, therefore, that on the completion of his organiza tion he was, without his own solicitation, promoted to the colonelcy. The regiment saw three years of service ; the last of the men were mustered out December 2d, 1864. It was not until the i4th of December that orders for the field were received at Camp Chase for Colonel Garfield s command. Yet to this date no active operations had been at tempted in the great department that lay south of the Ohio River. The spell of Bull Run still hung over our armies. Save the campaign in Western Virginia and the attack by General Grant at Bel- mont, not a single engagement had occurred over all the region between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. General Buell was preparing to advance upon Bowling Green, when he suddenly found himself hampered by two co-operating forces skillfully planted within striking distance of his flank. General Zollikoffer was advancing from Cumberland Gap toward Mill Spring ; and Hum phrey Marshall, moving down the Sandy Valley from Virginia, was threatening to overrun Eastern Kentucky. Till these could be driven back, an advance upon Bowling Green would be perilous, ?f not actually impossible. To General George H. Thomas, then just raised from his colonelcy of regulars to a brigadiership of volunteers, was com mitted the task of repulsing Zollikoffer ; to the un- JAMES A. GARFIELD. } 2 - tried colonel of the raw Forty-second Ohio the task of repulsing Humphrey Marshall. And on their success the whole army of the Department waited. Colonel Garfield s orders directed him to move his command to Catlettsburg, Kentucky, a town at the junction of the Big Sandy and the Ohio, and to report immediately, in person, to the Depart ment Head-quarters at Louisville. The regiment went by rail to Cincinnati, and thence by boat to Catlettsburg, where it arrived on the morning of December I7th. By sunset of the iQth, Colonel Garfield reported to General Buell, at Louisville. In his interview with that officer, he was informed that he was to be sent against Humphrey Mar shall, who had in his advance reached as far north as Prestonburg, driving the Union forces before him. Our hero was now face to face with the actuali ties of the conflict, he was to command an expedi tion to which great importance was attached, and on which great results might depend. The prize at stake was Kentucky. If the rebel plan was successful, Kentucky would probably go out of the Union at once; if the Federal operations suc ceeded, secession might be delayed indefinitely or prevented. Marshall was expected by the rebel authorities to advance toward Lexington, unite with Zollikoffer and establish the authority of the Pro visional Government at the State capital. These LIFE AND fl BLIC CAREER OF hopes were fed by the recollection of his great in tellectual abilities and the soldierly reputation he had borne ever since he led the famous charge of the Kentucky volunteers at Buena Vista. It was also feared that he, with the large army he could gather, if unmolested, would hang upon Buell s flank, and so prevent his advance into Tennessee; or, if he did advance, cut off his communications and falling on his rear while Beauregard encoun tered him in front, crush him, as it were, between the upper and nether millstones. This done, Ken tucky was lost, and that occurring so early in the war, the dissolution of the Union might have followed. To check this dangerous advance, meet Marshall, a thoroughly educated military man, and the uncounted thousands whom his reputation would draw about him, Colonel Garfield was asked to plan a movement. He had come into the war with a life not his own and was now called upon to prove his title to the confidence his State had re* posed in him. He knew nothing of war beyond its fundamental principles ; which are, as stated by some writer, that "a big boy can whip a little boy, and that the big boy can whip two little boys, if he take them singly one after another." He knew no more about it when General Buell, one of the most scientific military men of his time, selected him to solve a problem which has puzzled the heads of the ablest generals ; namely, how two JAMES A. GARFIELD. T 2 g smair bodies of men stationed widely apart can unite in the face of an enemy and beat him, when he is twice the united strength, and strongly post ed behind intrenchments. To do this Garfield was given, what? Twenty- five hundred men, eleven hundred of whom under Colonel Cramer were at Paris, Ky., the remainder, his own regiment and the half-formed Fourteenth Kentucky, under Colonel Moore, at Catlettsburg; a hundred miles of mountain country, overrun with rebels being between them. This was the problem of the big boy of uncertain size, but known to be skilled in war, and the two little boys who were to whip him when only by a miracle could they act together, and when they knew no more of war than can be learned from the postur ing of wooden blocks and the crack perhaps of squirrel rifles. "That is what you have to do, Colonel Gar-. field drive Marshall from Kentucky," said Buell, when he had finished his view of the situation, " and you see how much depends on your action. Now, go to your quarters, think of it over night and come here in the morning and tell me how you will do it." On his way to his hotel, the young colonel bought a rude map of Kentucky, and then shut ting himself in his room, spent the night in study ing the geography of the country in which he was to operate, and in making notes of the plan which, j * 2 Z// X XD PUBLIC CAREER OF at Louisa on the morning of December 24th, and thence forward he became an actor in, all its cir cumstances considered, one of the most wonder ful dramas to be read of in history. A. GARFIELD, CHAPTER XI. OPENING THE BIG SANDY CAMPAIGN. GARFIELD had two very difficult things to accomplish. He had to open communica tions with Colonel Cranor, while the in tervening country, as has been said, was infested with roving bands of rebels and populated by disloyal people. He had also to form a junction with the force under that officer in the face of a superior enemy who would doubtless be apprised of his every movement and be likely to fall upon his separate columns the moment either was set iri motion, in the hope of crushing them in detail. Either operation was hazardous if not well-nigh impossible. Evidently the first thing to be done was to find a trustworthy messenger to convey dispatches between the two halves of his army. To this end Garfield applied to Colonel Moore of the Four teenth Kentucky. " Have you a man" he asked, "who will die rather than fail and betray us?" The Kentuckian reflected a moment, then answered : "I think I have, John Jordan from the head of the Elaine." t 33 LIFE AXD PUBLIC CAREER OF at Louisa on the morning of December 24th, and thence forward he became an actor in, all its cir cumstances considered, one of the most wonder ful dramas to be read of in history. JAMES A. GARFIELD, CHAPTER XI. OPENING THE BIG SANDY CAMPAIGN. GARFIELD had two very difficult things to accomplish. He had to open communica tions with Colonel Cranor, while the in tervening country, as has been said, was infested with roving bands of rebels and populated by disloyal people. He had also to form a junction with the force under that officer in the face of a superior enemy who would doubtless be apprised of his every movement and be likely to fall upon his separate columns the moment either was set in motion, in the hope of crushing them in detail. Either operation was hazardous if not well-nigh impossible. Evidently the first thing to be done was to find a trustworthy messenger to convey dispatches between the two halves of his army. To this end Garfield applied to Colonel Moore of the Four teenth Kentucky. "Have you a man" he asked, "who will die rather than fail and betray us?" The Kentuckian reflected a moment, then answered : "I think I have, John Jordan from the head of the Elaine." 134 LIFE AA"D PUBLIC CAREER OF Jordan was sent for and soon entered the tent of the Union commander. He was somewhat of a noted character in that region, a descendant of a Scotchman belonging to a family of men who ever died in the defense of some honor or trust. Jordan was also a born actor, a man of unflinching courage, of great expedients and devoted to the true principles that bind this land in the solidity of a great union. On his appearance, Garfield was at once im pressed in his favor. He remembers him to-day as a tall, gaunt, sallow man, of about thirty years, with gray eyes, a fine falsetto voice, pitched in the minor key, and a face that had as many expres sions as could be found in a regiment. To the young colonel he seemed a strange combination of cunning, simplicity, undaunted courage and un- doubting faith, but possessed of a quaint sort of wisdom, which ought to have given him to history. He sounded him thoroughly, for the fate of the campaign might depend upon his fidelity; but Jordan s soul was as clear as crystal, and in ten minutes Garfield had read it as if it had been an open volume. "Why did you come into this war?" at last asked the commander. "To do my part for the country, colonel," an swered Jordan, "and I made no terms with the Lord. I gave Him my life without conditions, and if He sees fit to take it in this tramp, why, it is His. I have nothing to say against it." JAMES A. CARFIELD. "You mean you have come into the war not expecting to get out of it?" "I do, colonel." "Will you die rather than let this dispatch be taken?" * "I will." The colonel recalled what had passed in his own mind, when poring over his mother s Bible that night at his home in Ohio, and it decided him. "Very well," he said; "I will trust you." The dispatch was written on tissue paper, rolled into the form of a bullet, coated with warm lead, and put into the hand of Jordan. He was given a carbine and a brace of revolvers, and mounting his horse when the moon was down, he started on his perilous journey, where, in spite of its most ro mantic interest, we cannot follow him. By midnight of the second day Jordan reached Colonel Cranor s quarters, at McCormick s Gap, and delivered his precious billet. The colonel opened the dispatch. It was dated Louisa, De cember 24th, midnight, and directed him to move his regiment at once to Prestonburg. He would encumber the men with as few rations as possible and as little baggage, bearing in mind that the safety of his command would depend on his expe dition. He would also cause the dispatch to be conveyed to Lieutenant-Colonel Woolford, at Stamford, and direct him to join the march with his three hundred cavalry. Hours were now worth 136 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF , months of common time, and on the following morning Cranor s column was set in motion. The dispatch fully revealed to Cranor Garfield s intention to move at once upon the enemy. Of Marshall s real strength he is ignorant, but his scouts and the country people report that the rebel s main body which is intrenched in an al most impregnable position near Paintville is from four to seven thousand, and that an outlying force of eight hundred occupies West Liberty, a town directly on the route by which Colonel Cranor is to march to effect a junction with Garfield s men. Cranor s column is one thousand one hundred strong, and the main body, under Garfield, num bers about seventeen hundred, consisting of the Forty-second Ohio Infantry, one thousand and thirteen strong, and the Fourteenth Kentucky In fantry, numbering five hundred, rank and file, but imperfectly armed and equipped. All told, Gar- field s force, therefore, counted two thousand eight hundred, in a strange district, cut off from rein forcements, with which to meet and crush an army of at least five thousand, familiar with the country and daily receiving recruits from the disaffected southern counties. Evidently a forward movement is attended with great hazard, but the Union com mander does not waste time in considering the obstacles and dangers of the expedition. On the morning following the scout s departure for Cranor s camp, Garfield sets out with such of his JAMES A. GARFIP;LD. command as are in readiness, and halting at George s Creek, .only twenty miles from Mar shall s intrenched position, prepares to move at once upon the enemy. The roads along the Big Sandy are impassable for trains, and the close proximity of the enemy renders it unsafe to make so wide a detour from the river as would be required to send supplies by the table-lands to the westward. Under these circumstances Garfield decides to depend mainly upon water navigation to transport his supplies, and to use the army-train only when his troops afe obliged, by absolutely impassable roads, to move away from the river. The Big Sandy is a narrow, fickle stream, that finds its way to the Ohio through the roughest and wildest spurs of the Cumberland Mountains. At low water it is not navigable above Louisa, except for small flat-boats pushed by hand, but these as cend as high as Piketon, one hundred and twenty miles from the mouth of the river. In time of high water small steamers can reach Piketon; but heavy freshets render navigation impracticable, owing to the swift current filled with floating tim ber, and to the overhanging trees, which almost touch one another from the opposite banks. At this time the river was only of moderate height, but, as will be readily seen, the supply of a bri gade at mid-winter by such an uncertain stream, and in the presence of a powerful enemy, was a thing of great difficulty. ! ^g LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF However the obstacles did not intimidate Gar- field. Gathering ten days rations, he charters two small steamers and impresses all the flat-boats he can lay hand on, and then taking his army wagons apart, he loads them with his forage and provisions upon the flat-boats. This is on New Year s Day, 1862. Next morning Captain Bent, of the Fourteenth Kentucky, entering Garfield s tent, says to him: "Colonel, there s a man outside who says he knows you, Bradley Brown, a rebel thief and scoundrel." "Brown," says Garfield, raising half-dressed from his blanket. "Bradley Brown! I don t know any one of that name." "He has lived near the head of the Blaine, been a boatman on the river, says he knew you on the canal in Ohio." "Oh, yes," answered Garfield, "bring him in, now I remember him." In a moment Brown is ushered into the col onel s quarters. He is clad in country homespun, and spattered from head to foot with the mud of a long journey, but, without any regard for the sanctity of rank, he advances at once upon the Union commander, and grasping him warmly by the hand, exclaims, "Jim, ole feller, how ar ye!" The colonel received him cordially, but noticing his ruddy face, says : "Fifteen years haven t changed you, Brown; JAMES A. GARFIELD. l ^ you will take a glass of whisky ? But what s this I hear ? Are you a rebel ?" " Yes," answers Brown, " I belong to Marshall s force, and" this he prefaces with a burst of laughter, " I ve come stret from his camp to spy out yer army/ The colonel looks surprised, but says, coolly : " Well, you go about it queerly." "Yes, quar, but honest, Jim when yer alone, I ll tell yer about it." As Bent was leaving the tent he said to his commander, in an undertone : " Don t trust him, colonel ; I know him, he s a thief and a rebel." Brown s disclosures, in a few words, are*, these : Hearing, a short time before, at the rebel camp, that James A. Garfield, of Ohio, had taken com mand of the Union forces, it at once occurred to him that it was his old canal companion, for whom, as a boy, he had felt a strong affection. This sup position was confirmed a few days later by his hearing from a renegade Northern man something of the antecedents of the colonel. Remembering their former friendship, and being indifferent as to which side was successful in the campaign, he at once determined to do an important service to the Union commander. With this object he sought an interview with Humphrey Marshall, stated to him his former ac quaintance with Garfield, and proposed that he I 40 LIFE AXD PUBLIC CAREER OP should take advantage of it to enter the Union camp, and learn for the rebel general all about his enemy s strength and intended movements. Mar shall at once fell into the trap, and the same night Brown set out for the Union camp, ostensibly to spy for the rebels, but really to tell the Union commander all that he knew of the rebel strength and position. He did not know Marshall s exact force, but he gave Garfield such facts as enabled him to make, within half an hour, a tolerably accu rate map of the rebel position. When this was done, the Union colonel said to him: " Did Bent blindfold you when he brought you into camp ?" " Yes, colonel, I couldn t see my hand afore me." " Well, then, you had better go back directly to Marshall." " Go back to him ! Why, colonel, he ll hang me to the first tree!" " No he won t not if you tell him all about my strength and intended movements." o " But how kin I ? I don t know a thing. I tell ye I was blindfolded." " Yes, but that don t prevent your guessing at our numbers, and about our movements. You may say that I shall march to-morrow straight for his camp and in ten days be upon him." Brown sat for a moment musing, then he said : "Wall, Colon l ye d be a durned fool, and if ye s JAMES A. CARFIELD 141 thet ye must hev growed to it since we were on ther canal ef ye went upon Marshall, trenched as he is, with a man short on twenty thousand. I kin <guess ye s that many/ " Guess again. I haven t that number." " Then, ten thousand." " Well, that will do for a Kentuckian. Now, to day, I will keep you under lock and key, and to night you can go back to Marshall." At nightfall, Brown set out for the rebel camp, and, on the following day, Garfield put his little army, reduced now by sickness and garrison-duty, to fourteen hundred, in motion. It was a toilsome march. The roads were knee- deep in mire, and encumbered as it was with only a light train, the army made very slow progress. Some days it marched five or six miles, and some considerably less, but on January 6th, it arrived within seven miles of Paintville. Here the men threw themselves upon the wet ground, and Gar- field laid down in his boots, in a wretched log hut to catch a few hours of slumber. About midnight, he was roused from his sleep by a man who said his business was urgent. The colonel rubbed his eyes, and raised himself on his elbow. "Back safe?" he asked. "Have you seen Cranor ?" " Yes, colonel ; he can t be any more than two days behind me," o j A 2 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF " God bless you, Jordan ! You* have done us a great service," said Garfield, warmly. " I thank you, colonel," answered Jordan, his face trembling, "that is more pay than I expected." He had returned safely, but the Providence which so wonderfully guarded his way out, seemed to leave him to find his way back, for, as he ex pressed it, " The Lord cared more for the dispatch than He cared for me, and it was natural He should, because my life counts only one, but the dispatch, it stood for the whole of Kentucky." Next morning, another horseman rode up to the Union head-quarters. He was a messenger direct from General Buell, who had followed Garfield up the Big Sandy with dispatches. They contained only a few hurried sentences, from a man to a woman, but their value was not to be estimated in money. It was a letter from Humphrey Marshall to his wife, which Buell had intercepted, and it revealed the important fact that the rebel general had five thousand men four thousand four hundred in fantry and six hundred cavalry with twelve pieces of artillery, and was daily expecting an attack from a Union force of ten thousand ! Garfield put the letter in his pocket, and then called a council of his officers. They assembled in the rude log shanty, and the question was put to them : " Shall we march at once, or wait the coming of Cranor?" /,AA\ \ REBEL RIFLE f \*<RIFLE PITS i AAAA KA A A A : \ COL GARFIELD S CAMP JAN. 611: 1862. \ \ THE FIGHT AT PAINTVILLE. JAMES A. GARFIELD. -J^K All but one said " Wait !" He said, " Move at once, our fourteen hundred can whip ten thou sand rebels." Garfield reflected awhile, then closed the coun cil with the laconic remark : " Well, forward it is. Give the order." Three roads led to the rebel position one at the east, bearing down to the river and along its western bank; another, a circuitous one, to the west, coming in on Paint Creek at the mouth of Jenny s Creek, on the right of the village; and a third between the two others, a more direct route but climbing a succession of almost impassible ridges. These three roads were held by strong rebel pickets, and a regiment was outlying at the village of Paintville. The diagram opposite will show the situation. To deceive Marshall as to his real strength and designs, Garfield orders a small force of infantry and cavalry to advance along the river road, drive in the rebel pickets, and move rapidly after them as if to attack Paintville. Two hours after this small force goes off, a similar one, with the same orders sets off on the road to the westward, and two hours later still another small party takes the middle road. The effect is that the pickets on the first route being vigorously attacked and driven, retired in confusion to Paintville, and dispatched word to Marshall that the Union army is advanc ing along the river. He hurries off a thousand 146 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF infantry and a battery to resist the advance of this imaginary column. When this detachment had been gone an hour and a half, Marshall hears from the routed pickets on his left that the Union forces are ad vancing along the western road. Countermand ing his first order, he now directs the thousand men and the battery to check the new danger, and hurries off the troops at Paintville to the mouth of Jenny s Creek, to make a stand at that point. Two hours later the pickets on the central route are driven in, and finding Paintville abandoned, they flee precipitately to the fortified camp with the story that the whole Union army is close at their heels, and already occupying the town. Conceiving that he has thus lost Paintville, Marshall hastily withdraws the detachment of a thousand to his camp, and then, Garfield moving rapidly over the ridges of the central route, occupies the abandoned position. So affairs stand on the evening of the 8th of January, when a rebel spy enters the camp of Marshall with tidings that Cranor, with three thou sand three hundred men, is within twelve hours march at the westward. On receipt of these tidings, the rebel general conceiving himself vastly outnumbered, breaks up his camp which he might have held for a twelve month and retreats precipitately, abandoning or burning a large portion of his supplies. Seeing JAMF.S A. GAKFIKLD. 1 4/ the fires, Garfield mounts his horse, and with a thousand men enters the deserted camp at nine in the evening, while the blazing stores are yet un- consumed. He sends off a detachment to harass the rebel retreat, and waits the arrival of Cranor, with whom he means to follow and bring Marshall to battle in the morning. In the morning Cranor comes, but his men are footsore, without rations and completely ex hausted. The most of these cannot move one leg after the other. But the Union commander is determined on a battle, so every man who has strength to march is ordered to come forward. Eleven hundred, and among them four hundred of Cranor s tired heroes, step from the ranks, and with them, at noon on the Qth, Garfield sets out for Prestonburg, sending all his available cavalry to follow the line of the enemy s retreat, and har ass and destroy him. Marching eighteen miles he reaches, at nine o clock that night, the mouth of Abbott s Creek, three miles belowPrestonburg he and the eleven hundred. There he learns that Marshall is en camped on the same stream, three miles higher up; and, throwing his men into bivouac in the midst of a sleety rain, he sends back an order to Lieutenant-Colonel Sheldon, who had been left in command at Paintville, to bring up every available man with all possible dispatch, for he shall force the enemy to battle in the morning. He spends 148 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF the night in learning the character of the sur rounding country, and the disposition of Mar shall s forces, and makes a hasty dinner off of stewed rabbit eaten out of a tin-cup he sharing the single spoon and the stew with one of his officers. Jordan, the scout, now comes into play once more. A dozen rebels are grinding at a mill, and a dozen honest men come upon them, steal their corn and take them prisoners. The miller is a tall, gaunt man, and his "butternuts" fit Jordan as if they were made for him. He is a rebel too, and his very raiment should bear witness against this feeding of his enemies. It does. It goes back to the rebel camp, and Jordan goes in it. That chameleon face of his is smeared with meal, and looks the miller so well that the miller s own wife might not detect the difference. The night is pitch dark and rainy, and that lessens the danger; but still Jordan is picking his teeth in the very jaws of the lion. Jordan s midnight ramble in the rebel ranks gave Garfield the exact position of the enemy. They had made a stand, and laid an ambuscade for him. Strongly posted, on a semi-circular hill at the forks of Middle Creek, on both sides of the road, with cannon commanding its whole length, and hidden by the trees and underbrush, they awaited his coming. Deeming- it unsafe to proceed furthei in the JAMES A. CARFIEI.D. j . darkness, Garfield, as lias been said, ordered his army into bivouac, at nine o clock in the evening, and climbed the steep ridge called Abbott s Hill. His tired men threw themselves upon the wet ground to wait till morning. It was a terrible night, fit prelude to the terrible day that followed. A dense fog shut out the moon and stars, and shrouded the lonely mountain in almost Cimmerian darkness. A cold wind swept from the north, driving the rain in blinding gusts into the faces of the shivering men, and stirring the dark fires into the cadences of a mournful music. But the slow and cheerless night at last wore away, and at four in the morning the tired and hungry men, their icy clothing clinging to their half-frozen limbs, were roused from their cold beds and ordered to move forward. Slowly and cautiously they descended into the valley, that to so many of them seemed the Valley of the Shadow of Death. The enemy was waiting them, they were wait ing him. The last bivouac had been held, and there was nothing left but to advance and meas ure their lives against the foe. e o LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF CHAPTER XII. HAIL COLUMBIA S SOLDIER AT THE BATTLE OF MIDDLE CREEK. AS the day breaks in the east, and the gra) mists that have been the blankets foi Garfield s little force slowly draw up frorr the inhospitable ground, the advance guard, round ing a hill that juts out into the valley, is chargec upon by a body of rebel horsemen. Forming his men in a hollow square, Garfield gives the rebels a volley that sends them reeling up the valley, al but one, and he with his horse plunges into the stream, and is captured. The main body of the enemy, it is now evident is not far distant, but whether he has changed his position since the visit of the scout Jordan is ye uncertain. To determine this, Garfield sends for ward a strong corps of skirmishers, who sweep the cavalry from a ridge they have occupied, anc moving forward, soon draw the fire of the hidder rebels. Suddenly a puff of smoke rises from be yond the hill, and a twelve-pound shell whistles above the trees, then, plowing up the hill, buries itself in the ground at the feet of the adventurous little band of skirmishers. It is now twelve o clock, and throwing his whole JAMES A. GAR FIELD. T j force upon the ridge whence the rebel cavalry have been driven, Garfield prepares for the im pending battle. It is a trying and perilous mo ment. He is in the presence of a greatly superior enemy, and how to dispose his little force, and where first to attack, are things not easy to deter mine. But he loses no time in idle indecision. Looking in the faces of his eleven hundred men, he goes at once into the terrible struggle. His mounted escort of twelve soldiers he sends for ward to make a charge, and, if possible, to draw the fire of the enemy. The ruse succeeds admir ably. As the little squad sweeps round a curve in the road, another shell whistles through the valley, and the long roll of nearly five thousand muskets chimes in with a fierce salutation. The battle has begun in earnest. A glance at the ground will best show the real nature of the conflict. It was on the margin of Middle Creek, a narrow and rapid stream, and three miles from where it finds its way into the Big Sandy, through the sharp spurs of the Cumber land Mountains. A rocky road, not ten feet in width, winds along this stream, and on its two banks abrupt ridges, with steep and rocky sides, overgrown with trees and underbrush, shut closely down upon the narrow road and little streamlet. At twelve o clock Garfield has gained the crest of the ridge at the right of the road, and the charge of his handful of horsemen has drawn Marshall s T r-o LIFE A. YD PUHLIC CAREER OF I fire and disclosed his actual position. It will be clearly seen from the subjoined diagram. The main force of the rebels occupied the crests of the two ridges at the left of the stream, but a strong detachment was posted on the right, and a battery of twelve pieces held the forks of the creek and commanded the approach of the Union army. It was Marshall s plan to lure Garfield along the road, and then taking him between two enfilading fires, surround and utterly destroy him. But his hasty fire betrayed his design and un masked his position. Garfield acts with promptness and decision. A hundred undergraduates, recruited from his own college, are ordered to cross the stream, climb the ridge whence the fire had been hottest, and bring on the battle. Boldly the little band plunges into the creek, the icy water up to their waists, and clinging to the trees and underbrush, climb the rocky ascent. Half way up the ridge the fire of at least two thousand rifles open upon them, but springing from tree to tree, they press on, and at last reach the summit. Then suddenly the hill is gray with rebels, who, rising from ambush, pour their deadly volleys into the little band of only a hundred. For a moment there are signs of wav ering, then their leader calls out : " Every man to a tree ! Give them as good as they send, my brave Bereans !" The rebels, behind rocks and rude intrench- JAMES A. GARFIELD. } - ments, are obliged to expose their heads to take aim at the advancing column, but the Union troops, posted behind the huge oaks and maples, can stand erect and load and fire fully protected. Though they are outnumbered ten to one, the contest is therefore for a time not so very unequal. But soon the rebels, exasperated with the obstinate resist ance, rush from cover and charge upon the little handful with the bayonet. Slowly they are driven down the hill, and two of them fall to the ground wounded. One never rises, the other, a lad of only eighteen, is shot through the thigh, and one of his comrades turns back to bear him to a place of safety. The advancing rebels are within thirty feet, when one of them fires, and his bullet strikes a tree directly above the head of the Union sol dier. He turns, levels his musket, and the rebel is in eternity. Then the rest are upon him ; but, zigzagging from tree to tree, he is soon with his driven column. But not far are the brave boys driven. A few rods lower down they hear the voice of their leader. " To the trees again, my boys," he cries. " We may as well die here as in Ohio !" To the trees they go, and in a moment the ad vancing horde is checked, and then rolled back ward. Up the hill they turn, firing as they go, and the little band follows. Soon the rebels reach the spot where the Berean boy lies wounded, and one of them says to him : 156 LIFE AXD PUBLIC CAREER OF " Boy, guv me yer musket.* " Not the gun but its contents," returns the lad, and the rebel falls, mortally wounded. Another raises his weapon to brain the prostrate lad, but he too falls, killed with his comrade s own rifle. And all this is done while the hero-lad is on the ground bleeding. An hour afterward, his com rades bear him to a sheltered spot on the other side of the streamlet, and then the first word of com plaint escapes him. As they are taking offhis leg, he says, in his agony : " Oh, what will mother do ?" A fortnight later, the words of this patient, patri otic lad Charles Carlton, of Franklin, Ohio re peated in the Senate of Ohio, aroused the State to at once make provision for the widows and mothers of its soldiers. As the college boys retreat, the quick eye of the Union commander, standing upon a rocky height on the other side of the narrow valley, dis cerns, through the densely-curling smoke, the real state of the unequal contest. " They are being driven," he says; " they will lose the hill unless supported." Immediately, five hundred of the Ohio Fortieth and Forty-second, under Major Pardee and Colo nel Cranor, are ordered to the rescue. Holding their cartridge-boxes above their heads, they dash into the stream, up the hill and into the fight shouting: " Hurra for Williams and the brave Bereans !" JAMES A. GARFIELD. But shot, and shell, and canister, and the fire of four thousand muskets, are now concentrated upon the few hundred heroes. "This will never do," cries Garfield. "Who will volunteer to carry the crest of the moun tain?" "We will!" shouts Colonel Munroe, of the Twenty-second Kentucky. " We know every inch of the ground." " Go in, then," cries Garfield, " and give them Hail Columbia!" Fording the stream lower down, they climbed the ridge to the left, and in ten minutes are upon the enemy. Like the others, these rebels are posted behind rocks, and, when uncovered, heads soon become ghastly targets for the sure Ken tucky rifles. "Take good aim, and don t shoot till you see the eyes of your enemy," shouts the brave col onel. The men have never been under fire, but in a few moments are as cool as if at one of the tradi tional Kentucky turkey matches. "Do you see that reb," says one to a comrade, as a head appears above the rock. "Hit him while I m loading." Another is bringing his cartridge to his mouth when a bullet cuts away the powder and leaves the lead in his fingers. Shielding his arm with his body, he says, as he turns from the foe and rams 53 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF home another cartridge: "There, see if you can hit that?" Another takes out a piece of hard-tack and a ball shivers it in his hand. He swallows the rem nant, and then coolly fires away again. One is brought down by a ball in the knee; and, lying on the ground, rifle in hand, watches for the man who shot him. Soon the rebel s head rises above a rock, and the two fire at the same instant. The Union man is struck in the mouth, but as he is borne down the hill he splutters out: " Never mind, that secesh is done for." The next morn ing the rebel is found with the whole upper part of his head shot away by the others bullet The brave Kentuckians climb or leap up along the side of the mountain. Now they are hidden in the underbrush, now sheltered by the great trees, and now fully exposed in some narrow opening, but gradually they near the crest of the ridge, and at last are on its very summit. As they come in open sight a rebel cries out: " How many are there of you ?" "Twenty-five millions, tl m you," shouts back a Kentucky Union officer. Then comes a terrible hand-to-hand struggle, and the little band of less than four hundred, over powered by numbers, are driven far down the mountain. Meanwhile another cannon has opened on the hill and round shot and canister fall thickly among JAMES A, GARFIELD. j the weary eleven hundred. Seeing his advance about to waver the Union commander sends volley after volley from his entire reserve at the central point between his two detachments, and for a time the enemy is silenced in that quarter. But soon it opens again, and then Garneld orders all but a chosen hundred upon the mountain. There the battle grows terrible. Thick and thicker swarm the rebels on the crest, sharp and sharper rolls the musketry along the valley, and as volley after volley echoes among the hills and the white smoke curls up in long wreaths from the gleaming rifles a dense cloud gathers overhead as if to shut out the scene of carnage from the very eye of Heaven. So the bloody work goes on, so the battle wavers till the setting sun wheeling below the hills glances along the dense line of rebel steel move- ing down to envelop the weary eleven hundred. It is an awful moment, big with the immediate fate of Kentucky. At its very crisis two figures stand out against the fading sky, boldly defined in the foreground. One is in Union blue with a little band of heroes about him. He is posted on a projecting rock which is scarred with bullets and in full view of both armies. His head is uncovered, his hair streaming in the wind, his face upturned in the darkening daylight and from his soul is going up a prayer a prayer for Sheldon and reinforce- T 5o LIFE A. VI) PUBLIC CAREER Of ments. He turns his eyes to the northward, his lips tighten, he pulls off his coat and throws it into the air and it lodges in a tree top out of reach, then he says to his hundred men: "Boys, we must go at them." The men threw up their caps with a wild shout and rush in, following the Union colonel who led them at a run, and in his shirt sleeves. The other figure is in Rebel gray. Moving out to the brow of the opposite hill and placing a glass to his eye, he too takes a long look to the northward. Suddenly he starts, for he sees some thing which the other on lower ground does not distinguish. Soon he wheels his horse and the word "RETREAT" echoes along the valley between them. It is his last word; for six rifles crack, and the rebel major lies on the ground quivering. The one in blue looks to the north again as he clambers up the mountain and now floating proudly among the trees he sees the starry banner, that ban ner that has meant liberty and life to millions. It is Sheldon and his forces. On they come like the rushing wind filling the air with their shouting. The rescued eleven hundred take up the strain and then above the swift pursuit, above the lessen ing conflict, above the last boom of wheeling cannon goes the wild huzza of victory. As they come back from the short pursuit, the young commander grasps man after man by the hand, and says: JAMES A. GARFIZLD. j 5 * " God bless you, boys ! You have saved Ken* tucky !" x They had, indeed, and in a wonderful battle. Says that genial writer, Edmund Kirke : " In the history of the late war, there is not another like it. Measured by the forces engaged, the valor dis played and the results that followed, it throws into the shade the achievements of even that mighty host that saved the nation. Eleven hundred foot sore and weary men, without cannon, charged up a rocky hill, over stumps, over stones, over fallen trees, over high intrenchments, right into the face of five thousand fresh .troops with twelve pieces of artillery!" To the reader, the action may seem insignificant, but it was of considerable importance to the Fed eral armies at this juncture. Captain F. H. Mason, in his history of the Forty-second Ohio Infantry, defines its place in history : "The battle of Middle Creek, trifling though it may be considered in comparison with later con tests, was the first substantial victory won for the Union cause. At Big Bethel, Bull Run, in Mis souri, and at various points at which the Union and Confederate forces had come in contact, the latter had been uniformly victorious. The people of the North, giving freely of their men and their substance in response to each successive call of the government, had long and anxiously watche ! and waited for a little gleam of victory to show 10 164 LIFE AXD PUD LIC CAREER OF that northern valor was a match for southern im petuosity in the field. They had waited in vain since the disaster at Bull Run, during the previous summer, and hope had almost yielded to despair. The story of Garfield s success at Middle Creek came, therefore, like a benediction to the Union cause. Though won at a trifling cost it was deci sive so far as concerned the purposes of that im mediate campaign. Marshall s force was driven from Kentucky, and made no further attempt to occupy the Sandy Valley. The important vic tories at Mill Spring, Forts Donaldson and Henry, and the repulse at Shiloh,- followed. The victory at Mill Creek proved the first wave of a returning tide." Speaking of the engagement, Garfield said, after he had gained a wider experience in war: " It was a very rash and imprudent affair on my part. If I had been an officer of more experienee, I probably should not have made the attack. As it was, hav ing gone into the army with the notion that fight ing was our business. I didn t know any better." "And, during it all," says Judge Clark, who was in the Forty-second, "Garfield was the soldiers friend. Such was his affection for the men that he would divide his last rations with them, and nobody ever found anything better at head-quar ters than the rest got" VIEW OF POUND GAP. VIEW OF MIDDLE CREEK. JAMES A. GARFIELD. 167 CHAPTER XIII. A STEAMBOAT CAPTAIN AND THE CAPTURE OF POUND GAP. THE night closed in upon the happy, but tired men ; another night, the long watches of which were lived out upon the frozen ground. Garfield took the time to consider the situation. Marshall s forces were broken and de moralized. Though in full retreat, they might be overtaken and destroyed ; but his own troops were half dead with fatigue and exposure, and had less than three days rations. In these circum stances, Garfield prudently decided to occupy Prestonburg, and await the arrival of supplies be fore dealing a final blow at the enemy. On the day succeeding the battle he issued the following address to his army, which tells, in brief, the story of the campaign: " SOLDIERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH BRIGADE : I am proud of you all! In four weeks you have marched, some eighty, and some a hundred miles, over almost impassable roads. One night in four you have slept, often in the storm, with only a wintry sky above your heads. You have marched in the face of a foe of more than double your num ber, led on by chiefs who have won a national re* j 6g LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF nown under the old flag, entrenched in hills of his own choosing, and strengthened by all the appli ances of military art. With no experience but the consciousness of your own manhood, you have driven him from his strongholds, pursued his in glorious flight, and compelled him to meet you in battle. When forced to fight, he sought the shel ter of rocks and hills. You drove him from his position, leaving scores of his bloody dead un- buried. His artillery thundered against you, but you compelled him to flee by the light of his burn ing stores, and to leave even the banner of his rebellion behind him. I greet you as brave men. Our common country will not forget you. She will not forget the sacred dead who fell beside you, nor those of your comrades who won scars of honor on the field. I have recalled you from the pursuit, that you may regain vigor for still greater exertions. Let no one tarnish his well- earned honor by any act unworthy an American soldier. Remember your duties as American citi zens, and sacredly respect the rights and property of those with whom you may come in contact. Let it not be said that good men dread the ap proach of an American army. Officers and sol diers, your duty has been nobly done. For this I thank you." The retreat of Marshall had by no means gotten rid of the dangers by which the small army of the Union colonel was hampered. A fresh peril now JAMES A. CARFIELD. 169 beset the force. An unusually violent rain-storm broke out, the mountain gorges were all flooded, and the Sandy rose to such a height that steam boat-men pronounced it impossible to ascend the stream with supplies. The troops were almost out of rations, and the rough, mountainous coun try was incapable of supporting them. Colonel Garfield had gone down the river to its mouth. He ordered the "Sandy Valley," a small steamer, which had been in the quarter-master s service, to take in a load of supplies and start up. The cap tain declared it was impossible. Efforts were made to get other vessels, but without success. Finally, Garfield ordered the captain and crew on board, and stationed himself at the wheel. The captain still protested that no boat could possibly stem the raging current, but Garfield turned her head up the stream and began the perilous trip. The water in the usually shallow river was sixty feet deep, and the tree-tops along the banks were almost submerged. The little vessel trembled from stem to stern at every motion of the engines, the water whirled her about as if she were a skiff, and the utmost speed the steam could give her was three miles an hour. When night fell the captain of the boat begged permission to tie up. To attempt ascending the flood in the darkness was madness. But Garfield kept his place at the wheel, now as always no mere considerations of danger affected his purpose. Finally, in one of j 7Q LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF the sudden bends of the river they drove, with a full head of steam, into the quicksand of the bank. Every effort to back off was in vain. Mattocks were procured, and excavations made around the embedded bow. Still she stuck. Garfield, at last, ordered a boat to be lowered to take a line across to the opposite bank. The crew protested against venturing out on the flood. Garfield leaped into the boat and steered it over. The force of the current carried them far below the point they sought to reach, but they finally suc ceeded in making fast to a tree, and rigging a windlass with rails sufficiently powerful to draw the vessel off and get her once more afloat. It was on Saturday that the boat left the mouth of the Sandy. All night, all day Sunday, and all through Sunday night they kept up their struggle with the current, Garfield leaving the wheel only eight hours out of the whole time, and that during the day. By nine o clock on Monday morning they reached the camp, and were received with tu multuous cheering. Garfield himself could hardly escape being borne to head-quarters on the shoul ders of the delighted men. It was but natural that the confused retreat of She troops under Humphrey Marshall should have precipitated an alarm among the simple country people. The flying rebels had spread the most ex aggerated reports of the strength and character of the Union forces, and the inhabitants of the JAMES A. CARPI ELD. I 7 I district looked for the immediate inauguration of a reign of terror, that should deprive all non- combatants of life and liberty. Fleeing from their homes, they took refuge in the woods and mountains, and the towns were well-nigh deserted for a time. On his return with the supplies, Garfield determined to attempt the quieting of the fright ened people, and to that end issued the following : " CITIZENS OF SANDY VALLEY : I have come among you to restore the honor of the Union, and to bring back the old banner which you once loved, but which, by the machina tions of evil men, and by mutual misunderstanding, has been dishonored among you. To those who are in arms against the Federal Government I offer only the alternate of battle or unconditional surrender. But to those who have taken no part in this war, who are in no way aiding or abetting the enemies of this Union even to those who hold sentiments averse to the Union, but will give no aid or comfort to its enemies I offer the full protection of the Government, both in their persons and property. " Let those who have been seduced away from the love of their country to follow after and aid the destroyers of our peace lay down their arms, return to their homes, bear true allegiance to the Federal Government, and they shall also enjoy like protection. The army of the Union wages no war of plunder, but comes to bring back the prosperity of peace. Let all peace-loving citizens who have fled from their homes return and resume again the pursuits of peace and industry. If citizens have suffered any outrages by the soldiers under my command, I invite them to make known their complaints to me, and their wrongs shall be redressed and the offenders punished. I expect the friends of the Union in this valley to banish from among them all private feuds, and let a liberal j ~ 2 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OP love of country direct their conduct toward those who have been so sadly estrayed and misguided, hoping that these days of turbulence may soon be ended and the days of the Re public soon return. "J. A. GARFIELD, " Colonel Commanding Brigade." Encouraged by this promise of protection, the people soon issued from their hiding-places and began to flock about the Union head-quarters. From, them Garfield obtained various reports of the whereabouts and intentions of Marshall. By some he was told that Marshall, reinforced by three Vir ginia regiments and six field-pieces, had made a stand and was fortifying himself in a strong position, about thirty miles above, on the waters of the Big Beaver. Others claimed to know that he was merely collecting provisions and preparing to re treat into Tennessee as soon as the runs and rivers should become passable. All information pointed to the truth that Mar shall had made a stand, and was still within the limits of Kentucky. Garfield determined to learn his exact position, and dispatched a body of one hundred cavalry, under Captain Jenkins, of the Ohio cavalry, with orders to go up the Big Sandy as far as Piketon, and not to return until they had ascertained the position and intentions of the enemy. From information brought back by Captain Jenkins, and reports gathered from other sources JAMES A. CAR FIELD. 1 / J mainly from the scout Jordan during the suc ceeding weeks Garfield was pretty well able to keep posted as to the movements of Humphrey Marshall, who was still sufficiently near to be ob noxious. Let us see what this was. Pound Gap is a wild and irregular opening in the Cumberland Mountains, about forty-five miles south-west of Piketon, and leads into Virginia. It is the only avenue for wagon communication between the southerly portions of Virginia and Kentucky, and derives its name from the fertile track of meadow-land which skirts the southerly base of the mountains, and is inclosed by a narrow stream called Pound Fork. In the early history of the district, this mountain locality was the home of a tribe of Indians, who made irregular and constant expeditions into Virginia in search of plunder. Returning with the stolen cattle of the settlers, they pastured them in this meadow inclosure. In this way it was christened the " Pound," which in time it bestowed both to the gap and the streamlet. In this " Pound," and on the summit of the gorge through which the road passes, the rebels had built long huts, capable of quartering nearly a thousand men ; and across the opening, to make their position apparently impregnable, they had built directly across the gap a formidable breast work completely blocking up the way, and be hind which five hundred men could resist success fully five thousand. jy^ 1-11 H AND ^L Bl.lC CAREER OF In several weeks Pound Gap had been garri soned by about six hundred rebel militia under a Major Thompson, and though incapable of ef fective service in the field the troops had been of no small value to the rebel cause by holding this gateway into Virginia and establishing a constant reign of terror among all the loyal citizens of the surrounding country. Imitating the Indians, the rebels would issue from this stronghold in small parties, descend to the valleys, rob and murder the peaceful inhabitants, and before pursuit was possible would be once more behind the protect ing breastworks. Many of these predatory bands had been captured through the ceaseless activity of the Kentucky cavalry, but as soon as one party was captured another would start out from the stronghold to continue the work of spoliation and perpetuate the reign of blood. It soon became evident that the only way to effectually stop these inroads was to break up once and forever the nest on the mountain. This Garfield had long determined to do. He waited only for reliable information as to the strength and position of the rebels and for a definite description of the route to be taken to get in the rear of the in- trenchments. This information the scout Jordan, after sur mounting many difficulties and encountering great dangers, was enabled to supply. He made for Garfield an accurate map of the position and wrote to him: JAMES A. CARFJKLD. J /5 "General Marshall has issued an order for a grand muster of the rebel militia on the 1 5th of March. They are to meet at the Pound in the rear of their intrenchments, and it is expected they will muster in sufficient strength to enter Ken tucky and drive the Union forces before them." Garfield at once determined to forestall the intended gathering and to break up the entire swarm of guerillas. He set out on the following morning with three days rations in the haversacks of his men, and a quantity of provisions packed on the backs of mules. He took with him two hundred and twenty of the Fortieth Ohio, under Colonel Cranor, two hundred of the Forty-second Ohio, under Major Pardee, one hundred and eighty of the Twenty-second Kentucky, under Major Cook, and a hundred cavalry, under Major McLaughlin, a total of seven hundred. The roads were deep in mud, and the countless rivulets that thread through this mountainous region, were filled with ice and swollen to the size of respectable torrents. The little army made light of the difficulties, however, and pressed on with perseverance over the rough roads in the midst of the drenching rain. Late on the second day Elkborn Creek was reached, a small stream which flows along the northern base of the moun tains and empties into the Big Sandy, only two miles below the rebel position. Here the troops went into camp on the wet ground, and waited the coming- of dawn. j 76 T.IFE AXD PUKl.rc CAREER OF Garfield s plan was to send his one hundred cavalrymen up the road to make a demonstration against the enemy s intrenchments, and to engage his attention while he, with the six hundred infan try, should climb the steep side of the mountain and, filing alono; a narrow ledofe of rocks at the o o o summit, reach the gap and attack the rebels upon the flank. To prove successful, absolute secrecy was required ; and to obtain this every male resi dent of the vicinity was brought into camp and detained, that he should not carry information to the enemy. Questions were asked of every one as to some practicable route to the rear of the rebel intrenchments. There was no route. The mountain was steep, and in many places precipi tous, and it was tangled with dense thickets, ob structed with fallen logs, and covered with huge boulders which, coated with ice and snow, formed an almost impassable barrier to the passage of any living thing, save the panther or the cata mount. Then again, even if the adventurous band succeeded in gaining the mountain summit in the face of these obstacles, there was still to be traversed for a long distance a narrow ledge, buried .three feet in treacherous snow, where one false step would be dangerous a place where ten men could dispute the passage of ten thousand. Though tempted with liberal offers of money, not one of the " natives " would undertake to JAMES A. GARFIELD ] 7/ guide the expedition on the perilous journey about to be undertaken. Garfield laid down at midnight on the floor of a miserable log shanty, near the foot of the mountains. The prospect was in no way encouraging. But, turning back was out of the question. Even if failure was to be the re ward of his pains, the Union commander deter mined to scale the mountain in the morning. These thoughts in his mind, he dropped off to sleep. Before morning he was aroused by a num ber of men entering his apartment one of them said : " Colonel, this old fellow has just come into camp, and offers to guide us over the mountains. He says he knows every road of this region, and can lead us to the rebel nest in safety." Garfield raised himself on his blanket, and by the dim light of the logs that were smouldering on the hearth looked narrowly at the old native. He was apparently not far from seventy, with a tall, bent form, and long hair and beard which were almost of snowy whiteness. He wore the common homespun of the district, and over his shoulder carried, slung by a stout leather thong, a brightly-burnished squirrel rifle. His enormous beard and huge slouch hat more than half hid his face, but enough of it was exposed to show a tawny, smoke-begrimed skin, and strongly-marked, determined features. Hastily scanning him from head to foot, the Union officer said, smiling : j ~g LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF " You ! old man, do you think you can climb the mountain ?" " I hev done it, gineral, many and many a time," said the native in a voice that sounded much like a cracked kettle. " I know, but in winter the slope is a sheet of ice and three feet of snow on the summit." "I komed down it not ten days ago. Whar I kin come down ye kin go up." " I should think so up or down. Is there a bridle path we can follow ?" " Yes, eight miles below. But ye d better make yer own path. Ye must cum unto them unbe known and sudden, and to do that ye must foller the path squirrels travil." "And do you think we can get over it safely ?" "Yes, if ye s men of narve as means to do what they has come about." "Well," continued Garfield, after a pause, "what induces an old man like you to undertake a thing so hazardous ?" "The hope to rid ther kentry of a set of murderin thieves as is carrying terror and death inter every poor man s home in all the valley." "And what reward do you look for ?" "Nary reward only your word that I shall go as I come, with no one to let or hinder me." Garfield took a long, steady look at him, and replied : " Very well. I ll trust you. Be here early in the morning." JAMES A. GARFIELD. j . When the morning came, the snow was falling so thickly thatobjects only a few rods distant were totally invisible. At nine o clock, the little body of cavalry was started up the road to engage the attention of the enemy and draw him from his in- trenchments. Then the infantry was set in motion, In a long, bristling, serpent-like column, catching at every twig, and shrub, and fallen log that lay in their way, they clambered slowly up the icy mountain-side, the old guide leading the way and steadying his steps by the long iron-shod staff in use among mountaineers. The ridge at this point rises two thousand feet above the valley, and half-way up breaks into abrupt precipices, which seem to defy the approach of any foot but that of the deer. After a hard scramble through o the tangled thickets, over the ice-coated rocks and along the steep ridge which crowns the summit of the mountain, the native, turning sharply to the left, said to Garfield : " You are now within half a mile of the rebel position. Yonder is their outside picket, but the way is clear ; press on at the double and you have them." The picket had now descried the advancing column, and firing his gun, he set out at the top of his speed for the rebel intrenchments. A dozen bullets made shrill music about his ears, but he kept on, and the eager blue-coats followed. When within sight of the rebel camp, a line was thrown PUBLIC CAREER OF down along the eastern slope of the mountain and pressing rapidly forward was formed along the deep gorge through which the high road passes. Up to this time the rebels had been skir mishing with the cavalry in front of their intrench- ments, but now they gathered on the hill directly opposite the advanced portion of the Union in fantry To try the range, Garfield sent a volley across the gorge, and as the smoke cleared away, he saw the unformed rebel line melt like mist into the opposite forest. The enemy s position being now understood, the Fortieth and Forty-second Ohio were ordered to the already formed left wing, and then along the line rang the words, "Press for ward, scale the hill and carry it with the bayonet!" A ringing shout was the only answer, and then the long column swept down the ridge, across the ravine, through the rebel camp and up the oppo site mountain. The rebels gradually fell back among the trees, but when the Union bayonets clambered up the hill they broke and ran in the wildest confusion. The Unionists followed, firing as they ran and for a few moments the mountains echoed with the quick reports of the Ohio rifles. Pursuit in the dense forest was impossible and soon the recall was sounded. Only one was killed and seven were wounded. But this well-nigh bloodless victory rid Eastern Kentucky of rebel rule. The troops were re-as- JAMES A. GARFIELD. 181 sembled and passed a comfortable night in the enemy s quarters, faring sumptuously upon the viands there found. The next morning the cabins, sixty in number, were burned, the breastworks destroyed and the general set out on his return to Piketon, which he reached the following night, having been absent four days and having marched in that time about one hundred miles over a rough and broken country. Six days afterward an order was received to leave a small garrison at Piketon, and to transfer the rest of the command, as rapidly as possible, to Louisville. This ended the campaign on the Big Sandy, a campaign that more than justified every hope of Garfield s friends, and won him a military reputa tion that has continued unto the end. The opera tions in the Sandy Valley had been conducted with such energy and skill as to receive the special commendation of the commanding-general, and of the Government. General Buell was moved to words of unwonted praise, and sent to Garfield the following congratulatory order : HEAD-QUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO, LOUISVILLE, Ky., January 2oth, 1862. General Orders, No. 40. The general commanding takes occasion to thank General Garfield and his troops for their successful campaign against the rebel force under General Marshall, on the Big Sandy, and their gallant conduct in battle. They have overcome II !32 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF formidable difficulties in the character of country, condition of the roads and the inclemency of the season ; and, without artillery, have in several engagements, terminating in the battle of Middle Creek, on the loth inst., driven the enemy from his intrenched position and forced him back into the mountains, with a loss of a large amount of baggage and stores, and many of his men killed or captured. These services have called into action the highest qualities of a soldier fortitude, perseverance and courage. By order, DON CARLOS BUELL, Major- General Commanding. The War Department, to show its appreciation, made Colonel Garfield a Brigadier-General, the commission bearing 1 the date of the battle of Mid dle Creek, January roth, 1862. And the country, without understanding very well the details of the campaign, fully appreciated the tangible result. The discomfiture of Humphrey Marshall was a source of special chagrin to the rebel sympathizers in Kentucky, and of amusement and admiration throughout the loyal West. Garfield at once took rank in the public estimation, as worthily among the most promising of the younger volunteer generals. In his "Ohio in the War," Whitelaw Reid passes this judgment on the campaign: "Later criticism will confirm the general verdict then passed upon the Sandy Valley campaign. It was the first of the brilliant series of successes that made the spring of 1862 so memorable. Mill Springs, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Nashville, Island JAMES A. GARFIELD. 1 g No. 10 and Memphis, followed in quick succession; but it was to Garfield s honor that he had opened this season of victories. His plans, as we have seen, were based on sound military principles ; the energy which he threw into their execution was thoroughly admirable, and his management of the raw volunteers, was such that they acquired the fullest confidence in their commander and endured the hardships of the campaign with fortitude not often shown in the first field-service of new troops. But the operations were on a small scale, and their chief significance lay in the capacity they de veloped, rather than in their intrinsic importance." 1 84 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF CHAPTER XIV. OFF TO AID GRANT. GARFIELD has now to be transferred to a wider field of operations. His conspicu ous ability, developed in battle, and his great bravery could not be allowed to remain idle within the bounds of the Big Sandy district, so effectively freed by him from the control of the rebels. When he arrived at Louisville, he found that the Army of the Ohio was already beyond Nashville, on its way to aid Grant at Pittsburg Landing. He hastened after it, and reported to General Buell about thirty miles south of Columbia, and under his orders at once assumed command of the Twentieth Brigade, then a part of the division un der General Thomas J. Wood. General Wood was making all possible effort to reach the Union forces under Grant, as the approaching battle with Sidney Johnson was anticipated as very probably a battle of the greatest importance. The battle .began on the morning of April 6th. About ten that day, Grant hearing that Wood, with the second division of Buell s army, had ar rived at Savannah, sent him the following order : "You will move your command, with the utmost PICKETS ON DUTY. ARMY HEAD-QUARTERS. JAMES A. GARFIRLD. 187 dispatch, to the river at this point (landing), where steamers will be in readiness to convey you to Pittsburgh Still later in the day another dispatch was sent to the commanding officer of Buell s forces, urging him to hurry up. It is not necessary to recount here how thoroughly the Union forces were whipped on the first day, and how extremely probable it seemed that the defeat would turn into a rout. But here, as on many another field later in the bloody con flict, Ohio saved the day. When a halt was called on the evening of the 6th it was determined by Grant that the Ohio troops were to form upon the left in the morning, and the attack was to be re newed. During the night of the 6th, Buell busied himself in getting his troops up. Nelson s column and nearly all of Crittenden s and McCook s divi sions were ferried across the river and put in position. All night long the gun-boats dropped shells at intervals on the rebel lines, and the woods caught fire, lighting up the battle-field for miles away. But for a merciful shower of rain thousands of helpless wounded would have been burned to death on that blazing battle-field. The orders were: "As soon as it is light enough to see, attack with a heavy skirmish line, and when you have found the enemy, throw upon him your whole force, leaving no reserve." I 88 7//V? AXD FVFIJC CAREER OF With the first gray of dawn this orcier was put in execution. The Ohio troops \vcre given the left of the field, Grant s army, or what of it could be gathered together, undertook to form and main tain the right. As rapidly as the Ohioans could come up they went into action. As may be in ferred, they fought with splendid energy. During the early part of the day Grant met the First Ohio marching toward the northern part of the field, and immediately in front of a position which it was important should be taken. The regiment on the left was fighting hard, but about to yield ; in fact, had given away, when Grant called upon the Ohio boys to change direction and charge. The sol diers, with a cheer, obeyed, and the retreating troops, seeing what was going on, took new cour age, and rallying with loud shouts, drove the enemy from their strong position. Garfield had all this time been actively engaged in every possible exertion to bring up his brigade in time to assist before either defeat or victory silenced the cannonading, that he so distinctly heard. About one P. M., he reached the front, and with a wild cheer his men dashed at the rebels, he leading through the storm of lead. The fresh onslaught, in which Garfield s brigade participated, changed the fortunes of the day, and the rebels were soon flying from where they had fought so long and well. The Union troops were too much exhausted for pursuit, and halting in the camps JAMES A. G ARTIE I. D. ^ from which they had been driven the day before, were content to call it a victory. On the Qth, the War Department issued the following complimentary order to all concerned: " The thanks.of the department are hereby given to Generals Grant and Buell, and their forces, for the glorious repulse of Beauregard, at Pittsburg, in Tennessee." The next morning (the 8th), Garfield s brigade formed a part of Sherman s advance, and partici pated in a sharp encounter with the enemy s rear guard, a few miles beyond the battle-field. The brigade formed a part of the Union advance upon Corinth, to which place Beauregard had retreated. This advance was slow, so slow that it took six weeks to march fifteen miles. It was not until the 2 1 st of May that the armies were fairly in line, three miles from Corinth, and everything ready for the expected battle. But all the preparations for a battle were of no use, and when Halleck was ready to engage Beauregard, the latter was no longer in Corinth. He had retreated. Garfield s brigade had the empty honor of being among the earliest that en tered the abandoned town. Then when General Buell, turning eastward, sought to prepare for a new aggressive campaign with his inadequate forces, General Garfield was assigned the task of rebuilding the bridges and reopening the Memphis and Charlestown railroad LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF eastward from Corinth to Decatur. Crossing the Tennessee here, he advanced to Huntsville, where he remained during the rest of that cam paign, carrying out every instruction received, with absolute fidelity, and at all times with perfect success. One of the constant objects of General Buell during the time General Garfield was engaged in bridge-building, a task for which his energy and familiarity with building-work peculiarly fitted him, was the enforcement of discipline and the reduc tion of the somewhat loose habits of the men of his command to the army standard. Court mar- tials were frequent, and it was not always easy to find officers thoroughly fitted for such duties. Garfield s legal mind, his dispassionate, fully-rea soned judgment, singled him out from among his fellows for just such \vork. His first detail in this class of army experience was the case of Colonel Turchin, charged with committing gross excesses. These charges were neglect of duty, to the preju dice of good order and discipline, in permitting the wanton and disgraceful pillage of the town of Athens, Alabama ; conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman in failing to pay a hotel bill in the town ; and insubordination in disobeying the orders against the molestation of peaceful citizens in persons and property. Some of the specifica tions particularized very shameful conduct. The court found him guilty (except as to the hotel bill JAMES A. GARFIELD. T T story) and sentenced him to dismissal from the service. Six of its members recommended him to clemency, but General Buell was determined, and the sentence was carried out. The newspapers took up the case and championed the colonel, and those of Chicago were very vehement in his de fense. On his return to Chicago, he was given a public reception, and the President, as if to in dorse the deeds of the disgraced colonel, ap pointed him a brigadier. The old tendency to fever and ague, contracted in the days of his tow-path experience on the Ohio Canal, was now aggravated in the malari ous climate of the South, and Garfield returned home on sick-leave, on the i st of August. Hardly had he started for Ohio, when the secretary of war, who seems, at this early day, to have formed a high estimate of Garfielcl, which he con tinued to entertain through the war, issued orders to him to proceed to Cumberland Gap, and relieve General George W. Morgan of his command. But when they were received, Garfield was too ill to leave his bed. A month later, the secretary ordered him to report in person, at Washington, as soon as his health would permit. On his- arrival, soon after, it was found that the estimate placed upon his knowledge of law, his judgment and his loyalty, had led to his selection as one of the first members of the court-martial for the trial of the noted Fitz John Porter. 192 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF The intimacy that sprung up during this trial be tween Garfield and General Hunter, the president of the court-martial, led to an application for him for service in South Carolina, whither Hunter was about to start. Garfield s strong anti-slavery views had been greatly strengthened by his experience thus far during the war, and the South Carolina ap pointment under a commander so radical as Hunter was on this account particularly gratifying. But in the midst of his fears and preparations the old army in which he had served, plunged into the battle of Stone River. A part of the bitter cost of the victory that followed was the loss of Garesche, the lamented chief of staff to the com manding general. Garfield was at once selected to take his place, the appointment to South Car olina was revoked, and early in January, 1863, he was ordered out to join Major-General Willliam S. Rosecrans, then in command of the Army of the Cumberland. When he arrived at Rosecrans s head-quarters that officer was already prejudiced against him. For the general understood that he was a preacher who had gone into politics, and a man of that cast he was naturally opposed to. Rosecrans kept him at head-quarters for a couple of days, as he 1 desired to make his acquaintance and sound the man before assigning him to active duty. The more he saw of him the more he liked him, and finally he gave Garfield his choice, confirmation as JAMES A. GARFIELD. , J 9o chief of staff or the command of a brigade. Most men would have taken the brigade, but Garfield chose to remain with the general. That Rose- :rans never regretted the appointment as chief of staff, which he made immediately after the inter view, is evidenced by what he has said. " We were together until the Chattanooga affair. found him to be a competent and efficient officer, in earnest and devoted patriot, and a man of the lighest honor. His views were large and he vas possessed of a thoroughly comprehensive Bind" His appointment as chief of staff gave great atisfaction throughout the army, and it was every where expressed. The country was equally >leased, especially Ohio. The editor of the Zenia Torchlight, a paper published at Garfield s home, hus commented on the appointment : " We have known General James A. Garfield for everal years, and entertain for him the highest >ersonal regard. He is one of the most eloquent nen in Ohio, as well as one of the ripest scholars. Socially and morally, he has no superior. He is popular with all, as the attachment of his scholars, is well as his soldiers, for him demonstrates. ". In respect to abilities, nature has by no means Deen unfriendly to him ; and he has neither de- pised nor slighted her gifts. A severe course of nental training, combined with the mental prac- ice obtained by presiding over one of the colleges ] Q, LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF of Ohio, has fully developed his natural endov ments. " Above all these considerations, every one n spects General Garfield for his stern, unyielding uncompromising patriotism. The permanent goo of his country, the restoration of its unity, and th perpetuation of the National power and glor through all coming time, are the objects which h keeps steadily in view." Once installed in his new position, he rapidl grew into a favorite. Possessed of sound, nature sense, an excellent judgment, a highly-cultivatej intellect, and the deserved reputation of a success ful mflitary leader, he was soon to be the mentor c the staff, and his opinions sought, and his counsel heeded by many who were older and not less dis tin<niished than himself. o Edmund Kirke, in his picturesque war stor) "Down in Tennessee," written in 1863, draws th following pen-portrait of Garfield in his ne\ capacity: "In a corner by the window, seated at a smal pine desk a sort of packing-box, perched on ; long-legged stool, and divided into pigeon-hole;- with a turn-down lid was a tall, decp-chestec sinewy-built man, with regular, massive features, ; full, clear blue eye, slightly tinged with gray, an< a high, broad forehead, rising into a ridge over tli eyes, as if it had been thrown up by a plow. Then was something singularly engaging in his oper JAMES A. GARFIELD. 1 Jo expressive face, and his whole appearance indi cated, as the phrase goes, great reserve power. -lis uniform, though cleanly brushed and sitting easily upon him, had a sort of democratic air, and everything about him seemed to denote that he was *a man of the people/ A rusty slouched lat, large enough to have fitted Daniel Webster, ay on the desk before him ; but a glance at that vas not needed to convince me that his head held nore than the common share of brains. Though is yet young not thirty-three the reader has leard of him, and if he lives he will make his name ong remembered in our history." Garfield was looked upon as the only mature member of the staff, Rosecrans having a par- iality for young and gallant spirits, like Captain "harles Thompson, Major Bond, Colonel Mickler, Captain Hunter Brooke, Major Horace Porter, subsequently on Grant s staff, and Major Morton VlcMichael. Not that Garfield was much older than hese officers, but he had a mature look always, and his mood was ever serious, as if there was in the peril of the nation something more of personal concern and personal interest to him than to most of his associates. It was while acting 1 in this capacity that Gar- leld had a conversation with Clement C. Valland- ngham. Vallandingham having been banished br his treasonable sentiments, was brought to Murfeesboro, Tenn., where the army lay, to be I (/) LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF sent by flag of truce into the rebel lines, a ft miles distant, at Tullahoma. When brought in camp, Vallandingham was taken, in the usu course of business, to Rosecrans s head-quartei and he and Garfield being acquaintances, it was n tural they should fall into conversation, and equal natural that the conversation should turn upc the policy and conduct of the war, in a politic sense. Vallandingham was to go 4 off the next da escorted as far as the rebel lines, in the vicinity Tullahoma. He entered Rosecrans s tent at 2 early hour of the morning with an affectation of ui concern and light-heartedness which he could n< have felt, threw himself into a tragic attitude, ar in a mock heroic vein exclaimed, quoting froi Romeo and Juliet : " Night s candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops." Here he hesitated, when Garfield quickly bi quietly finished the speech, by adding, in a ha aside, to the aid-de-camp in charge of the flag c truce escort, waiting to convey Vallandingham 1 the rebel lines, " I must begone and live, or stay and die." Vallandingham, however, overheard and caugl the hidden meaning of the citation, and blushe scarlet, as he made its application. JAMES A. GAKFIELD. CHAPTER XV. GARFIELD AS CHIEF OF STAFF. THE chief of staff should bear the same re lation to his general that a minister oi state does to his sovereign. What this relation is, that brilliant historian, Kinglake, tells us in his " Crimean War :" " The difference between a servant and a minis ter of state lies in this, that the servant obeys the orders given him, without troubling himself con cerning the question whether his master is right or wrong, while a minister of state declines to be the instrument for giving effect to the measures which he deems hurtful to his country. The chancellor of the Russian Empire was sagacious and politic. That the czar was wrong in these transactions against Turkey, no man knew better. But, un happily for the czar and for his empire, the minis ter did not enjoy so commanding a station as to be able to put restraint upon his sovereign, nor even, perhaps, to offer him counsel in his angry mood." We now see that in some respects our chief of staff went through a similar experience. From the day of his appointment, General Garfield be came the intimate associate and confidential ad- Ul- J^ AXD n*!3LlC L AXKEX OF viser of his chief. But he did not occupy sc commanding a station as to be able to put restraint upon him. The time of General Garfield s arrival marks the beginning of that period of quarrels with the War Department, in which General Rosecrans frittered away his influence and paved the way for his removal. That great strategist and gallant soldier was always unwise in caring for his own interests, and generally was very imprudent in his intercourse with his superiors. Yet he was nearly always right in his demands, especially when he made appeals to the War Department for more cavalry and revolving arms. In these requests Gar- field was heart and soul with his superior. At the same time, he did all in his power to soften the tone of asperity which his chief adopted in his dispatches to Washington. Sometimes he took the responsibility of totally suppressing an angry message. Oftener he ventured to soften the o phraseology. But in all this there was a limit beyond which he could not go, and when Rose crans had pronounced certain statements of the department, "a profound, grievous, cruel and un generous official and personal wrong," the good offices of the chief of staff were no longer effica- o cious the breach was irreparable. Thencefor ward he could only strive to make victories in the field atone for errors in council. He regarded the organization of the army as JAMES A. ti 99 vitally defective. Almost the first recommendation made by General Garfield was the displacement of A. M. McCook and T. L. Crittenden. This recommendation was made in course of a dis cussion on the battle of Stone River, in which Rosecrans explicitly said that these officers had shown themselves incompetent in that engage ment. Garfield then, with his clear-headed judg ment utterly unmoved by popular prejudice, and thoroughly well able to perceive real ability be neath concealing misfortune recommended that McCook and Crittenden be replaced by Irvin Mc Dowell and Don Carlos Buell. Garfield did not take the ground that Buell and McDowell had proved themselves equal to the high commands they had already held, but without discussing this, he argued at length their masterly qualifications for important subordinate positions, as well as the fact that this offer of an opportunity to come out from the cloud under which they rested would in sure their gratitude and incite them to their very best efforts. With George H. Thomas already in command, with men like these as his associates, and with the energy and genius of Rosecrans to lead them, the Army of the Cumberland would have been the best officered army in the service of the nation. But " Rosecrans was unwilling to adopt the suggestion for a reason creditable to his kind ness of heart, but not to his military character Crittenden and McCook ought to be removed, 12 2 OO LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF of that he had no doubt, but lie hated to injure two such good fellows/ and the two good fellows remained with him until Chickamauga." From January 4th to June 24th, Rosecrans lay at Murfreesboro. Through five months of this delay Garfield was with him. The War Depart ment demanded an advance, and, when the spring opened, with unusual vehemence. General Rose crans delayed, waiting for cavalry, for reinforce ments, for Grant s movements before Vicksburg, for the movements of the enemy, for the opinions of the generals. The chief of staff at first ap proved the delays till the army should be strength ened and massed, but long before the delaying officers were ready he was urging movement with all his power. In a private letter, dated June I2th, 1863, he urged an advance. He wrote: "Bragg s army is weaker than it has been since the previous battles. If Grant succeeds at Vicks burg, it will take weeks to recover from the shock and strain. * * * The turbulent aspect of politics in the loyal States renders a decisive blow against the enemy at this time of the utmost im portance. * * The country is anxiously hop ing for the army to move. * * * Our true objective is the rebel army. Our army is superior in efficiency and morale. * * * For these rea sons I believe an immediate advance of all our available forces is advisable, and under the provi dence of God will be successful." JAMES A. GARFIELD. This information he procured through a secret- service system that he had established ; then, per haps, the most perfect in any of the Union armies. As he subsequently said, he refused to believe that this army, which defeated a superior at Stone River, could not now move upon an inferior one with reasonable prospect of success. The Army of the Cumberland agreed with Gar- field, who was a great favorite with the officers and men. His ringing letter on the atrocities of rebel prison-pens, written a few months previous to this, had added greatly to his popularity. The closing sentence of this letter is good reading even now: "We cannot believe that the justice of God will allow such a people to prosper. Let every soldier know that death on the battle-field is preferable to a surrender followed by such outrages as their comrades have undergone." x Finally, General Rosecrans formally asked his corps, division and cavalry generals as to the pro priety of a movement. With singular unanimity, though for divers reasons, they opposed it Out of seventeen generals not one was in favor of an immediate advance, and not one was even willing to put himself upon the record as in favor of an early advance. General Garfield collated the seventeen letters sent in from the generals in reply to the questions of their commander, and fairly refuted their sub- 202 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF stance, coupled with a cogent argument against them and in favor of an immediate movement. This report, says an excellent authority, is " the ablest military document known to have been sub mitted by a chief of staff to his superior during the war." General Garfield stood absolutely alone, every general commanding troops having, as we have seen, either openly opposed or failed to approve an advance. But his statements were so clear, and his arguments so convincing, that he carried conviction. Twelve days after the reception of this report the army moved, to the great dissatisfaction of its leading generals. One of the three corps com manders, Major-General Thomas L. Crittenden, approached the chief of staff at the head-quarters the morning of the advance: "It is understood, sir," he said, " by the general officers of the army that this movement is your work. I wish you to understand that it is a rash and fatal move, for which you will be held responsible." This rash and fatal move was the Tullahoma campaign, a campaign perfect in its conception, excellent in its general execution, and only hindered from resulting in the complete destruction of the opposing army by the delays which had too long postponed its commencement. It might even yet have destroyed Bragg, but for the terrible season of rains which set in on the morning of the advance, and continued uninterruptedly for the greater part JAMES A. CAIU IELD. OQ ^ of a month. With a week s earfier start it would have ended the career of Bragg s army in the war. Let us turn aside from the direct story of con flict for a moment to a personal word about our hero. One of the most prolific war writers J. R. Gilmore who spent a month with Rosecrans, gives us some interesting gem pictures of Gar- field, as he was at this time, the spring and sum mer of 1 863. " We rode one day out to Sheridan s head-quarters," says Gilmore, "and as we entered the forest encircling the town, Garfield broke out with Hosea Bigelow s poem : " I du believe in Freedom s cause/ and if the * Down East poet would have any ap preciation of his own lines, he should hear them in such grand, old woods, the words echoed back from the great spreading trees and set to the music of an hundred horses heels. He had scarcely ended, when Rosecrans began to tell how " * Zekle crep up, quite unbeknown, An peeped in thru the winder : While there sot Huldy all alone Ith no one nigh to hinder. " What would you give to have written that? Rosecrans said, as he finished the recitation. " All the castles I ever built in the clouds, was the reply. " So would I. You know what Wolie said be fore his great battle ? " That he would rather have written Gray s Elegy than take Quebec. Would you have said 204 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF that before Stone River? " He hesitated a moment, and then answered : " No, for now we need victories more than poems. "We soon arrived at Sheridan s. There we had some relaxation. Sheridan had invented a game he called Dutch Ten-Pins. On the lawn in front of his quarters, between two im mense elms, he had suspended a long rope, and to the end of it attached a small cannon-ball. On the ground, midway between these trees, was a square board which held the ten-pins. The game lay in throwing the ball so that it would miss the pins in going out, and strike them in coming back. To do this a peculiar twist had to be given to the rope by bending the wrist, and it seemed impossi ble to avoid hitting the pins on the direct throw. Three throws were a game, and only thirty strokes could be made. Sheridan, by much practice, had become an expert at the play, and could make pretty regularly twenty strokes, but a novice did well if he made ten. Sheridan soon challenged Rosecrans, Garfield, and the dozen officers with him to enter the lists and the chal lenger opened the play. He cleared the board twice, and missed it altogether the third throw. Twenty/ cried the scorer, and another took his place. He did indifferently well. Others fol lowed with more or less success, though none came up to Sheridan s score. JAMES A. GAR FIELD. 2 \J " Now for the general/ shouted the major, laughing, as Rosecrans took his place. He ll score thirty, sure. " Don t laugh until you win, my boy, answered the general, with his peculiar smile. " Calculating deliberately the motion of the ball, he let it go. Every pin fell on the direct throw, and a general laugh followed. Not at all dis concerted, he tried again and again until he had played three or four games with scarcely better success. Amid the mock congratulations of the whole assemblage he at last sat down, and Gar- field entered the lists. It s nothing but mathe matics, said Garfield, you only need an eye and a hand/ and carelessly throwing the ball he cleared the board and scored twenty-three I " You can t do that again. " I ll try/ answered the modest brigadier, and he did do it several times in succession." Another anecdote and one that well illustrates the instant correctness of Garfield s reasoning on subjects of the most vital and serious importance and we will hurry on to Chickamauga. Toward the close of May, 1863, Rosecrans received a letter, in which the scheme for a general uprising and arm ing of the blacks, followed by attacks on the whites, in all the slave States, on the first of the following August, was outlined. The support of Rosecrans was asked for in his department, and he was told that a similar plan had been sent to a E AND ^L ALSC CAREER OF Union commander in each department. Rose- crans deliberated over the communication and asked a bystander his opinion. " It would end the rebellion. Co-operating" with our forces, it would certainly succeed ; but the South would run with blood." " Innocent blood ? Women and children ?" " Yes ; women and children. If you let the blacks loose, they will rush into carnage like horses into a burning- barn. St. Domingo will be multiplied by a million." " But the letter says that no blood is to be shed except in self-defense." "It says so, and the leaders may mean so, but they cannot restrain the rabble. Every slave has some real or fancied wrong, and he would take such a time to avenge it." " I am puzzled. I must go and talk with Gar- field. Come, go with me." They crossed the street to Garfield s lodgings and found him bolstered up in bed, quite sick of a fever. Rosecrans sat clown at the foot of the bed and handed him the letter. Garfield read it over carefully, and then laying it down, said : " It will never do, general. We don t want to whip by such means. If the slaves of their own accord rise and assert their original right to them selves, that will be their own affair; but we can have no complicity with them without outraging the moral sense of the civilized world." JAMES A. CAKFfELD. " I knew you would say so ; but the writer speaks of other department commanders. May they not come into it ?" " Yes, they may, and that should be looked to. Send this letter to - and let him head off the movement." The insurrection, as every one knows, did not take place, save in some unimportant outbreaks in Georgia and Alabama in the following Septem ber. 208 LTFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF CHAPTER XVI. THE BATTLE OF CIIICKAMAUGA. THERE now sprang up renewed differences between General Rosecrans and the Wat Department. In the general policy that controlled the movements of the army Garfield heartily sympathized ; he had, in fact, given shape to that policy. But he deplored his chiefs testy manner of conducting his defense to the com plaints of the War Department, and did his best to soften the asperities of that correspondence. September was now nearly come, the summer almost gone, and the coming autumn was ripe in its promise of immediate results. The air was full of rumors of approaching conflicts, and the North waited the echo from the battle-field. On August 5th, General Halleck telegraphed Rosecrans peremptory orders to move. Rose crans quietly waited till the dispositions along his extended lines were completed, till stores were accumulated and the corn had ripened, so that his horses could be made to live off of the country, On the 1 5th he was ready. The problem now before him was to cross the Tennessee River and gain possession of Chatta nooga, the key to the entire mountain ranges ol JAMES A. GARI IELD. last Tennessee and Northern Georgia, in the ice of an enemy of equal strength, whose busi- ess it was to oppose him. Two courses were pen. Forcing a passage over the river above hattanooga, he might have essayed a direct at j ick upon the town. If not repulsed in the dan- erous preliminary movements, he would still ave had upon his hands a siege not less formid- ble than that of Vicksburg, with difficulties in- omparably greater in maintaining his supplies. Jut, if this plan was not adopted, it then behooved im to convince the enemy that he had adopted while crossing below he hastened southward ver the ruggedest roads, to seize the mountain aps, whence he could debouch upon the enemy s ne of supplies. More briefly, he could either ttempt to fight the enemy out of Chattanooga or ank him out He chose the latter alternative. By the 28th the singular activity of the National Drees along a front of one hundred and fifty miles, ad blinded and bewildered Bragg as to his an- agonist s actual intentions. Four brigades sud- enly began demonstrating furiously against his nes above Chattanooga, and the plan was bought to be revealed. Rosecrans must be about attempting to force a assage there, and straightway a concentration to ppose him was ordered. Meantime, bridges, se- retly prepared, were hastily thrown across thirty liles further down the river at different points, : ,/.v/> rrni.ic CAREER OF and, before "Bragg had finished preparing to resij a crossing above, Rosecrans, handling with rai skill his various corps and divisions, had securel planted his army south of the Tennessee; an< cutting completely loose from his base of supplie was already pushing southward his flank ne? the enemy being admirably protected by impai sable mountains. For Bragg but one thing was the least feasibl< As he had been forced out of Shelbyville, out < Wartrace, out of Tullahoma ; precisely had th same stress been placed upon him by the sam hand in a still stronger position ; and in all hast he evacuated Chattanoogo, leaving it to the neai est corps of Rosecrans s army to march quiet! in and take possession. The very ease of th: occupation proved its strongest element of dange For men, seeing the objective point in the can paign in their hands, forgot the columns toilin through the mountains away to the south ware whose presence there alone compelled the reb< evacuation. But for them, the isolated troops i Chattanooga would have been overwhelmec Thenceforward there was need of still greate generalship to reunite the scattered corps. The could not return by the way they had gone, fc the moment they began such a movement Bragj holding the shorter line, and already re-enforce by Longstreet s veteran corps of the Army < Northern Virginia, could sweep back over th JAMES A. GAKFIELD. T >ute of his late retreat. Plainly, they must pass irough the gaps, and place themselves between ragg and Chattanooga before the stronghold -beyond a mere tentative possession could be ithin their grasp. And so it came about that a ittle the bloody one of Chickamauga was ught to enable the Federal army to concentrate : the position one of its corps had already occu- .ed for days without firing a shot. Unfortunately, the concentration was not speedy lough. Indeed, there are some plausible reasons r believing that Rosecrans was, perhaps for a w days, deceived by his easy success, into a be- *f that Bragg was still in full retreat. Certainly ^e general-in-chief and the War Department did 1 they could to encourage such an idea, and ^en after Rosecrans, every nerve tense with .e struggle to concentrate his corps, was striving * prepare for the onset of the re-enforced rebel my, General Halleck informed him of reports at Bragg s army was re-enforcing Lee, and pleas- itly added, that after he had occupied Dalton it ould be decided whether he should move still rther southward ! By this time, Bragg had gathered in every Bailable re-enforcement, Longstreet from the east, uckner from Knoxville, Walker from the army Joseph E. Johnston, militia from Georgia and, gether waiting near Lafayette, hoped to receive e isolated corps of Rosecrans s army as they o r 2 LIFE AA D J UBLIC CAREER OF debouched through the gaps, and annihilated! in detail. For a day or two, it looked as if would be successful. One way or another, h ever, he failed. Rosecrans gathered toget his army, repelling whatever assaults sought hinder the concentration, yielding part of the ! of the Chickamauga, and marching one of corps all through the night of the battle. September 1 9th, Bragg made his onset with < tainly not less than seventy-five thousand rr Rosecrans claimed for him ninety-two thouss Rosecrans had fifty-five thousand. Of the ba Whitelaw Reid gives the following account : "Bragg s plan was to turn his antagonist s and thus clear the way into Chattanooga, but rr unfortunately for Bragg, the left was held Geo. H. Thomas, and shortly after the attack gan, Rosecrans, divining the danger, stren< ened Thomas s corps with one or two divisk Disaster overtook us at first, artillery was lost ; ground yielded, but Thomas reformed and vanced his lines, regained all that had been 1 sustained every shock of the enemy, and at ni held his position firmly. "Meanwhile the contest on other parts of line had been less severe, and had ended decide in our advantage. But it was seen that we w outnumbered, and as they came to think how ev brigade in the whole army, two only excepted, I been drawn into the fight the soldiers begar realize the dispiriting nature of the situation. JAMES A. GARi-IELD. " J "Through the night, the last of Longstrect :; corps came up, led by himself and Bragg, pre pared for a vigorous onset on the National left. Rosecrans transferred another division (Negley s) to Thomas, and placed two more in reserve to be hurried to Thomas s aid if needed. At daybreak, he galloped along the front to find McCook s line ill-formed, and also to learn that Negley had not yet been forwarded to Thomas. The errors were corrected as well as possible ; but long before Thomas s needed re-enforcements had come, the battle was raging on his front and flank. Pro- foundly conscious of the danger, Rosecrans sought to render still further aid, and ordered over Van Cleve s division from the right, directing the sev- jeral division commanders and the corps general to close up the line on the left. In the heat of the battle, which by this time was broken out along 1 the right also, one of these division commanders IT. J. Wood, of Kentucky misunderstood his I orders, and though he has subsequently stated that he knew the consequences of his action must be fatal, he chose to consider himself bound by I the order to break the line of battle and march to Jthe rear of another division. Longstreet per ceived the gap and hurled Hopd into it. The battle on the right was lost. The whole wing crumbled ; the enemy poured forward and all that was left of McCook s corps, a broken rabble, streamed back to Chattanooga. 2 j 5 / // 7i y/A7> PUBLIC CAREER Ol- "General Rosecrans, himself, was caught in this rout and borne along, vainly striving to stem its tide. Finally conceiving that if the wing least pressed was thus destroyed, Thomas, upon whom he knew the main efforts of the enemy were con centrated, could not hold out beyond nightfall he hastened to Chattanooga to make dispositions for the retreat and defense which he already re garded as inevitable. Meanwhile, his chief o: staff, General Garfield, was sent to Thomas, to convey to him information of what had happened and of the plans for the future." As chief of staff, it was Garfield s duty to remain with General Rosecrans, and it happened that the latter established his head-quarters for the day in the rear of the right wing and centre, leaving to General George H. Thomas the duty of directing the fortunes of the left wing. McCook and Crit- tenden, it will be remembered, were commanders of the other two corps. Shortly after the fog, which for the most of the morning enveloped the field, and made manoeuvring almost impos sible, the rebels, under Longstreet, who had come from Lee s Virginia army to take part in the great contest, made a grand assault on the right and centre. They were just in time to take ad vantage of Wood s fatal mistake, which left a gap in the Union line. The rebels penetrated far to the rear of the Federal line at this point, and turn ing, drove back the right of Thomas s forces and CHATTANOOGA BATTLE-FIELD AND APPROACHES. JAMES A. GAR FIELD. 2 l the left of the other two corps. The latter were eventually routed, driven across the ridge of hills to roads leading to Chattanooga, toward which they retreated in dreadful disorder and panic. In the tumult of defeat of the centre and right, Mc- Cook, Crittenden and Rosecrans, with their staff officers, were driven beyond the ridge named, and they, too, started for Chattanooga, not knowing whether Thomas had been annihilated or had escaped. Garfield followed his commander about half way to Chattanooga. Riding up to Rosecrans, he said, "General, I ask permission to return and join General Thomas." Some slight remonstrance was made, but Garfield persevered in his desire, and obtained permission. Captain William B. Gaw, of the engineers, upon this offered to act as guide, knowing the country thoroughly, and shar ing the general s wish to be where there was dan ger. Accompanied by Gaw and his orderly, Gar- field set out on his now famous ride. Striking through the Rossville Gap, in the mountain range, he rapidly pushed southward in search of General Thomas, the firing of whose guns, indicating that the Union troops were by no means in retreat, could be plainly heard. The sounds borne on the peaceful breeze were as fire to the heels of Gar- field s horse, and on he dashed, his whole energy bent upon reaching the scene of action. For his was the true soldier s spirit ; his the true soldier s 13 220 Z//7i AXD rUBLIC CARLLR CF creed, Napoleon s advice to his generals : " March in the direction of the heaviest firing." At the time he made this attempt the road by which Garfield expected to reach General Thomas was under cover by sharp-shooters and the ad vance guards of the rebels, who were pushing forward to secure possession of the road, and thereby cut off Thomas s line of retreat. Garfield did not know of their presence there until admon ished of it by the pattering of their too lively bul lets. Garfield s horse and that of his guide, Cap tain Gaw, were shot at the first discharge, and Garfield s orderly was wounded, though not se riously. They were compelled to abandon the road, and take to the fields and the mountain-side, where Gaw s familiarity with the topography of the country came into play. Intrusting himself implicitly to Gaw, Garfield was -eventually, after repeated avoidance of danger, brought in safety to General Thomas s side. The "Rock of Chickamauga" was reached just after the repulse of the enemy in a formidable as sault all along Thomas s line, which the rebels en veloped on both flanks. He found Thomas and his staff, General Gordon Granger, General J. B. Steedman, General Wood, and others, grouped in a hollow of the open field, a depression just suffi cient to protect them from the. direct rebel fire. Garfield at once gave Thomas a brief account of the disaster to the right and centre. Thomas, JAMES A. GARFIELD. 2 j in return, stated his own intention and his situa tion. The conversation, however, was not finished, it was cut short by a fresh rebel assault. It was made in great force and with great desperation, the rebels evidently foreseeing, that if repulsed, they could not get their troops in position for yet another assault before the sun went down and darkness came to the aid of the enemy. The fire lasted furiously for half an hour, when the rebels again broke and abandoned the assault. During this desperate melee Garfield quietly sat on the ground behind a dead tree, and coolly indited a dispatch to General Rosecrans detailing the situa tion ; and while he sat there, and during the heaviest of the firing, a white dove, after hovering around and above for several minutes, finally set tled on the topmost perch of the tree above Gar- field s head. He re it remained during the heat of the fight, and when the musketry ceased, it flew away to the north. The attention of Garfield and General Wood was called to the bird. Garfield said nothing, ,but went on writing. Wood re marked : " Good omen of peace." Garfield fin ished his dispatch, sent it by an officer, and himself remained on the field with General Thomas until the retreat was effected the same night to Chatta nooga. At seven o clock that evening a shotted salute of six Napoleon guns fired into the woods, after the last of the retreating assailants, under the personal supervison of General Gordon Gran- 222 LirE AND PUBLIC CAXEER OF ger and General Garfield, were the last shots fired in the battle of Chickamauga. What was left of the Union army was master of the field. For the time the enemy evidently regarded himself as re pulsed, and Garfield said that night, and has always since maintained, that there was no necessity for an immediate retreat on Rossville. This was Garfield s last military service of mo ment. He wrote every order that day but one that one was the fatal order to General Wood, which, displacing his brigade, enabled Hood to break through and turn the Union flank. That order Rosecrans wrote himself. But after Wood had been moved, and after Davis had been shat tered and beaten back, when the whole right wing, mad with panic, surged back through the gaps, Garfield came upon the field, showing clearly that communication could be established between the reserve and Thomas, who still stood as steadfast as the spur of Mission Ridge, that loomed behind him. Through him the reserves were pushed to the left of Thomas, enabling him to hold Polk and Longstreet at bay during that long, sad afternoon of shock and repulse. And it should never be for gotten, in Garfield s praise, that it was on his own earnest representations that he procured permis sion by half refusing to further retreat to go to Thomas, and so back into battle. He refused to believe that Thomas was routed or the battle lost. General Wood, in his official report of Chicka- GEN. GEORGE H. THOMAS. MISSIONARY RIDGE. . , *" * , - - , JAMES A. GARFILLD. 2 , mauga, said of General Garfield s action on that day of disaster: "It affords me much pleasure to signalize the presence with my command, for a length of time during the afternoon (present during the period of hottest fighting), of another distinguished of ficer, Brigadier-General James A. Garfield, chief of the staff. After the disastrous rout on the right, General Garfield made his way back to the battle-field (showing clearly that the road was open to all who might choose to follow it), and came to where my command was engaged. The brigade which made so determined a resistance on the crest of the narrow ridge during all the long Sep tember afternoon, had been commanded by Gen eral Garfield when he belonged to my division. The men remarked his presence with much satis faction, and were delighted that he was a witness of the splendid fighting they were doing. Rosecrans, in his official report, added his measure of praise "To "Brigadier-General James A. Garfield, chief of staff, I. am especially indebted for the clear and ready manner in which he seized the points of ac tion and movement, and expressed in orders the ideas of the general commanding." On an afternoon not long afterward the army was then at Chattanooga Garfield approached his commander, Rosecrans, and said to him: "Gen eral, I have been asked to accept the Republican 22 6 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF nomination for Congress from the Ashtabula dis trict. What ought I to do? What is your advice? Ought I to accept? Can I do so honorably?" "I am glad, for your sake," returned Rosecrans, "that you have a new distinction, and I certainly think you can accept with honor, and, what is more, I deem it your duty to do so. The war is not over yet, nor will it be for some time to come. There will be, of necessity, many questions aris ing in Congress which will require not alone statesmanlike treatment, but the advice of men having an acquaintance with military affairs. For this, and other reasons, I believe you will be able to do equally good service to your country in Con gress as in the field. Now, let me give you a piece of advice. When you go to Congress, be careful what you say. Don t talk too much, but when you do talk speak to the point. Be true to yourself, and you will make your mark before the country." After a week or two further service, he was sent as bearer of dispatches to Washington. He there learned of his promotion to a major-generalship of volunteers "for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battle of Chickamauga." He might have re tained this position in the army, and the military capacity he had displayed, the high favor in which he was held by the Government, and the certainty of assignment to important commands seemed to augur a brilliant future. He was a poor man, too, BLOCK-HOUSE AT CHATTANOOGA HEAD-QUARTERS OF THOMAS. LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 2 2Q and the major-general s salary was more than double that of the congressman. But, on mature reflection, he decided that the circumstances under which the people had elected him to Congress, bound him to an effort to obey their wishes. He was, furthermore, urged to enter Congress by the officers of the army, who looked to him for aid in procuring such military legislation as the country and the army required. Under the belief that the path of usefulness to the country lay in the direction in which his constituents pointed, he sacrificed what seemed to be his personal interests and, on the 5th of December, 1863, resigned his commission, after nearly three years of service. He left the Army of the Cumberland, followed by the regrets and good wishes of every man in it for each was his friend and he laid down his unstained sword, to enter an arena where he has won a prouder fame, a soldier of few but shining laurels. A distinguished military critic thus sums up his soldierly achievements : " He proved himself a good, independent com mander in the small, but important operations in the Sandy Valley. His campaign there opened our series of successes in the West, and, though fought against superior forces, began with us the habit of victory. After that he was only a subor dinate. But he always enjoyed the confidence of his immediate superiors and of the department. As chief of staff, he was unrivaled. There, as 030 JAMES A. GARFIELD. elsewhere, he was ready to accept the gravest re sponsibilities in following 1 his convictions. The bent of his mind was aggressive ; his judgment in military matters was always good; his papers on the Tullahoma campaign will stand a monument of his courage and his far-reaching soldierly saga city; and his conduct at Chickamauga will nevei be forgotten by a nation of brave men." In following Garfield s career upon the field of battle, we have steadily pursued the thread of the direct story, rather than turn aside to garner here and there a flower of incident, or to gather a blossom growing beside the smoking cannon s mouth, There were many such scat tered about the path he trod with such earnest feet. And we may, therefore, with entire rele vance and appreciable purpose, devote a page to the humors of conflict, as Garfield found, ab sorbed and generated them. No man has a keener sense of justice thar General Garfield. One day, a fugitive slave came rushing into the camp, with a bloody head and ap parently frightened almost to death. He hac only passed my tent, says a staff officer of General Sherman, when, in a moment, a regular bully of a fellow came riding up and, with a volley of oaths: began to ask after his " nigger." General Garfield was not present, and he passed on to the division commander, who hap pened to be a sympathizer with the theory that JAMES A. CARFIELD. ^ T 2 X fugitives should be returned to their masters, and that the Union soldiers should be made instru ments for returning them. He accordingly wrote a mandatory order to General Garfield, in whose command the darkey was supposed to be hiding, telling him to hunt up and deliver over the prop- , erty of the outraged citizen. The staff officer who brought the order stated the case fully to General Garfield before handing him the order, well knowing the general s strong anti-slavery views. The general took the order and, after reading it carefully, deliberately wrote on it the following indorsement: "I respectfully but positively decline to allow my command to search for, or deliver up any fugitive slaves. I conceive that they are here for quite another purpose . The command is open and no obstacle will be placed in the way of the search." When the staff officer read the general s in dorsement he was inclined to be frightened, and remonstrated against Garfield s determination. He said if he returned the order in that shape to the division commander he certainly would arrest and court-martial the writer. To this the Ohio general simply replied: "The matter may as well be tested first as last. Right is right, and I do not propose to mince matters at all. My soldiers are here for far other purposes than hunting and returning fugitive slaves." 2 3 2 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF The staff officer returned to the divisioi commander and communicated Garfield s indorse ment and resolve. The division commander wa; highly incensed, and at once sent for Garfield, whon he attempted to bull-doze into abandoning hii position. The Ohio abolitionist was, however, no the man for the operation, and in return the divi sion commander was obliged to listen to such lecture as made him think possibly that he was if the wrong. At all events no court-martial wa< convened to try the general who had so fla grantly refused to obey orders, and thereafter the division commander refrained from issuing orden on the subject of slavery. General Garesche, Rosecrans s chief of staff be fore Garfield, was killed the first day of thu fight at Murfreesboro. A solid shot took his heac off. "Old Rosey," as he was familiarly called, whc was at Garesche s side when the fatal shot struct him, glanced at the headless body of his faithfu officer and exclaimed "poor fellow! poor fellow! 1 Then he called out, "scatter, gentlemen, scatter! The order was obeyed by staff and orderlies witl more than alacrity, as the enemy had the staff ii blank range of a well-manned battery and the sho were flying thick and fast without any respect t< persons. "A few days after," says Thoma Dougherty, " I do not remember how many, whei we had got into quarters at Murfreesboro, Gen eral Ganfield joined us to take the dead man v BATTLE-FIELD AS IT APPEARS TO-DAY. REDOUBT AT PAINTVILLE. JAMES A. GARFIELD. ^ O \j lace as chief of staff. The boys were delighted and hought him a perfect success. As an illustration f his kindness of heart, a virtue not practiced ften by army officers in the field, they delighted to elate the following story as told by a sergeant in osecrans s army. " One night, very late, the boys were rolled in eir blankets on the hall floor asleep, and I was t my post, sitting on a chair at the door of the tent f the general commanding, awaiting orders to be taken to their destination by the then sleeping men. e light was but a tallow candle, stuck in a sar- ine-box. I, with chair tilted against the wall, had alien asleep, when General Garfield, the new hief of staff, emerged from the head-quarter room with quick step. Not noticing my extended imbs, he tripped over them and dropped on his ands and knees on the floor. He was no light weight, and even then the fall was not easy. Af frighted, I started from my sleep, sprang to my feet and, as the general arose, saluted. I ex pected nothing else than to be cursed, and proba bly kicked and cuffed, too, from one end of the hall to the other. To my astonishment, the tall general said, kindly and quietly : * Excuse me, ser- jjj geant, I did not see you. I not only excused him, but with my comrades, to whom the incident was related, we all learned to revere and respect the kindly-hearted man who had come to us as chief of staff." 236 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF George O. Gardener relates a storv that is > ~ apropos to end our chapter: " After the great and sanguinary battle of Chickamauga, ] was bound North on a twenty days furlough. At Louisvilk I met Generals Garfield and Steedman. Garfield was going to Congress, and Steedman North on business. We happened to go down to the ferryboat in the same bus, on top of which were Garfield s #nd Steedman s negro servants. It appean that, owing to the fact that the emancipation proclamatior was not general, and did not at that time apply to Kentucky, that State s Legislature had taken advantage of it and passec laws regarding the kidnapping and*confiscating of every straj negro the gangs of civil officers and citizens could lay theii hands upon. Officers with posses were stationed at the levees instructed and authorized to seize all negroes attempting tc cross the river on the boats, no matter where they were from When we went on the boat we were all in ignorance of thi: State law, and of the fact that a strong force of men were 01 the boat for the purpose of seizing any unlucky darkey wh( might be going North with the Union officers. My attentior was first called to the fact by hearing General Garfield ask i pompous-looking man : What do you want with that boy ? "I looked out of the bus window and noticed that the man in company with others, was ordering the two boys to *ge down from the bus and go ashore with them. The man, wh( claimed to be the sheriff, said the boys could not go acros; the river; that he should take possession of them, etc., am proceeded to force them off the boat. At this, Garfield anc Steedman jumped out of the bus. Garfield was mad ; he tok these insolent men that he had been fighting rebels in the fielc for two years, that he would now do some fighting on th< water, and that if they did not leave the boat at once the] would get hurt. He stood between the negroes and tin officers, and shook his fist in their faces, and dared them tc touch the black boys who had so faithfully stood by him ir JAMES A. GARFIELD. 2 - Ihe camp and on the battle-grounds of Stone River and thickamauga. General Steedman was mad ; he pulled off his coat and marched into the crowd, saying he could fight puch a white-livered set of rascals with good relish; Chicka- pauga had had no terrors for him, neither had kidnappers. "It was an exciting time for them. While Garfield and bteedman were getting the negroes away from the sheriff and his deputies, us fellows in the bus were getting our revolvers t of our valises, and we soon were out and forming a line of battle, one deep and far apart, in the rear of Garfield and Steedman. The sheriff finally exhibited a disposition to take the negroes at any risk. Garfield, followed by us blue-coats, moved on the enemy in force. They retreated right smart to the shore. The sheriff, from his safe place on the shore, ordered the captain of the boat not to move the boat with the negroes on board. The captain then came to Garfield, and told him that he, the captain, could not take the boys across the river without incurring a heavy fine, and therefore would not move the boat. General Garfield said he would relieve him of responsibility, so he announced he would pilot the boat across if some one would volunteer to run the engine. Upon several of the soldiers agreeing to do it, the captain caved and ordered the boat untied, saying he would take the crowd across, arid stop the tarnal fuss. The boat started and the row ended." GARFIELD AS A STATESMAN. Statesmanship consists rather in removing causes than in punishing or evading results. Garfield s Speech on the Ninth Census* JAMES A. GARFIELD. 2 . l CHAPTER XVII. HE APPEARS IN CONGRESS. GENERAL GARFIELD entered, on re signing from the army, a wider field of usefulness than that permitted him at the ront. But he still remained one of the nation s .efenders. His election to Congress was the re- ult of a popular idea in the North during the ummer of 1862 that the war would end in a few lonths, or be over at least by Christmas. Be- eving this, it was but rational that the people hould take up, for the purpose of rewarding them /ith Congressional honors, those who had won .istinction in arms. Garfield was one of the Dumber. The Congressional district in which he lived is ;enerally called the Ashtabula district, and has >een more faithful to its representatives than any f those of the North having had but four in alf a century. It now consists of the counties of Ashtabula, Lake, Granger, Trumbull and Mahoney. lie County of Portage, which was a part of it fhen Garfield was first elected, was detached a ear aeo. The district is the Nineteenth, and is o ituated in the Western Reserve the New Eng- LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF land of the North-west in North-east Ohio. It was originally settled by New Englanders, and its population has the thrift, the keen intelligence, the habits of local self-government, the political in stincts, and the morals of New England. There is no population of equal numbers on the long line reaching from New York to Chicago, that writes so many letters and receives through the mails so much reading matter. There is less illit eracy in proportion to the population, than in any other district in the United States. The district is essentially a rural one, with the exception of some iron-working portions in the southern end. It is the eastern portion of the Reserve. It early be came deeply interested in the anti-slavery move ment, and this greatly quickened the interest of its people in public affairs. It is this intelligent interest in national welfare that has made the district acce&ible to General Garfield s earnest, straight-forward exposition of solid political doc trines, to his high bearing, to the impact of his mental and moral power upon intelligent and honest minds, rather than by any managing or demagogic measures. This district was the same that was long made famous by Joshua R. Giddings, the anti-slavery champion. Grown careless of the arts of politics toward the end of his career, he came to look upon a nomination and re-election as a matter of course. His over-confidence was taken advan- JAMES A. GARFIELD. tage of by an ambitious lawyer named Hutchins, to carry the convention of 1858 against him. The friends of Giddings never forgave Hutchins, and cast about for a means of defeating him. The old man, himself, was comfortably quartered in his consulate at Montreal, and did not care to make fight to get back to Congress. So, his supporters made use of the popularity of General Garfield, and nominated him while he was with his brigade. He had no knowledge of any such movement in his behalf, and when he accepted the nomination he did so in the belief that the war would be over before he would be called upon to take his seat. He was elected by a large majority. He con tinued his military service up to the day Congress met. Even then he seriously thought of resign ing his position as a representative, rather than his major-general s commission, and would have done so had there been any prospect of active opera tions during the winter months. He has often expressed regret that he did not fight the war to the end. Had he . done so he would, doubtless, have ranked at its close among the foremost of the victorious generals of the Republic. In the great arena he entered in December, 1863, he has ever since remained seventeen years. Only one member of that body antedates him Judge Kelley. All this time he has been an active participant in the events that have tran spired in Congress, and he has left the imprint of A LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 2 44 his ability and patriotism as thoroughly upon the legislation of the country as any one man now in public service. He certainly realizes the meaning of the title, " a public benefactor." We will de fine that in his own words, from a speech made on December loth, 1878: " The man who wants to serve his country must put him self in the line of its leading thought, and that is the restora tion of business, trade, commerce, industry, sound political economy, hard money and the payment of all obligations, and the man who can add anything in the direction of ac complishing any of these purposes is a public benefactor." No man with such an ideal could fail to at once take high rank. Nor did Garfield fail to clo so. At the outset he was recognized as a leader, and his influence grew with his service. He was ap pointed on the military committee, under the chairmanship of General Schenck, the colleague- ship of Farnsworth, both fresh from the field, and was of great service -just as Rosecrans antici pated he would be in carrying through the measures that served to recruit the armies durin^ o the closing months of the war. His activity, in dustry and thorough knowledge of the wants of the army, were of the first value in all legislation pertaining to military matters. He was appointed chairman of a select committee of seven, ap pointed to investigate the alleged frauds in the money-printing bureau of the Treasury. He soon JAMES A. GARFIELD. bccame known as a powerful speaker, remarkably ready and always effective in debate. His first speech of any length, on January 28th, 1864, gave ample promise in the bud of the flowers of powerful oratory so soon to bloom. It was a reply to his Democratic colleague, Mr. Finck, and was in favor of the confiscation of rebel property. We quote from its brilliant pas sages : "The war was announced by proclamation, and it must end by proclamation. We can hold the insurgent States in military subjection half a century- if need be, until they are purged of their poison and stand up clean before the country. They must come back with clean hands, if they come at all. I hope to see in all those States the men who fought and suffered for the truth, tilling the fields on which they pitched their tents. I hope to see them, like old Kasper of Blenheim, on the summer evenings, with their children upon their knees, and pointing out the spot where brave men fell and marble commemorates it. ##***## "I deprecate these apparently partisan remarks ; it hurts me to make them, but it hurts me more to know they are true. I conclude by returning once more to the resolution before me. 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 a 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 con spired 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 246 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF traitor angel who first broke peace in Heaven/ and rebeled against Him." Soon after he spoke in favor of the payment of prompt and liberal bounties by the Federal Gov ernment to encourage enlistments, and rapidly earned Congressional reputation. This readiness at trenchant debating proved, in some respects, injurious to his rising fame. He spoke so readily that members were constantly asking his services in behalf of favorite measures, and in the impulsive eagerness of a young man and a young member, he often consented. He thus came to be too frequent a speaker, and the House wearied a little of his polished periods, and began to think him too fond of talking. His su perior knowledge, too, used to offend some of his less learned colleagues at first. They thought him bookish and pedantic, until they found how solid and useful was his store of knowledge, and how pertinent to the business in hand were the drafts he made upon it. But this in time wore off. His genial personal ways soon made him many warm friends, and reaction set in. The men of brains in both houses, and in the departments, were not long in discovering that here was a fresh, strong, intellectual force that was destined to make its mark upon the politics of the country. They sought his acquaintance, and befoVe he had been long in Washington, he had the advantage of the best society in the capital. JAMES A. GARFIELD. 247 CHAPTER XVIII. THE LADDER OF HONOR. TO the steadily-growing good opinion of his district, Garfield lived out his first term. When the time came for holding the Con gressional Convention of 1864, in the Nineteenth District, it was whispered around in the Western Reserve that Garfield had written the Wade-Davis manifesto against President Lincoln, or, at least, was in sympathy with it. The convention was eager to nominate him, but it was objected, and the objection seemed to have some force with the delegates, that he had not condemned the mani festo. He was called upon to explain himself, and the way he did so will never be forgotten. En tering the convention hall, he walked up to the platform, planted himself firmly on it, and began a speech that he must have thought would dig his political grave. He spoke only for half an hour, and he told his hearers he had not written the Wade-Davis letter, but he had only one regret connected with it, and that was that there was a necessity for its appearance. He approved the letter, defended the motives of the authors, asserted his right to independence of thought and action, and told the delegates that if they did not want a 248 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF free agent for their representative, they had better find another man, for he did not desire to serve them longer. As he warmed up to his subject he captivated the convention with his plain, hard reasoning and his glowing eloquence. When he had finished speaking, he left the platform and strode out of the hall. As he reached the front of the stairs, on his way out of the building, he heard a great noise, which -he imagined was the signal of his unanimous rejection. On the contrary, it was the applause that followed his nomination by acclamation. His very boldness had stunned the convention, expecting, as it did, something entirely different from the party leader. It was some seconds before anything was said, but finally an Ashtabula delegate got on his feet, and said : "By , the man who can face a conven tion like that, ought to be nominated by acclama tion." It didn t take the convention long to find out that it entertained a similar admiration for his independence and pluck, and the result was as related, before his opponents in the convention had time to open their mouths. Governor Todd closed the meeting with the re mark : "A district that will allow a young fellow like Garfield to tweak its nose and cuff its ears in that manner, deserves to have him saddled on it for life." General Garfield, speaking of this incident, said he knew it was a bold action for a youngster, bu{ JAMES A. CARFIELD. 2 49 he believed both Mr. Wade and Mr. Davis to be right, and he determined to stand by them. "This showed me, completely, the truth of the old maxim, that Honesty is the best policy, and I have ever since been entirely independent in my relations with the people of my district." The news of his action spread far and wide. A day or two afterward he met Ben Wade, who seized him by the hand, and roared out: " Look here, do you know you did a d brave thing at that convention the other day ?" " It was my duty, Mr. Wade, to say what I did, as I believed you and Mr. Davis to be in the right," replied Garfield. " Bosh," cried old Ben, " I say it was d cl brave. Why, not one fellow in a dozen but would have given Davis and I the go-by. All you had to do was to go in and teter a little before the con vention, and they would have promised in advance to re-nominate you. But you didn t do it ; devil the bit did you do it. You took the bull by the horns like a man, and told the convention it was wrong, and I say it was d d brave in you to do so. Now, mind you, Garfield, you have got that district, and they won t fool with you any more. The people of Ohio like a bold and honest man, and they have found one in you, and they ain t going to give you up soon. Just you go ahead, they know you are worth a dozen limber-jacks, and they will stick by you. It s a clear case you 250 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF won t turn for anybody you had the best chance to turn the other day before that convention you will ever have, and you didn t do it no d if you did. The people hate a trimmer, and I tell you your action at that convention has given the men and women of your district a new idea of you. As for me," added old Ben, the tears starting to his eyes, " I won t say how much I am obliged to you for the way you stood by me, but I shall never forget it, never, sir, while I live on this earth." Then the old war-horse went abruptly away, and the young statesman knew he had made a friend for life of the oldest and best statesman Ohio ever had. When the election came off he was returned by a majority of twelve thousand. On his return to Congress on the opening of his second term, having proved himself such an invaluable worker, and having risen to such in fluence in the handling of financial questions, that the Secretary of the Treasury requested he be appointed on the Committee of Ways and Means,* the leading committee of the House. This was much more in the line of his tastes and studies. His work during this term was earnest, thorough and incessant, and he steadily gained in the estima tion of his colleagues. He delivered a noted speech on the "Constitutional Amendment to Abolish * The committee which matures the financial legislation of Congress and provide* the means of raising the revenue. JAMES A. GARFIELD. 2 Slavery," and from the Committee on Military Af fairs, on which he had been appointed, made a report on the discharge of soldiers who enlisted to fill old regiments. a He made noted speeches also on the"Freedman s Bureau" and the "Restoration of the Rebel States," on the "Public Debt and Specie Payments," and on "the National Bureau of Education." On March 6th of this year ( 66) he argued the L. P. Milligan conspiracy case against the Government, ap pealed to the Supreme Court from the courts of Indiana. Ben. Butler, Hon. James Speed, Hon. Henry Stanberry appeared for the United States, and with Mr. Garfield for the petitioners were the Hon. J. A. McDonald, Hon. J. S. Black and Hon. David Dudley Field. Mr. Garfield s argument was most elaborate and bristled with precedents and telling points. Its peroration was as follows: "It is in your power, O Judges! 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, as 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 rebel lion ; 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 mean est, and, until declared by solemn law unworthy of protection, the guiltiest of its citizens." When the nominating convention met again in 2 r 2 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF the late summer of 1866, some few of his constitu ents, living in the Mahoning Valley, an iron pro ducing district, opposed his re-nomination on tin ground that he did not favor as high a tariff 01 iron as they wanted. The convention, howevei was overwhelmingly on his side, not a single anti Garfield delegate securing a seat, and in afte years he succeeded in convincing these opponent that a moderate duty, affording a sufficient margii for protection, was better for their interests thai a high prohibitory rate. During his third tern he was chairman of the Committee on Militar Affairs, being placed at the head of this com mittee in 1867. In this committee he had plent; of work to do looking after the demands of th< discharged soldiers for pay and bounty, of whicl many had been deprived by red-tape decisions o the Government accounting officers. It wa during this term that everything seemed drifting toward greenbacks and repudiation. He took i bold stand, as his views were opposed to those o many leading men of his party, and to the declara tions of the Republican State Committee of Ohic he indeed seemed to hazard his re-nomination, bu he did not hesitate firmly and fully to avow his con victions. His financial doctrines were at lengtl adopted by the entire party, and fully indorsed ii the Chicago Republican platform. These two years are marked by speeches on "Re construction," "the Currency," "Taxation of Unitec JAMES A. GARFTELD. 2 j States Bonds," an address on "College Education," (June i^th, 1867,) at Hiram, Ohio, before the liter ary societies of the Eclectic Institute, and a Deco ration Day address at Arlington, Va., May 3oth, 1868. He was opposed in the nominating convention of 1868, by Darius Cadwell, of Ashtabula County, who secured forty votes chiefly from his own county, and had the pleasure of seeing his oppo nent elected by one of his overwhelming majori ties. When he reached Congress he was appointed chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency, and during this Congress, beside work on this committee, he did most of the hard work on the Ninth Census. His work is this ses sion is noted for a most elaborate, painstaking report on remodeling the army and investigation into the causes of Black Friday. This report, which is far too long to print here, is a fascinating story for any reader, possessing little of the saw dust filling common to "Pub. Docs." April ist, 1870, he made a speech on the tariff. This year there was no opposition either in the convention or the field, and Garfield returned to the capital for his fifth two years. In 1871, he was promoted to the chairmanship of the Commit tee on Appropriations, as successor to Henry L. Dawes, which he held until the Democrats got control of the House, in 1875. He made speeches on the "McGarrahan Claim," the "Right to Orig- LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER F inate Revenue Bills," "Enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment," "National Aid to Education." He delivered, on November 25th, 1871, an elaborate eulogy on General George H. Thomas, and Feb ruary Qth, 1872, argued the Henderson case be fore the Supreme Court. In 1872, a few blank ballots were cast in the nominating convention, and a liberal Republican was taken up by the opposition at the election, but Garfield received his old-time majority and re turned again to Washington. He delivered, on July 2d, 1873, an oration to the -students of Hud son College, on "The Future of the Republic." In October, the same year, he was in the Supreme Court, in the Rogers case, and contributed some papers to the Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society. The year 1874 was the year of the Democratic tidal wave, the Credit Mobilier and the salary grab having alienated many of the Republican thousands. Nowhere did these two affairs make a deeper impression than in the sensitive and jeal ous constituency represented by Mr. Garfield. Mr. Whittlesey and Mr. Giddings, who had pre ceded Mr. Garfield, were men of unsullied repu tation. The faintest semblance to anything like a wrong or improper course of conduct was enough to draw forth the honest, plain-spoken indignation of men who were not ready to justify the slightest departure from the line of right. General Gar- JAMES A. GARFIELD. ield had now represented the district in five suc- ;ssive Congresses, and, though not so well known is he is to-day, his name had crossed the conti- lent to the West and the ocean to the East. The listrict felt very proud of him. No representative icld his constituency with a firmer hand. His inure promised to be as long as that of Whittle- >ey or Giddings. But now all was changed. A .epublican convention, that met in Warren for ;ome local purpose, demanded his resignation. IMost men denounced, all regretted, none defended hat had been done. All that the staunchest I friends of General Garfield presumed to do was to say: "Wait until you hear the case; hear what Garfield has to say before you determine that he is a dishonest man." Garfield wrote from Wash ington to a friend: "The district is lost, and as soon as I can close up my affairs here I am coming home to capture it." And he did capture it. He issued his pamph lets, "Review of the Transactions of the Credit Mobilier Company " and " Increase of Salaries " from Washington, and then came on to Hiram. These pamphlets, with a personal speech in War ren somewhat later, constituted his direct defense. When the next campaign opened, he went, as usual, upon the stump. He rarely referred to the charges against him, and never did unless compelled to. He grappled with the questions of the day. He went from county to county, and 256 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF almost from village to village. His knowledge was so great, his argumentation so logical, his spirit so earnest, and his bearing, both public and private, so manly, that men began to ask : " Can it be true that Mr. Garfield is such a man as they tell us ?" Prejudice was slowly but surely over come, and at the polls the people s belief was thus expressed: Garfield, 12,591; Regular Democratic ticket, 6,245 ; Independent Republican ticket, 3,427. His antagonist this time was a Republi can, named Casement, who is to-day one of the general s best friends. During all the storm of abuse that darkened this year, the sunshine of the future was predicted. A sonnet appeared in the Washington Evening Star, in the winter of 74: "TO JAMES A. GARFIELD. " Thou who didst ride on Chickamauga s day, All solitary, down the fiery line, And saw the ranks of battle rusty shine, Where grand old Thomas held them from dismay, Regret not now, while meaner factions play Their brief campaigns against the best of men ; For those spent balls of slander have their way, And thou shalt see the victory again. Weary and ragged, thou( h the broken lines Of party reel, and thine own honor bleeds, That mole is blind fhat Garfield undermines ! That shot falls short that hired slander speeds ! That man will live whose place the State assigns, And whose high mind the mighty nation needs !" In 1876, he was again re-elected. He served in this term as a member of the Committee on Rules, in recognition of his rare knowledge of JAMES A. GARFIELD. Darliamentary law. In 1877, Mr. Blaine took his seat in the Senate, and the mantle of Republican eadership in the House, by common consent, de scended to Mr. Garfield ; a mantle which he has worn with honor ever since. He was, at the opening of this Congress, the Republican candi date for the speakership, but the Democrats were .argely in the majority, and Mr. Randall was elected over him. In this same year, upon the ippointment of Senator Sherman to the post of Secretary of the Treasury, his own inclinations jind the support of his friends in Ohio led him to ispire to the vacant Senatorial chair. The repre sentations of President Hayes are understood to nave been effective in preventing him from be- :oming a candidate for that place, on the ground that his services were more needed as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Mr. Stanley Matthews was elected Senator. When the House was organized, however, the Speakership was car- jried off by the Democracy, and General Garfield was left "out in the cold." It was just as well for him, for two years later the Democracy also car ried Ohio and elected " Gentleman George " Pen- dleton to Matthews s seat in the Senate. In 1878, he was re-elected by a majority of 9,613. Opposition was now no more. Men who bad been most denunciatory was now warmest in bis praise ; and it was actually left to the friends who had stood by him through all the storm to 15 256 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF almost from village to village. His knowledge was so great, his argumentation so logical, his spirit so earnest, and his bearing, both public and private, so manly, that men began to ask : " Can it be true that Mr. Garfield is such a man as they tell us ?" Prejudice was slowly but surely over come, and at the polls the people s belief was thus expressed: Garfield, 12,591; Regular Democratic ticket, 6,245 ; Independent Republican ticket, 3,427. His antagonist this time was a Republi can, named Casement, who is to-day one of the general s best friends. During all the storm of abuse that darkened this year, the sunshine of the future was predicted. A sonnet appeared in the Washington Evening Star, in the winter of 74: "TO JAMES A. GARFIELD. " Thou who didst ride on Chickamauga s day, All solitary, down the fiery line, And saw the ranks of battle rusty shine, Where grand old Thomas held them from dismay, Regret not now, while meaner factions play Their brief campaigns against the best of men ; For those spent balls of slander have their way, And thou shall see the victory again. Weary and ragged, thou( h the broken lines Of party reel, and thine own honor bleeds, That mole is blind fhat Garfield undermines ! That shot falls short that hired slander speeds ! That man will live whose place the State assigns, And whose high mind the mighty nation needs !" In 1876, he was again re-elected. He served in this term as a member of the Committee on Rules, in recognition of his rare knowledge of JAMES A. GARFIELD. 257 parliamentary law. In 1877, Mr. Blaine took his seat in the Senate, and the mantle of Republican leadership in the House, by common consent, de scended to Mr. Garfield ; a mantle which he has worn with honor ever since. He was, at the opening of this Congress, the Republican candi date for the speakership, but the Democrats were largely in the majority, and Mr. Randall was elected over him. In this same year, upon the appointment of Senator Sherman to the post of Secretary of the Treasury, his own inclinations and the support of his friends in Ohio led him to aspire to the vacant Senatorial chair. The repre sentations of President Hayes are understood to have been effective in preventing him from be coming a candidate for that place, on the ground that his services were more needed as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Mr. Stanley Matthews was elected Senator. When the House was organized, however, the Speakership was car ried off by the Democracy, and General Garfield was left "out in the cold." It was just as well for him, for two years later the Democracy also car ried Ohio and elected " Gentleman George " Pen- dleton to Matthews s seat in the Senate. In 1878, he was re-elected by a majority of 9,613. Opposition was now no more. Men who had been most denunciatory was now warmest in his praise ; and it was actually left to the friends who had stood by him through all the storm to 5 2bO LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF so cordial, generous and general a greeting, without distinc tion of party, without distinction of interests, as I have re ceived here to-night. " I came here, fellow-citizens, to thank this general assembly for their great act of confidence and compliment to me. I do not undervalue the great office that you have tendered to me yesterday and to-day ; but I say, I think without any mental reservation, that the manner in which it was tendered to me is far higher to me, far more desirable, than the thing itself. That it has been a voluntary gift of the general as sembly of Ohio, without solicitation, tendered to me because of their confidence, is as touching and high a tribute as one man can receive from his fellow-citizens, and, in the name of all my friends, for myself, I give you my thanks. " I recognize the importance of the place to which you have elected me ; and I should be base if I did not also re cognize the great man whom you have elected me to succeed. I say for him, Ohio has had few larger-minded, broader- minded men in the records of her history than that of Allen G. Thurman. Differing widely from him, as I have done in politics and do, I recognize him as a man high in character and great in intellect ; and I take this occasion to refer to what I have never before referred to in public that many years ago, in the storm of party fighting, when the air was filled with all sorts of missiles aimed at the character and reputation of public men, when it was even for his party interest to join the general clamor against me and my associ ates, Senator Thurman said in public, in the campaign, on the stump when men are as likely to say unkind things as at any place in the world a most generous and earnest word of de fense and kindness for me, which I shall never forget so long as I live. I say, moreover, that the flowers that bloom over the garden wall of party politics, are the sweetest and most fragrant that bloom in the gardens of this world, and, where we can fairly pluck them and enjoy their fragrance, it is manly and delightful to do so. JAMES A. GARFIELD. 2 6l "And now, gentlemen of the general assembly, without distinction of party, I recognize this tribute and compliment made to me to-night. Whatever my own course may be in the future, a large share of the inspiration of my future public life will be drawn from this occasion and these surroundings, and I shall feel anew the sense of obligation that I feel to the State of Ohio." June loth this year he was nominated at Chi cago for the presidency, and on July 6th he was elected a trustee of Williams College. We have not in this chapter given anything more than a skeleton outline of his career, upon which to hang the fuller flesh of the succeeding pages, believing this arrangement will prove more agreeable to the reader than following General Garfield step by step. 262 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF CHAPTER XIX. AN ORNAMENT OK CONGRESS. GENERAL GARFIELD S career in Con gress has been essentially one of work. The number of his speeches, reports, reso lutions, debates, etc., is high in the hundreds. What he was as an orator we shall see later. As a debater he has had few equals. Producing al ways an overwhelming array of facts, he has ever been a Tower of strength, Which stands four square to all the winds that blow ! He was thorough in committee work, assiduous in private study of pending questions and an able debater, by no means a common combination of qualities. He interested himself in many subjects of great importance to the public, in which your common congressman has small interest; in the census, in education, in the scientific surveys, in the life-saving service, and in many more. As the Republican leader in the House, he has been more conservative and less rash than Elaine, and his judicial turn of mind made him prone to look for both sides of a question, and always relieved him of the charge of partisanship. When the JAMES A. GARFIELD. 2 ^ issue fairly touched his convictions, however, he became thoroughly aroused and struck tremen dous blows. Elaine s tactics were to continually harass the enemy by sharp-shooting, surprises and picket-firing. Garfield waited always for an op portunity to deliver a pitched battle, and his gen eralship was shown to best advantage when the fight was a fair one, and waged on grounds where each party thought itself the strongest. Then his solid shot of argument was exceedingly effective. He has always taken a genuine pride in the histor ical achievements of the Republican party, with which he has been identified from its birth. He has a traditional leaning toward all measures for the advantage of the freedmen or the curtailing the influence of the party which he holds to have been responsible for the rebellion. Nevertheless, he is by no means deficient in generous impulses toward the South, and has more than once exerted his in fluence to prevent the passage of rash partisan legislation against the interests of that section. The " Confederate brigadiers " in Congress have found him a determined and loyal adversary, but he has never stooped to take unfair advantage of the nu merical preponderance of his party. As leader of the Republican minority in the present House of Representatives he has known how to reconcile the party fealty with a concilatory disposition toward the party in power, and has not been un duly obstructive of any legislation which di4 not, 264 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF in his opinion, transcend the fair limits of part; predominance. He is in all things a calm, cour teous, determined leader of men rich in saving common sense, And, as the wisest only are, In his simplicity sublime. He is not a practical politician and knows littl< of the machinery of caucuses and conventions o the methods of conducting close campaigns. A a politician in the larger and better sense o shaping the policy of a great party, however, h< has few equals. To no man is the Republicai party more indebted for its successes in recen years than to James A. Garfield. With the single exception of 1867, when h< spent several weeks in Europe, partly in company with Senator Elaine and Senator Morrill, he ha: done hard work on the stump for the Republicai party in every campaign since he entered Con gress. On the stump, he is one of the best ora tors in his party. He has a good voice, an air o evident sincerity, great clearness and vigor o statement, and a way of knitting his argument: together, so as to make a speech deepen its im pressiorj on the mind of the hearer, until the cli max clinches the argument forever. For th< past teq years, his services have been in demanc in all parts of the country. He has usually re served half his time for the Ohio c^rjvass, anc given the other half to other States. The No JAMES A. GARFIELD. 265 vember election finds him worn and haggard with travel and speaking in the open air, but his robust constitution always carries him through, and after a few weeks rest on his farm he appears in Washington refreshed and ready for the duties of the session. A mind so prone as his to look philosophically into his surroundings could not fail to have studied into the history and functions of the body of which he has made such an illustrious member, and it will be fitting to follow a criticism of him as a member of that body, with his own remarks upon it. In July, 1877, he contributed to the Atlantic Monthly an article, entitled "A Century in Con gress," from which we extract his views of the same: " Congress has always been and must always be the theatre of contending opinions, the forum where the opposing forces of political philosophy meet to measure their strength ; where the public good must meet the assaults of local and sectional interests, in a word, the appointed place where the nation seeks to utter its thoughts and register its will. "In the main, the balance of power so admirably adjusted and distributed among the three great departments of the Government has been safely preserved. It was the purpose of our fathers to lodge absolute power nowhere; to leave each department independent within its own sphere; yet, in every case, responsible for the exercise of its discretion. But some dangerous innovations have been made. And first, the ap pointing power of the President has been seriously encroached upon by Congress, or rather by the members of Congress. Curiously enough, this encroachment originated in the act of 266 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF the chief executive himself. The fierce popular hatred of the Federal party, which resulted in the elevation of Jefferson to the presidency, led that officer to set the first example of re moving men from office on account of political opinions. For political causes alone, he removed a considerable number of officers who had recently been appointed by President Adams, and thus set the pernicious example. His immediate successors made only a few removals for political reasons. But Jackson made his political opponents, who were in office, feel the full weight of his executive hand. From that time forward, the civil officers of the Government became the prizes for which political parties strove ; and twenty-five years ago, the corrupting doctrine that * to the victors belong the spoils was shamelessly announced as an article of political faith and practice. It is hardly possible to state with ade quate force the noxious influence of this doctrine. * * * The present system invades the independence of the ex ecutive, and make him less responsible for the character of his appointments ; it impairs the efficiency of the legislator, by diverting him from his proper sphere of duty, and involv ing him in the intrigues of aspirants for office ; it degrades the civil service itself, by destroying the personal independ ence of those who are appointed ; it repels from the service those high and manly qualities which are so necessary to a pure and efficient administration ; and, finally, it debauches the public mind by holding up public office as the reward of mere party zeal. To reform this service is one of the highest and most imperative duties of statesmanship. This reform cannot be accomplished without a complete divorce between Congress and the Executive in the matter of appointments. It will be a proud day when an administrator, senator or re presentative, who is in good standing in his party, can say as Thomas Hughes said, during his recent visit to this country, that though he was on the "most intimate terms with the mem bers of his administration, yet it was not in his power to se cure the removal of the humblest clerk in the civil service of his government." JAMES A. GARFIELD. 267 " I have long believed that the official, relations between the Executive and Congress should be more open and direct. They are now conducted by correspondence with the pre siding officers of the two Houses, by consultation with com mittees, or by private interviews with individual members. This frequently leads to misunderstandings, and may lead to corrupt combinations. It would be far better for both de partments if the members of the cabinet were permitted to sit in Congress and participate in the debates on measures re lating to their several departments but, of course, without a vote. This would tend to secure the ablest men for the chief executive offices, it would bring the policy of the administra tion into the fullest publicity by giving both parties ample opportunity for criticism and defense. " The most alarming feature of our situation is the fact that so many citizens of high character and solid judgment pay but little attention to the sources of political power, to the selec tion of those who shall make their laws. The clergy, the faculties of colleges, and many of the leading business men of the community never attend the township caucus, the city primaries or the county conventions ; but they allow the less intelligent and the more selfish and corrupt members of the community to make the slates and l run the machine of poli tics. They wait until the machine has done its work, and then, in surprise and horror at the ignorance and corruption in public, sigh for the return of that mythical period called the better and purer days of the Republic. It is precisely this neglect of the first steps in our political processes that has made possible the worst evils of our system. Corrupt and in competent presidents, judges and legislators can be removed, but when the fountains of political power are corrupted, when voters themselves become venal and elections fraudulent, there is no remedy except by awakening the public conscience and bringing to bear upon the subject the power of public opinion and the penalties of the law. The practice of buying and selling votes at our popular elections has already gained a foot- LIFE AXD PUBLIC CAREER OF hold, though it has not gone as far as in England. In j word, our national safety demands that the fountains of politi cal power shall be made pure by intelligence, and kept pun by vigilance : that the best citizen shall take heed to th selection and election of the worthiest and most intelligenl among them to hold seats in the national legislature ; and that when the choice has been made, the continuance of theii representatives shall depend upon his faithfulness, his abilitj and his willingness to work." JAMES A. GARFIELD. CHAPTER XX. THE ORATOR S POWER. WE must now invite the reader s attention to Garfield as he appears in his speeches, and if we cannot follow him as fully as we would like to show his rare orator ical power and splendid statesmanship, to develop in his own words what he is it is because space forbids. His speeches alone make volumes and we can only cull here and there a flower from the thickly blossoming fields. It was impossible for a man so large hearted, so patriotic as Garfield is not to have felt deeply the death of Abraham Lincoln. He saw that it was not the hand of one man but the spirit of seces sion aiming a last despairing blow at the great principles that had conquered it. Naturally then his was the tongue to give some expression to the nation s grief. And in the exciting hours that followed Booth s cowardly pistol shot, when the whole North was roused with a whirlwind of mad passion, Garfield s hand was apparent in staying the impending storm, in counseling that course that led to the wiser way, the better plan. In the incident we are about to relate the extra ordinary moral power always exerted over men by 270 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF the nominee for the Presidency, was perhaps never shown to a better advantage. The incident is contributed to this volume by a distinguished public man, who was an eye-witness of the ex citing scene : "I shall never forget the first time I saw General Garfield. It was the morning after President Lincoln s assassination. The country was excited to its utmost tension, and New York city seemed ready for the scenes of the French revolution. The intelligence of Lincoln s murder had been flashed by the wires over the whole land. The newspaper head-lines of the transaction were set up in the largest type, and the high crime was on every one s tongue. Fear took possession of men s minds as to the fate of the Government, for in a few hours the news came on that Se ward s throat was cut, and that at tempts had been made upon the lives of others of the Govern ment officers. Posters were stuck up everywhere, in great black letters, calling upon the loyal citizens of New York, Brooklyn, Jersey City and neighboring places to meet around the Wall-Street Exchange and give expression to their senti ments. It was a dark and terrible hour. What might come next no one could tell, and men spoke with bated breath. The wrath of the workingmen was simply uncontrollable, and revolvers and knives were in the hands of thousands of Lin coln s friends, ready, at the first opportunity, to take the law into their own hands, and avenge the death of their martyred President upon any and all who dared to utter a word against him. Eleven o clock A. M was the hour set for the rendez vous. Fifty thousand people crowded around the Exchange Building, cramming and jamming the streets, and wedged in tight as men could stand together. With a few to whom a special favor was extended, I went over from Brooklyn at nine A. M., and, even then, with the utmost difficulty, found my way to the reception room for the speakers in the JAMES A. GARFIELD. 271 front of the Exchange Building, and looking out on the high and massive balcony, whose front was protected by a heavy iron railing. We sat in solemnity and silence, waiting for General Butler, who, it was announced, had started from Washington, and was either already in the city or expected every moment. Nearly a hundred generals, judges, states men, lawyers, editors, clergymen and others were in that room waiting Butler s arrival. We stepped out to the balcony to watch the fearfully solemn and swaying mass of people. Not a hurrah was heard, but for the most part a dead silence, or a deep, ominous muttering ran like a rising wave up the street toward Broadway, and again down toward the river on the right. At length the batons of the police were seen swinging in the air, far up on the left, parting the crowd and pressing it back to make way for a carriage that moved slowly, and with difficult jogs, through the compact multi tude. Suddenly the silence was broken, and the cry of Butler! Butler! Butler! rang out with tremendous and thrilling effect, and was taken up by the people. But not a hurrah ! Not once ! It was the cry of a great people, asking to know how their President died. The blood bounced in our veins, and the tears ran like streams down our faces. How it was done I forget, but Butler was pulled through and pulled up, and entered the room, where we had just walked back to meet him. A broad crape, a yard long, hung from his left arm terrible contrast with the countless flags that were waving the nation s victory in the breeze. We first realized, then, the truth of the sad news that Lincoln was dead. When Butler entered the room we shook hands. Some spoke, some could not ; all were in tears. The only word Butler had for us all, at the first break of the silence, was, Gciitlcmeji, he died in the fullness of his fame / and as he spoke it his lips quivered and the tears ran fast down his cheeks. Then, after a few moments, came the speaking. And you can imagine the effect, as the crape fluttered in the wind, while his arm was uplifted. Dickinson, of New York 272 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF State, was fairly wild. The bid man leaped over the iron railing of the balcony and stood on the very edge, overhang ing the crowd, gesticulating in the most vehement manner, and almost bidding the crowd burn up the rebel, seed, root and branch, while a bystander held on to his coat-tails to keep him from falling over. By this time the wave of popular indignation had swelled to its crest. Two men lay bleeding on one of the side streets, the one dead, the other next to dying ; one on the pavement, the other in the gutter. They had said a moment before that Lincoln ought to have been shot long ago ! They were not allowed to say it again. Soon two long pieces of scantling stood out above the heads of the crowd, crossed at the top like the letter X, and a looped halter pendent from the junction, a dozen men following its slow motion through the masses, while Vengeance was the cry. On the right, suddenly, the shout rose, The World ! the World ! the office of the World ! World ! World ! and a movement of perhaps eight thousand or ten thousand turning their faces in the direction of that building began to be executed. It was a critical moment. What might come no one could tell, did that crowd get in front of that office. Police and military would have availed little or been too late. A telegram had just been read from Washington, Seward is dying. Just then, at that juncture, a man stepped forward with a small flag in his hand, "and beckoned to the crowd. Another telegram from Washington! And then, in the awful stillness of the crisis, taking advantage of the hesitation of the crowd, whose steps had been arrested a moment, a right arm was lifted skyward, and a voice, clear and steady, loud and distinct, spoke out, Fellow-citizens ! Clouds and darkness are round 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 be fore His face ! Fellow-citizens ! God reigns, and the Gov ernment at Washington still lives! The effect was tremen dous. The crowd stood riveted to the ground with awe, JAMES A. GARFIELD. 273 gazing at the motionless orator, and thinking of God and the security of the Government in that hour. As the boiling waves subsides and settles to the sea, when some strong wind beats it down, so the tumult of the people sank and became still. All took it as a divine omen. It was a triumph of eloquence, inspired by the moment, such as falls to but one man s lot, and that but once in a century. The genius of Webster, Choate, Everett, Seward, never reached it. What might have happened had the surging and maddened mob been let loose, none can tell. The man for the crisis was on the spot, more potent than Napoleon s guns at Paris. I in quired what was his name. The answer came in a low whis per, It is General Garfield, of Ohio ! At another meeting in the same city, he spoke upon the great event : "By this last act of madness, it seems as though the Re bellion 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 jus tice and judgment, with inexorable dread, follow behind ; and when law is slighted and mercy despised, when they have re jected those who would be their best friends, then comes jus tice 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 vengeance I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere revenge. But for security of the future I would do everything. It was Garfield who made the speech when the 16 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF House took official action on the death of the President, and it was he, again, who (February 1 2th, 1878), retouched with his eloquent powers the same theme on receiving F. B. Carpenter s painting of Lincoln and Emancipation, on behalf of the nation. It was eminently natural that he should have been chosen on such occasions, for every act of his life has been a testimony in defense of his country ; that country which he loves so well. Speaking on its future, he said, at Hudson Col lege : " Our great dangers are not from without. We do not live by the consent of any other nation. We must look within to find elements of danger. The first and most obvious of these is territorial expansion, overgrowth, and the danger that we shall break to pieces by our own weight. This has been the common place of historians and publicists for many centuries, and its truth has found many striking illustrations in the experience of mankind. But we have fair ground for believing, that new conditions and new forces have nearly if not wholly removed the ground of this danger. Distance, estrangement, isolation have been overcome by the recent amazing growth in the means of intercommunication. For political and industrial purposes California and Massachusetts are nearer neighbors to-day, than were Philadelphia and Boston in the days of the Revolution. It was distance, isolation, ignorance of separate parts, that broke the cohesive force of the great empires of antiquity. Fortunately, our greatest line of extension is from east to west, and our pathway along the parallels of latitude are not too broad for safety for it lies within the zone of national development. The Gulf of Mexico is our special providence on the south. Perhaps it would be more fortu- JAMES A. GARFIELD. V nate for us if the northern shore of that gulf stretched west ward to the Pacific. If our territory embraced the tropics, the sun would be our enemy. The stars in their courses would fight against us. Now these celestial forces are our friends, and help to make us one. Let us hope the Republic will be content to maintain this friendly alliance. " Our northern boundary is not yet wholly surveyed. Per haps our neighbors across the lakes will some day take a hint from nature, and save themselves and us the discomfort of an artificial boundary. Restrained within our present southern limits with a population more homogenious than that of any other great nation, and with a wonderful power to absorb and assimilate to our own type the European races that come among us, we have but little reason to fear that we shall be broken up by divided interests and internal feuds, because of our great territorial extent. Finally, our great hope for the future our great safeguard against danger, is to be found in the general and thorough education of our people and in the virtue which accompanies such education. And all these elements depend, in a large measure, upon the intellectual and moral culture of the young men who go out from our higher institutions of learning. From the standpoint of this general culture we may trustfully encounter the perils that assail us. Secure against dangers from abroad, united at home by the stronger ties of common interest and patriotic pride, holding and unifying our vast territory by the most potent forces of civilization, relying upon the intelligent strength and responsibility of each citizen, and, most of all, upon the power of truth, without undue arrogance, we may hope that in the centuries to come our Republic will continue to live and hold its high place- among the nations as " The heir of all the ages in the foremost files of time. " From our Republic and its future, we turn aside to gather in a literary scrap, an address on Burns, 276 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF in which we find this, from a fine comparison of three of the world s song-writers "To appreciate the genius and achievements of Robert Burns, it is fitting to compare him with others who have been eminent in the same field. In the highest class of lyric poetry their names stand eminent. Their field covers eighteen centuries of time, and the three names are Horace, Beranger and Burns. It is an interesting and suggestive fact, that each of these sprang from the humble walks of life. Each may be described as one " Who begs a brother of the earth To give him leave to toil, and each proved by his life and achievements that, however hard the lot of poverty, a man s a man for a that. "A great writer has said that it took the age forty years to catch Burns, so far was he in advance of the thoughts of his times. But we ought not to be surprised at the power he exhibited. We are apt to be misled when we seek to find the cause of greatness in the schools and universities alone. There is no necessary conflict between nature and art. In the highest and best sense art is as natural as nature. We do not wonder at the perfect beauty of the rose, although we may not understand the mysteries by which its delicate petals are fashioned and fed-out of the grosser elements of earth. We do not wonder at the perfection of the rose because God is the artist. When He fashioned the germ of the rose-tree He made possible the beauties of its flower. The earth and air and sunshine conspired to unfold and adorn it to tint and crown it with peerless beauty. When the Divine Artist would produce a poem, He plants a germ of it in a human soul, and out of that soul the poem springs and grows as from the rose- tree the rose. " Burns was a child of nature. He lived close to her beat, ing heart, and all the rich and deep sympathies of life glowed JAMES A. GARFIELD. 2 JJ and lived in his heart. The beauties of earth, air and sky filled and transfigured him. " < He did but sing because he must, And piped but as the linnets sing. "With the light of his genius he glorified the banks and braes of his native land, and, speaking for the universal human heart, has set its sweetest thought to music : " Whose echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and forever. " 2 7 8 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF CHAPTER XXI. QUESTIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. CONTEMPORANEOUSLY with his entry into Congress, Garfield began a course of severe study of financial and political economy, going home every evening to his modest lodgings on Thirteenth Street, with an armful of books borrowed from the Congressional Library, into which he deeply burrowed. This study was superbly lucrative. For his financial views have always been sound and based on the firm founda tion of honest money and unsullied national honor. His record in the legislation concerning these subjects is without a flaw. No man in Con gress made a more consistent and unwavering fight against the paper money delusions that flourished during the decade following the war, and in favor of specie payments and the strict ful fillment of the nation s obligations to its creditors. His speeches became the financial gospel of the Republican party. We will quote some texts from this gospel. In the course of his strenuous fight against the re peal of the resumption act, Mr. Garfield said : "The men of 1862 knew the dangers from sad experience in our history; and, like Ulysses, lashed themselves to the JAMES A. GARFIELD. mast of public credit when they embarked upon the stormy and boisterous sea of inflated paper money, that they might not be beguiled by the siren song that would be sung to them when they were afloat on the wild waves. " But the times have changed ; new men are on deck, men who have forgotten the old pledges, and now only twelve years have passed (for as late as 1865 this House, with but six dissenting votes, resolved again to stand by the old ways and bring the country back to sound money), only twelve years have passed, and what do we find? We find a group of theorists and doctrinaires who look upon the wisdom of the fathers as foolishness. We find some who advocate what they call absolute money, who declare that a piece of paper stamped a dollar is a dollar; that gold and silver are a part of the barbarism of the past, which ought to be forever abandoned. We hear them declaring that resumption is a delusion and a snare. We hear them declaring that the eras of prosperity are the eras of paper money. They point us to all times of inflation as periods of blessing to the people and prosperity to business ; and they ask us no more to vex their ears with any allusion to the old standard the money of the Constitution. Let the wild swarm of financial literature that has sprung into life within the last twelve years, witness how widely and how far we have drifted. We have lost our old moorings, and have thrown overboard our old compass ; we sail by alien stars, looking not for the haven, but are afloat on a harborless sea. "Suppose you undo the work that Congress has attempted to resume specie payment what will result? You will de preciate the value of the greenback. Suppose it falls ten cents on the dollar? You will have destroyed ten per cent, of the value of every deposit in the savings banks, ten per cent, of every life insurance policy and fire insurance policy, of every pension to the soldier, and of every day s wages of every laborer in the nation. The trouble with our greenback dollar is this : it has two distinct functions, one a purchasing 2 8 O LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF power, and the other a debt-paying power. As a debt-paying power, it is equal to one hundred cents ; that is, to pay an old debt. A greenback dollar will, by law, discharge our hundred cents of debt. But no law can give it purchasing power in the general market of the world, unless it represents a known standard of coin value. Now, what we want is, that these two qualities of our greenback dollar shall be made qual its debt-paying power and its general purchasing power. When these are equal, the problems of our currency are solved, and not till then. Summing it all up in a word, the struggle now pending in this House is, on the one hand, to make the greenback better, and on the other, to make it worse. The resumption act is making it better every day. Repeal that act, and you make it indefinitely worse. In the name of every man who wants his own when he has earned it, I demand that we do not make the wages of the poor man to shrivel in his hands after he has earned them ; but that his money shall be made better and better, until the plow-holder s money shall be as good as the bondholder s money ; until our standard is one, and there is no longer one money for the rich and another for the poor." He has never wavered upon this issue. He voted to sustain the credit of the Government in all stages of the finance question. Many faltered, he always stood firm. In 1870 he pressed a reso lution upon Congress pledging that body and the country to an honorable performance of its con tracts, and in 1876, when the "fiat" rage was upon the people, and his party friends in Ohio fell away from him in all directions, he stood firm. To all protests and appeals he had but one answer, "It is honorable ; it is just ; it is right. Standing here may defeat my nomination, may defeat my elec- JAMES A. CARFIRLD. tion ; but I would rather be beaten in right than succeed in wrong." In his speech at Missillon, O., August 24th, 1878, speaking of resumption, he said: "It is right because the public faith demands it; it is as unpatriotic as it is dishonest to attempt to prevent it. The highest interests both of labor and capital demand it." Referring in the same speech to the substitu tion of greenbacks for national bank notes, he said : " This makes a complete divorce between the business of the country and the volume of its circulating mediums. Are we prepared, under a Government which our fathers meant should be a hard-money Government, to banish gold and sil ver from circulation in the country for all time to come, and do the business of the country upon nothing but irredeemable paper, depending for its volume upon the will and caprice of the moment or upon the views of members of Congress seek ing re-election or aspiring to higher places?" When Mr. Garfield entered Congress, he ob served that no one devoted himself to an exami nation of the appropriations in detail, and in order to acquaint himself so as to vote intelligently upon them, he submitted them to a careful analysis. This analysis he yearly delivered to the House, and it was from the start well received. It came in time to be called "Garfield s budget speech." Now each year he examines the appropriations carefully being a member of the committee LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF and then makes his speech, which is always ac cepted as the exposition of the nation s condition. By its means and his committee work, he has largely reduced the expenditures of the Govern ment and thoroughly reformed the system of esti mates and appropriations, providing for closer accountability on the part of those who spend the public money, and a clear knowledge on the part of those who vote it of what it is used for. Illustrating this he said on one occasion : "The necessary expenditures of the Government form the base line from which we measure the amount of our taxation required, and on which we base our system of finance. We have frequently heard it remarked since the session began, that we should make our expenditures come within our reve nues that we should cut our garment according to our cloth. This theory may be correct when applied to private affairs, but it is not applicable to the wants of nations. Our national expenditures should be measured by the real necessi ties and the proper needs of the Government. We should cut our garment so as to fit the person to be clothed. If he be a giant we must provide cloth sufficient for a fitting garment. "The Committee on Appropriations are seeking earnestly to reduce the expenditures of the Government, but they reject the doctrine that they should at all hazards reduce the expend itures to the level of the revenues, however small those reve nues may be. They have attempted rather to ascertain what are the real and vital necessities of the Government; to find what amount of money will suffice to meet all its honorable obligations, to carry on all its necessary and essential func tions, and to keep alive those public enterprises which the country desires its Government to undertake and accomplish. When the amount of expenses necessary to meet these objects JAMES A. GARFIELD, 28^ is ascertained, that amount should be appropriated, and ways and means for procuring that amount should be provided. On some accounts, it is unfortunate that our work of appro priations is not connected directly with the work of taxation. If this were so, the necessity of taxation would be a constant check upon extravagance, and the practice of economy would promise, as its immediate result, the pleasure of reducing taxation." We will touch here upon a question of only secondary importance, the tariff. It is often urged against Garfield that he is a free-trader, and it is sought to be proved by the fact that he is an honorary member of the Cobden Club. This cir cumstance has no significance, as will be seen by an extract from one of his letters written in 1879 : "In 1868, I made a speech in favor of the resumption of specie payments, in which I discussed elaborately the doc trines of money and the obligation of the nation to pay its debt. The Secretary of the Treasury sent some copies of that speech to our minister in London, believing that it would strengthen our credit abroad. John Bright received a copy, and was so pleased with it that he had me elected an hono rary member of the Cobden Club. I had never before heard of this club, and, up to that time, Charles Sumner was the only member of Congress who had ever been thus compli mented. Some years after that I learned that the Cobden Club believed in free trade, as nearly all Englishman do ; but, of course, I was in no way responsible for their belief. Referring more particularly to his record, it is both just and proper that we should state the pro tectionists of the country who have kept watch over tariff legislation during the past twenty 284 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF years, and who have assisted to shape and main tain the present tariff, are perfectly satisfied with his tariff votes and speeches. They and all other protectionists have, indeed, abundant reason to be thankful to him for valuable assistance rendered to the cause of home industry when it was in serious peril from free-trade attacks . His votes and speeches have been uniformly and constantly in favor of the protective policy. His first tariff speech in Congress was made in 1866. In this speech he carefully defined his position on the question of protection, as follows : "I hold that a properly adjusted competition between home and foreign products is the best gauge to regulate in ternational trade. Duties should be so high that our manujac- turers can fairly compete with the foreign product, but not so high as to enable them to drive out the foreign article, enjoy a monopoly of the trade, and regulate the price as they please. This is my doctrine of protection. If Congress pursues this line of policy steadily, we shall, year by year, approach more nearly to the basis of free trade, because we shall be more nearly able to compete with other nations on equal terms. I am for a protection that leads to ultimate free trade. I am for that free trade which can only be achieved through a reasonable protection." In his next tariff speech, delivered in 1870, upon General Schenck s tariff bill, which provoked a long and bitter controversy, General Garfield ad vised the protectionists of the House to assent to a moderate reduction of the war duties which were then in force ; for the reason that they were JAMES A. GAR FIELD. 2 gc higher than was then necessary for the protection of our industries, and, being so, they gave occa sion for unfriendly criticism of the protective policy, from which it should be relieved. He said: "After studying the whole subject as carefully as I am able, I am -firmly of the opinion that the wisest thing that the pro tectionists in this House can do is to unite in a moderate re duction of duties on imported articles. He is not a faithful representative who merely votes for the highest rate proposed in order to show on the record that he voted for the highest figure, and, therefore, is a sound protectionist. He is the wisest man who sees the tides and currents of public opinion, and uses his best efforts to protect the industry of the people against sudden collapses and sudden changes. Now, if I do not misunderstand the signs of the times, unless we do this our selves, prudently and wisely, we shall before long be com pelled to submit to a violent reduction, made rudely and without discrimination, which will shock if not shatter all our protected industries. " The great want of industry is a stable policy ; and it is a significant comment on the character of our legislation that Congress has become a terror to the business men of the country. This very day, the great industries of the nation are standing still, half paralyzed at the uncertainty which hangs over our proceedings here. A distinguished citizen of my own district has lately written me this significant sen tence : If the laws of God and nature were as vacillating and uncertain as the laws of Congress in regard to the busi ness of its people, the universe would soon fall into chaos. "Examining thus the possibilities of the, situation, I be lieve that the true course for the friends of protection to pur sue is to reduce the rates on imports when we can justly and safely do so ; and, accepting neither of the extreme doctrines urged on this floor, endeavor to establish a stable policy that will commend itself to all patriotic and thoughtful people." 2 86 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF General Schenck s bill passed the House, June 6th, 1870, General Garfield voting for it in com pany with all the protectionists in that body. It passed the Senate during the same month, such leading protectionists as Senators Howe, Scott, Morrill, of Vermont, Sherman and Wilson, voting for it. The bill reduced the duties on a long list of articles pig iron, for instance, from nine dollars to seven dollars but it was a triumph of the pro tective policy and a disastrous defeat of the free traders and revenue reformers, who had favored still lower duties. It embodied provisions that are retained in the existing tariff, with which all pro tectionists are entirely satisfied. In 1872, two years after the passage of General Schenck s bill, a bill to reduce duties on imports and to reduce internal taxes was reported to the House of Representatives, by Mr. Dawes, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and after discussion it passed by a large majority, such prominent protectionists as Dawes, Frye, Foster, Frank W. Palmer, Ellis H. Roberts, Wil liam A. Wheeler, and George F. Hoar voting for o o it. General Garfield voted for it. Judge Kelley and sixty other protectionists voted against it. It became a law, passed the Senate by a two-thirds vote, such leading protectionists as Ferry, Howe, the two Morrills, Morton, Sherman and Wilson, supporting it. Protectionists, as will be seen, were not united upon the merits of this bill, which, JAMES A. GARFIELD. among other provisions, reduced the duty on many iron and steel products ten per cent., but there was no conflict of principle involved in their dif ferences nothing but a question of expediency. Says a recent writer on this subject, giving a page of its history : "In 1875, three years after the passage of the bill just re ferred to, Mr. Dawes, still chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, reported a bill to further protect the sinking fund and to provide for the exigencies of the Government, which provided among other things for the restoration of the ten per cent, which had been taken from the duties on iron and steel by the act of 1872. This bill passed the House by a close vote, General Garfield voting for it, as did nearly every protectionist in the House. The bill passed the Senate and became a law, the vote being very close yeas, 30; nays, 29. The protectionists in the Senate were almost unanimously in favor of it. Mr. Sherman made a strong speech against it, and Mr. Scott and Mr. Frelinghuysen very ably supported it. Mr. Sherman voted against it. The passage of this bill gave great encouragement to our prostrated iron and steel in dustries. "The next tariff measure that came before Congress was the bill of Mr. Morrison, which was presented in the House in 1876, but was so vigorously opposed that it never reached the dignity of a square vote upon its merits. Two years after ward Mr. Wood undertook the preparation of a tariff bill which greatly reduced duties on most articles of foreign man ufacture, and which he confidently hoped might become a law. This bill possessed more vitality than that of Mr. Mor rison s, and it was with great difficulty that the friends of pro tection were able to secure its defeat. On the 4th of June General Garfield delivered an elaborate speech against it in committee of the whole, in the course of which he said : 2 gg LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF " I would have the duty so adjusted that every great Amer ican industry can fairly live and make fair profits. The chiel charge I make against this bill is that it seeks to cripple the protective features of the law. "He further said, in concluding his speech: " A bill so radical in its character, so dangerous to our busi ness prosperity, would work infinite mischief at this time, when the country is just recovering itself from a long period of depression and getting again upon solid ground, just com ing up out of the wild sea of panic and distress which has tossed us so long. " Let it be remembered that twenty-two per cent, of all the laboring people of this country are artisans engaged in manu factures. Their culture has been fostered by our tariff laws. It is their pursuits and the skill which they have developed that produced the glory of our Centennial Exhibition. Tc them the country owes the splendor of the position it holds before the world more than to any other equal number of oui citizens. If this bill becomes a law, it strikes down their occu pation and throws into the keenest distress the brightest and best elements of our population. " When the first paragraph has been read I will propose tc strike out the enacting clause. If the committee will do thai we can kill the bill to-day. "On the day following the delivery of General Garfield j speech his suggestion to strike out the enacting clause was carried into effect, upon motion of Mr. Conger, and the bill was killed; yeas, 134; nays, 121. The majority against the bill was only 13. "During the recent session of Congress a vigorous effort was made to break down the tariff by piecemeal legislation. Di vide and ^conquer was the motto of the free-traders. They were defeated in every effort to reduce duties, and in ever) instance they encountered General Garfield s opposition. Iron and steel manufacturers have good cause to remembei his vote in the Ways and Means Committee last March on the bill of Mr. Covert to reduce the duty on steel rails. Gen eral Garfield voted with Judge Kelley and Messrs. Conger, Frye, Felton, Gibson and Phelps against any reduction, and JAMES A. GARFIELD. that was the end of Mr. Covert s bill the vote being seven against to six in favor of it. Had the bill prevailed the en tire line of duties on iron and steel and other manufactures would have been seriously endangered." A word on another question of political econ omy to close this chapter appropriately, remem bering the national work this year, is found in General Garfield s speech urging the importance of the last census : " The developments of statistics are causing history to be re-written. Till recently the historian studied nature in the aggregate, and gave us only the story of princes, dynasties, sieges and battles. Of the people themselves the great social body, with life, growth, forces, elements, etc. he told us nothing. Now, statistical inquiry leads him into the hovels, homes, workshops, mines, fields, prisons, hospitals, and all places where human nature displays its weakness and strength. In these explorations he discovers the seed of na tional growth and decay, and thus becomes the prophet of his generation. " Statistical science is indispensable to modern statesman ship. In legislation, as in physical science, it is beginning to be understood that we can control terrestrial forces only by obeying their laws. The legislator must formulate in his sta tistics not only the national will, but also those great laws of social life revealed by statistics. He must study society rather than black-letter learning. He must learn the truth that so ciety usually prepares the crime, and the criminal is only the instrument that completes it; that statesmanship consists rather in removing causes than in punishing or evading results." 2 n O LIFE A.\ D PUBLIC CAREER OF CHAPTER XXII. ARRAIGNING HIS ENEMIES. GENERAL GARFIELD has ever dealt his enemies in Congress sledge-hammer blows, and yet not with any malignity or from the sly hand of revenge. His tongue has only been moved by what he considered the ne cessities of the situation. The inheritance of tra dition from his district would, if no other cause had prompted, have allied him with the North when the Rebellion became a question for each and every one. His vigorous, clear mind needed no words to shape its course. Whenever the Union was concerned he answered every call with electric readiness. One of his early speeches in Congress gave him high oratorical rank. Alexander Long, of Ohio, delivered in 1 864 an exceedingly ultra Peace- Democratic speech proposing that Congress should recognize the Southern Confederacy. The speech attracted marked attention, and by com mon consent it was left to the young member, so fresh from the battle-fields of his country, to reply. The moment Long took his seat, Garfield rose. His opening sentence thrilled his listeners. In a moment he was surrounded by a crowd of mem- JAMES A. GARFIELD. bers from the remoter seats, and in the midst of great excitement and wild applause from his side he poured forth an invective rarely surpassed in that body for power and elegance : "MR. CHAIRMAN : I am reminded by the ocurrences of this afternoon of two characters in the War of the Revolution, as compared with two others in the war of to-day. "The first was Lord Fairfax, who dwelt near the Potomac, a few miles from us. When the great contest was opened be tween the mother country and the colonies, Lord Fairfax, after a protracted struggle with his own heart, decided that he must go with the mother country. He gathered his man tle *bout him and went over grandly and solemnly. "There was another man, who cast in his lot with the struggling colonists and continued with them till the war was well-nigh ended. In an hour of darkness that just preceded the glory of morning, he hatched the treason to surrender for ever all that had been gained by the enemies of his country. Benedict Arnold was that man. "Fairfax and Arnold find their parallel in the struggle of to-day. When this war was begun many good men stood hesitating and doubting what they ought to do. Robert E. Lee sat in his house across the river here, doubting and delaying, and going off at last almost tearfully to join the army of his State. He reminds one in some respects, of Lord Fairfax, the stately royalist of the Revolution. "But now, when tens of thousands of brave souls have gone up to God under the shadow of the flag; when thousands more, maimed and shattered in the contest, are sadly awaiting the deliverance of death; now, when three years of terrific warfare have raged over us, when our armies have pushed the rebellion back over mountains and rivers, and crowded it into narrow limits until a wall of fire girds it; now, when the up- 2Q2 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF lifted hand of a majestic people is about to hurl the bolts of its conquering power upon the rebellion, now in the quiet of this hall, hatched in the lowest depths of a similar dark trea son, there rises a Benedict Arnold and proposes to surrender all up, body and spirit, the nation and the flag, its genius and its honor, now and forever to the accursed traitors to our country. And that proposition comes God forgive and pity my beloved State it comes from a citizen of the tin^e-honored and loyal commonwealth of Ohio. "I implore you, brethren, in this House, to believe that not many births ever gave pangs to my mother State, such as she suffered when that traitor was born ! I beg you not to believe that on the soil of that State such another growth has ever deformed the face of nature, and darkened the light of God s day!" The speech continued in the same strain, polished and powerful. Its delivery upon the spur of the moment, in immediate reply to an elaborate effort, which had taken him as well as the rest of the House by surprise, won him a crowning credit. Four years ago he handles the same question, as it reappears, in another and less objectionable form. In the course of a speech, " Can the Dem ocratic Party be Safely Intrusted with the Adminis tration of the Government," in answer to Mr. Lamar, the Great Republican said : " I share all that gentleman s aspirations for peace, for good government at the South and I believe I can safely as sure him that the great majority of the nation shares the same aspirations. But he will allow me to say that he has not fully stated the elements of the great problem to be solved by the JAMES A. GARFIELD. 293 statesmanship of to-day. The actual field is much broader than the view he has taken. And before we can agree that the remedy he proposes is an adequate one, we must take in the whole field, comprehend all the conditions of the prob lem, and then see if his remedy is sufficient. The change he proposes is not like the ordinary change of a ministry in England, when the Government is defeated on a tax bill or some routine measure of legislation. He proposes to turn over the custody and management of the Government to a party which has persistently, and with the greatest bit terness, resisted all the great changes of the last fifteen years changes which were the necessary results of a vast revolution a revolution in national policy, in social and political ideas; a revolution whose causes were not the work of a day nor a year, but of generations and centuries. " The scope and character of that mighty revolution must form the basis of our judgment when we inquire whether such a change as he proposes is safe and wise. But that is not all of the situation. On the other hand, we see the North, after leaving its three hundred and fifty thousand dead upon the field of battle and bringing home its five hundred thousand maimed and wounded to be cared for, crippled in its industries, staggering under the tremendous burden of public and private debt, and both North and South weighted with un paralleled burdens and losses the whole nation suffering from .that loosening of the bonds of social order which al ways follows a great war, and from the resulting corruption both in the public and the private life of the people. These, Mr. Chairman, constitute the vast field which we must sur vey in order to find the path which will soonest lead our be loved country to the highway of peace, of liberty and pros perity. Peace from the shock of battle, the higher peace of our streets, of our homes, of our . equal rights, we must make secure by making the conquering ideas of the war everywhere dominant and permanent. But such a result can be reached only by comprehending the whole meaning of LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF the revolution through which we have passed and are still passing. I say still passing ; for I remember that after the battle of arms comes the battle of history. The cause that triumphs in the field does not always triumph in history. And those who carried the war for union, and equal and uni versal freedom to a victorious issue can never safely relax their vigilance, until the ideas for which they fought have become embodied in the enduring forms of individual and national life. "Has this been done? Not yet. I ask the gentleman in all plainness of speech, and yet in all kindness, is he correct in his statement that the conquered party accept the results of the war ? Even if they do, I remind the gentleman that accfpt is not a very strong word. I go further. I ask him if the Democratic party have adopted the results of the war? Is it not asking too much of human nature to expect such un paralleled changes to be not only accepted, but in so short a time adopted by men of strong and independent opinions. This conflict of opinion was not merely one of sentimental feeling ; it involved our whole political system ; it gave rise to two radically different theories of the nature of our Gov ernment : the North believing and holding that we were a nation, the South insisting that we were only a confedera tion of sovereign States, and insisting that each State had the right, at its own discretion, to break the Union, and con stantly threatening secession where the full rights of slavery were not acknowledged. Thus the defense and aggrandize ment of slavery, and the hatred of abolitionism, became, not only the central idea of the Democratic party, but its master passion ; a passion intensified and inflamed by twenty- five years of fierce political contest, which had not only driven from its ranks all those who preferred freedom to slav ery, but .had absorbed all the extreme pro-slavery elements of the fallen Whig party. Over against this was arrayed the Republican party, asserting the broad doctrines of nation ality and loyalty, insisting that no State had a right to secede, JAMES A. GARFIELD. 295 that secession was treason, and demanding that the institu* tion of slavery should be restricted to the limits of the States where it already existed. But here and there, many bolder and more radical thinkers declared, with Wendell Phillips, that there never could be union and peace, freedom and prosperity, until we were willing to see John Hancock under a black skin. Now, I ask the gentleman if he is quite sure, as a matter of fact, that the Democratic party, its southern as well as its northern wing, have followed his own illustri ous and worthy example in the vast progress he has made since 1859? He assures us that the transformation has been so complete, that the nation can safely trust all the most pre cious fruits of the war in the hands of that party who stood with him in 1859. If that be true, I rejoice at it with all my heart ; but the gentleman must pardon me if I ask him to assist my wavering faith by some evidence, some consoling proofs. When did the great transformation take place ? Cer tainly not within two years after the delivery of the speech I have quoted ; for, two years from that time the contest h is arisen much higher ; it had risen to the point of open, terrible and determined war. Did the change come during the war? Oh, no; for, in the four terrible years ending in 1865, every resource of courage and power that the Southern States could muster was employed not only to save slavery, but to destroy the Union. So the transformation had not occurred in 1865. When did it occur? Aid our anxious inquiry, for the nation ought to be sure that the great change has occurred before it can safely trust its destinies to the Democratic party. Did it occur in the first epoch of reconstruction the two years im mediately following the war? During that period the at tempt was made to restore governments in the South on the basis of the white vote. Military control was held generally, but the white population of the Southern States were invited to elect their own legislatures and establish provisional gov ernments. In the laws, covering a period of two and a half years, 1865, 1866, and a portion of 1867, enacted by those 296 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF legislatures, we ought to find proof of the transformation, if it had then occurred. What do we find ? What we should naturally expect, that a people, accustomed to the domination of slavery, re-enacted in almost all of the Southern States, and notably in the States of Mississippi and Louisiana, laws limit ing and restricting the liberty of the colored man ; vagrant laws and peonage laws, whereby negroes were sold at auction for the payment of a paltry tax or fine, and held in a slavery as real as the slavery of other days. I believe this was true of nearly all of the Southern States ; so that the experiment of allowing the white population of the South to adjust that very question proved a frightful failure ; and then it was that the National Congress intervened. They proposed an act of re construction, an act which became a law on the 2d of March, 1867. That was the plan of reconstruction offered to those who had been in rebellion, offered by a generous and brave nation ; and I challenge the world to show an act of equal generosity to a conquered people. What answer did it meet? By the advice of Andrew Johnson, a bad adviser, backed by the advice of the Northern Democracy, a still worse adviser, ten of the eleven States lately in rebellion contemptuously rejected the plan of reconstruction embraced in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. They would have none of it ; they had been advised by their Northern allies to stand out, and were told when the Democracy came into power they should be permitted to come back to their places without guarantees or conditions. This brings us to 1868. Had the transformation occurred then? For, remember, gentlemen, I am searching for the date of the great transformation similar to that which has taken place in the gentleman from Mis sissippi. We do not find it in 1868. On the contrary, in that year, we find Frank P. Blair, of Missouri, writing these words, which, a few^j ays after they were written, gave him the nomination for the Vice-Presidency on the Democratic ticket : "There is but one way to restore government and the Constitution, and that is for the President elect to declare JAMES A. GARFIELD. 297 these acts and the Constitutional Amendment with them to declare all these acts null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpations at the South, and disperse the carpet-bag State governments, and allow the white people t6 recognize their own governments, and elect Senators and Representa tives. "Because he wrote that letter he was nominated for Vice- President by the Democratic party. Therefore, as late as July, 1868, the transformation had not occurred. Had it occurred in 1872? In 1871 and 1872 all the amendments of the Constitution had been adopted, against the stubborn resistance of the Northern and Southern Democracy. I call you to witness that, with the exception of three or four Demo cratic representatives, who voted for the abolition of slavery, the three great amendments, the thirteenth, the fourteenth and the fifteenth, met the determined and united opposition of the Democracy of this country. Each of the amendments, now so praised by the gentleman, was adopted against the whole weight of your resistance. And two years after the adoption of the last amendment, in many of your State plat forms, they were declared null and void. In 1871 and 1872 occurred throughout the South those dreadful scenes, enacted by the Ku-Klux organizations, of which I will say only this : that a man. facile princeps among the Democrats of the slave- holding States Reverdy Johnson who was sent down to defend those who were indicted for their crimes, held up his hands in horror at the shocking barbarities that had been per petrated by his clients upon negro citizens. I refer to the evidence of that eminent man, as a sufficient proof of the character of that great conspiracy against the freedom of the colored race. So the transformation had not come in the days of Ku-Klux, of 1871 and 1872. Had it come in 1873 and the beginning of 1874? Had it come in the State ot Mississippi? .Had it come in one-quarter oi the States lately in rebellion ? Here is a report from an honorable committee of the House, signed by two gentlemen who are still members, 298 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF Mr. Conger and Mr. Hurlbut a report made as late as December, 1874, in which there is disclosed, by innumerable witnesses, the proof that the white-line organization, an avowed military organization, formed within the Democratic party, had leagued themselves together to prevent the enjoy ment of suffrage and equal rights by the colored men of the South. " Mr. Chairman, after the facts I h ave cited, am I not war ranted in raising a grave doubt whether the transformation occurred at all, except in a few patriotic and philosophic minds? The light gleams first on the mountain peaks; but shadows and darkness linger in the valley. It is in the valley masses of those lately in rebellion that the light of this beau tiful philosophy, which I honor, has not penetrated. Is it safer to withhold from them the custody and supreme con trol of the precious treasures of the Republic until the mid day sun of liberty, justice and equal laws shall shine upon them with unclouded ray? In view of all the facts, consider ing the centuries of influence that brought on the great strug gle, is it not reasonable to suppose that it will require yet more time to effect the great transformation? The gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Lamar) says there is no possibility that the South will again control national affairs, if the Democ racy be placed again in power. How is this ? We are told that the South will vote as a unit for Tilden and Hendricks. Suppose those gentlemen also carry New York and Indiana. Does the gentleman believe that a northern minority of the Democracy will control the administration ? Impossible ! But if they did, would it better the case? "Let me put the question in another form. Suppose, gen tlemen of the South, you had won the victory in the war; that you had captured Washington, and Gettysburg, and Philadelphia, and New York ; and we of the North, defeated and conquered, had lain prostrate at your feet. Do you be lieve that by this time you would be ready and willing to in trust to us our Garrisons, our Phillipses, and our Wades, and JAMES A. GARFIELD. the great array of those who were the leaders of our thoughts the fruits of your victory, the enforcement of your doctrines of State sovereignty, and the work of extending the domain of slavery ? Do you think so ? And if not, will you not pardon us when we tell you that we are not quite ready to trust the precious results of the nation s victory in your hands ? Let it be constantly borne in mind that I am not debating a question of equal rights and privileges within the Union, but whether those who so lately sought to destroy it ought to be chosen to control its destiny for the next four years. "It is now time to inquire as to the fitness of this Demo cratic party to take control of our great nation and its vast and important interests for the next four years. I put the question to the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Lamar, what has the Democratic party done to merit that great trust? He tries to show in what respects it would be dangerous. I ask him to show in what it would be safe. I affirm, and I believe I do not misrepresent the great Democratic party, that in the last sixteen years they have not advanced one great national idea that is not to-day exploded and as dead as Julius Caesar. And if any Democrat here will rise and name a great national doctrine his party has advanced, within that lime, that is now alive and believed in, I will yield to him. [A pause.] In default of an answer I will attempt to .prove my negative. "What were the great central doctrines of the Democratic party in the Presidential struggle of 1860? The followers of Breckenridge said slavery had a right to go wherever the Con stitution goes. Do you believe that to-day? And is there a man on this continent that holds that doctrine to-day? Not one. That doctrine is dead and buried. The other wing of Ihe Democracy held that slavery might be established in the territories if the people wanted it. Does anybody hold that doctrine to-day? Dead, absolutely dead! " Come down to 1864. Your party; under the lead of Tilden and Vallandingham, declared the experiment of war to save ^00 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF the Union was a failure. Do you believe that doctrine t( day? That doctrine was shot to death by the guns of Farn gut at Mobile, and driven in a tempest of fire from the valle of the Shenandoah by Sheridan less than a month after il birth at Chicago. "Come down to 1868. You declared the Constitutions Amendments revolutionary and void. Does any man on thi floor say so to-day? If so, let him rise and declare it. "Do you believe in the doctrine of the Broadhead letter o 1868, that the so-called Constitutional Amendments should b disregarded? No; the gentleman from Mississippi accept the results of the war! The Democratic doctrine of i86< is dead ! "I walk across that Democratic campaign-ground as in i graveyard. Under my feet resound the hollow echoes of th< dead. There lies slavery, a black marble column at the heac of its grave, on which I read : Died in the flames of the civi war; loved in its life; lamented in its death; followed to it bier by its only mourner, the Democratic party, but dead And here is a double grave : sacred to the memory of squat ter sovereignty. Died in the campaign of 1860. On the re verse side : Sacred to the memory of Dred Scott and th< Breckinridge doctrine. Both dead at the hands of Abrahan Lincoln ! And here a monument of brimstone : Sacred to th< memory of the rebellion : the war against it is a failure ; 7/7 den et Vallandingham fecerunt, A. D. 1864. Dead on th< field of battle; shot to death by the million guns of the Repub lie. The doctrine of secession ; of state sovereignty, dead Expired in the flames of civil war, amid the blazing rafters o the Confederacy, except that the modern ^neas, fleeing ou of the flames of that ruin, bears on his back another Anchise: of State sovereignty, and brings it here in the person of th< honorable gentlemen from the Appomattox district of Yir ginia (Mr. Tucker). All else is dead. "Now, gentlemen, are you sad, are you sorry for thes< deaths? Are you not glad that secession is dead? that slavery JAMES A. GARFIELD. is dead ? that squatter sovereignty is dead ? that the doctrine of the failure of the war is dead ? Then you are glad that you were outvoted in 1860, in 1864, in 1868 and in 1872. If you have tears to shed over these losses, shed them in the graveyard, but not in this house of living men. I know that many a Southern man rejoices that these issues are dead. The gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Lamar) has clothed his joy with eloquence. " Now, gentlemen, if you yourselves are glad that you have suffered defeat during the last sixteen years, will you not be equally glad when you suffer defeat next November? But pardon that remark ; I regret it : I should use no bravado. " Now, gentlemen, come with me for a moment into the camp of the Republican party and review its career. Our central doctrine in 1860 was that slavery should never extend itself over another foot of American soil. Is that doctrine dead ? It is folded away like a victorious banner ; its truth is alive for evermore on this continent. In 1864 we declared that we would put down the rebellion and secession. And that doctrine lives, and will live when the second centennial has arrived. Freedom national, universal and perpetual our great Constitutional Amendments, are they alive or dead ? Alive, thank the God that shields both liberty and the Union. And our national credit ! saved from the assaults of Pendle- ton ; saved from the assaults of those who struck it later, rising higher and higher at home and abroad ; and only now in doubt lest its chief, its only enemy, the Democracy, should triumph in November. "Mr. Chairman, ought the Republican party to surrender its truncheon of command to the Democracy ? The gentle man from Mississippi says if this were England the ministry would go out in twenty-four hours, with such a state of things as we have here. Ah, yes ! that is an ordinary case of change of administration. But if this were England, what would she have done at the end of the war ? England made one such mistake as the gentleman asks this country to make, when LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF she threw away the achievements of the grandest man that ever trod her highway of power. Oliver Cromwell had over thrown the throne of despotic power and had lifted his coun try to a place of masterful greatness among the nations of the earth ; and when, after his death, his great sceptre was trans ferred to a weak though not unlenial hand, his country, in a moment of reactionary blindness, brought back the Stuarts. England did not recover from this folly until, in 1689, the prince of Orange drove from her island the last of that weak and wicked line. Did she afterward repeat the blunder?" Combating Democratic measures, as Garfield always has, the opportunity offered by the extra session of the Forty-sixth Congress was not lost. Concerning it, he said : " Mr. Speaker, we have probably never legislated on any question, the influence of which reaches further, both terri torially and in time, and touches more interests, more vital interests, than are touched by this and similar bills. No man can doubt that within recent years, and notably within recent months, the leading thinkers of the civilized world have be come alarmed at the attitude of the two precious metals in re lation to each other ; and many leading thinkers are becoming clearly of the opinion that by some wise, judicious arrange. ment both the precious metals must be kept in service for the currency of the world. And this opinion has been very rapidly gaining ground within the last six months, to such an extent that England, which for more, than half a century has stoutly adhered to the single gold standard, is now seriously medi tating how she may harness both these metals to the monetary car of the world. And yet, outside of this capital, I do not this day know of a single great and recognized advocate of bi metallic money who regards it prudent or safe for any nation largely to increase the coinage standard of silver coin at the present time beyond the limits fixed by existing laws. JAMES A. GARFIELD. 303 France and the States of the Latin Union, that has long be lieved in bi-metallism, maintained it against all comers, and have done all in their power to advocate it throughout the world, dare not coin a single silver coin, and have not done so since 1874. The most stenuous advocates of bi-metallism in those countries say it would be ruinous to bi-metallism for France or the Latin Union to coin any more silver at present. The remaining stock of German silver now for sale, amount ing to from forty to seventy-five millions of dollars, is a stand ing menace to the exchanges and silver coinage of Europe. One month ago the leading financial journal of London pro posed that the Bank of England buy one-half of the Ger man surplus and hold it five years, on condition that the German Government shall hold the other half off the market. The time is ripe for some wise and prudent arrangement among the nations to save silver from a dis astrous break-down. Yet we, who during the past two years have coined far more silver dollars than we ever before coined since the foundation of the Government ; ten times as many as we coined during half a century of our national life ; are to-day ignoring and defying the enlightened, universal opinion of bi-metallism, and saying that the United States, single-handed and alone, can enter the field and settle the mighty issue alone. We are justifying the old proverb, that Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. It is sheer mad ness, Mr. Speaker. I once saw a dog on a great stack of hay, that had been floated out into the wild, overflowed stream of a river, with its stack-pen and foundations still holding to gether, but ready to be wrecked. For a little while the ani mal appeared to be perfectly happy. His hay-stack was there, and the pen around it, and he seemed to think the world bright and his happiness secure, while the sunshine fell softly on his head and hay. But by and by he began to dis cover that the house and the barn, and their surroundings, were not all there, as they were when he went to sleep the night before ; and he began to see that he could not com- n1 LIFE AXD ri BLIC CAREER OF 04 mand all the prospect and peacefully dominate the scene as he had done before. So with this House. We assume to manage this mighty question, which has been launched on the wild current that sweeps over the whole world, and we bark from our legislative hay-stacks as though we commanded the whole world. In the name of common sense and sanity, let us take some account of the flood ; let us understand that a deluge means something, and try, if we can, to get our bearings before we undertake to settle the affairs of all mankind by a vote of this House. To-day we are coining one-third of all the silver that is being coined in the round world. China is coining another third ; and all other nations are using the remaining one-third for subsidiary coin. And if we want to take rank with China and part company with all of the civilized nations of the Western world, let us pass this bill, and then bay the moon, as we float down the whirling channel to take our place among the silver mono- metallists of Asia. "Mr. Chairman, the dogma of State Sovereignty, which has re-awakened to such vigorous life in this chamber, has borne such bitter fruits, and entailed such suffering upon our people, that it deserves more particular notice. It should be noticed that the word Sovereignty cannot be fitly applied to any government in this country. It is not found in our Constitu tion. It is a feudal word, born of the despotism of the mid dle ages, and was unknown even in imperial Rome. A Sovereign is a person, a prince who has subjects that owe him allegiance. There is no one paramount sovereign in the United States. There is no person here who holds any title or authority whatever, except the official authority given him by law. Americans are not subjects, but citizens. Our only sovereign is the whole people. To talk about the inherent sovereignty of a corporation an artificial person is to talk nonsense ; and we ought to reform our habit of speech on that subject. But what do gentlemen mean when they tell us that a State is sovereign ? What does sovereignty mean, in its ac- JAMES A. GARFIELD. 305 cepted use, but a political corporation having no superior ? Is a State of this Union such a corporation ? Let us test it -by a few examples drawn from the Constitution. No State of this Union can make war or conclude a peace. Without the consent of Congress it cannot raise or support an army or a navy. It cannot make a treaty with a foreign power, nor enter into any agreement or compact with another State. It cannot levy imposts or duties on imports or exports. It can not coin money. It cannot regulate commerce. It cannot authorize a single ship to go into commission anywhere on the high seas ; if it should, that ship would be seized as a pirate or confiscated by the laws of the United States. A State cannot emit bills of credit. It can enact no law which makes anything but gold and silver a legal tender. It has no flag except the flag of the Union. And there are many other subjects on which the States are forbidden by the Constitution to legislate. How much inherent sovereignty is left in a cor poration which is thus shorn of all these great attributes df sovereignty ? But this is not all. The Supreme Court of the United States may declare null and void any law, or any clause of the Constitution of a State, which happens to be in conflict with the Constitution and laws of the United States. Again, the States appear as plaintiffs and defendants before the Supreme Court of the United States. They may sue each other ; and until the Eleventh Amendment was adopted a citizen might sue a State. These sovereigns may all be summoned before their common*superior to be judged. And yet they are endowed with supreme inherent sovereignty? Again, the government of a State may be absolutely abolished by Congress, in case it is not republican in form. " And finally, to cap the climax of this absurd pretension, every right possessed by one of these sovereign States, every inherent sovereign right, except the single right to equal rep resentation in the Senate, may be taken away, without its con sent, by the vote of two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the States. But> in spite of all these disabilities, we hear 1.8 -.06 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF them paraded as independent, sovereign States, the creators of the Union and the dictators of its powers. How inhe rently sovereign must be that State west of the Mississippi, which the nation bought and paid for with the public money, and permitted to come into the Union a half century after the Constitution was adopted ! And yet we are told that States are inherently sovereign, and create the national government. Half a century ago, this heresy threatened the stability of the nation. The eloquence of Webster and his compeers, and the patriotism and high courage of Andrew Jackson, resisted and for a time destroyed its powers ; but it continued to live as the evil genius, the incarnate devil, of America; and, in 1861, it was the fatal phantom that lured eleven millions of our people into rebellion against their Gov ernment. Hundreds of thousands of those who took up arms against the Union, stubbornly resisted all inducements to that fatal step until they were summoned by the authority of their States." A single bold passage (were it possible, we would give in full,) from his speech on counting the electoral vote must find a place here : t When you tell me that civil war is threatened by any party or State in this Republic, you have given me a supreme reason why an American Congress should refuse, with unutterable scorn, to listen to those whothreaten, or do any act whatever under the coercion of threats by any power on earth. With all my soul, I despise your threat of civil war, come it from what quarter or what it may. Brave men, certainly a brave nation, will do nothing under such compulsion. We are in trusted with the work of obeying and defending the Constitu tion. I will not be deterred from obeying it, because some body threatens to destroy it. I dismiss all that class of mo tives as unworthy of Americans. "What, then, are the grounds on which we should con- JAMES A. GARFIELD. 307 sider a bill like this? It would be unbecoming in me or in any member of this Congress to oppose this bill on mere technical or trifling grounds. It should be opposed, if at all, for reasons so broad, so weighty as to overcome all that has been said in its favor, and all the advantages which I have here admitted, may follow from its passage. I do not wish to diminish the stature of my antagonist ; I do not wish to undervalue the points of strength in a measure, before I ques tion its propriety. It is not enough that this bill will tide us over a present danger, however great. Let us for a moment forget Hayes and Tilden, Republicans and Democrats ; let us forget our own epoch and our own generations ; and, enter ing a broader field, inquire how this thing which we are about to do will affect the great future of our Republic ; and, in what condition, if we pass this bill, we shall transmit our institutions to those who shall come after us. The present good which we shall achieve by it may be very great ; yet if the evils that will flow from it in the future must be greater, it would be base in us to flinch from trouble by entailing remediless evils upon our children." General Garfield s position on the Chinese Question, is not stated in any speech of his, and only lightly touched upon in his letter of accept ance. The Wheeling (West Virginia) Intelli gencer, printed, December 5th, 1877, an account of an interview with the great Republican, which more fully elaborates his views. Alluding to the idea quite strongly held by many writers, that the Chinese intend a conquest of Europe, General Garfield said: " The Mongolian race is capable of great personal prow ess. Being fatalists, they dare everything for the end they have in view. Their food is simple, easily supplied and * o g LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF easily transported. Their endurance of fatigue is proverbial. Once organized and in motion they could swarm into Russia as irresistibly as the locusts of Egypt, and upon the Pacific coast of this continent as numerous and destructive as the grasshoppers. Once started, where would they stop? Civili zation would retire before them as from a plague. Look at the plague spots in San Francisco to-day. Nobody lives in them but Chinese. Nobody else can live in them. I have seen in a space no greater than the length and height in this sleeping-car berth, in a Chinese tenement quarter in San Francisco, the home of twelve Chinaman. In that space they actually lived yes, actually lived most of their time. There they crouched (all doubled up), and there they cooked, ate, slept, and, in a word, lived. They cooked with a little lamp a mess of stuff that they import from China, which, like their rice food, is very cheap, and a mere pittance in the way of earnings on the street, will supply them food and clothes for an indefinite time. A few cents per day is more to them than a dollar to the commonest American laborer. Hence the lowest grade of poor paid labor retires before them as it would before a pestilence. " This is not all. They have no assimilation whatever to Caucasian civilization. The negro assimilates with the Cau casian. He wants all that we want. He adopts our civili zation professes our religion works for our wages, and is a customer for everything that civilization produces. Hence (using a figure of physiology) we can take him up in the cir culation of the body politic and assimilate him make a man and a brother of him, as the phrase goes ; but not so in the least degree with the Chinaman. " And this brings me to say that one of the great questions that now press upon Congress and the country for immediate attention and solution, is what shall we do with reference to Chinese immigration? We have always refused to citizenize them. Shall we continue the treaty under which they are immigrating to our shores?" JAMES A. GARFIELD. A single word concerning the policy of his party and we have done for one cannot follow him through his many spirited pleas for education, the rights of woman, and hundreds of other ques tions to which he has given his attention and in fluence. In a speech, at Flint, Ohio, some years ago, he gave, as it were, the secret of Republican successes, and a sentiment very pertinent to the present year: "Wherever the Republican party has stood up with its head in the light, and ap pealed to principles, it has won; wherever it has been cowardly and truckled and let down, it has lost, and it deserved to lose. Now then we say in this fight, we will climb to the masthead, and on the very top we will nail our flag ; and if go down we must, the flag shall take the wave last." 3 io LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREEK OF CHAPTER XXIII. A VISIT TO LAWNFIELD. t " TV y/TENTOR! Mentor! All out for Mentor!" \/ I called out the conductor, and satchel ** -**- in hand I descended from the cars. A scream from the locomotive, a puff of dust, and the rushing and rumbling cars went out of sight up the road, leaving me alone at a stupid- looking depot on the Lake Shore Railroad, twenty-six miles from Cleveland.* "Any hotel here?" I inquired of a man who seemed to "be ticket agent, expressman and tele graph operator combined. " Yes, over the road there," he replied, pointing with his hand to a little building with the sign of " Store " on its front. I looked at it and then at the place around. Crossing the road was a rude board arch bearing the motto : " For President, Our Townsman, James A. Garfield." I looked about, but could see no sign of a town, though there were a good many straggling buildings in sight and a church spire in the distance. * The purpose of my visit, the reader has already divined. And in relating it, the author makes no apology for abandoning the impersonal style hitherto employed, believ ing that the reader will relish his description all the better if the impressions are more ninutely related through the agency of the personal pronoun. JAMES A. GAR FIELD. ^ l l Entering the "store," which emitted "an ancient and fish-like smell," evidently salt mackerel, I inquired of a boy with a sore eye if " this " was a hotel, and if I could have some breakfast. He replied, quite cheerily; "Yes, sir," and opening a door at the far end of the store, bade me walk in. Entering I found a small dining-room, with a long table and a dozen chairs for furniture, poor enough to promise a very slim breakfast. The boy with the sore eye accompanied me into the room arijd hung about so persistently that I became imme diately prejudiced against him, and was very glad to turn away from the spectacle of his inflamed optic to the face of a stout, motherly-looking wo man, who now put in an appearance and asked me if I wanted breakfast. The reply was in the affirmative, and handing me a morning paper, she said if I would " read a little while, breakfast would be got ready." As it was still quite early in the day, and I was in no hurry, I went out into the store and again en countered the boy with the sore eye t " How far is it, boy, to Mr. Garfield s place and how do you get there from here ?" "The general s place is about two and a half miles from here and we take people up. Do you wish to go up ? if so, I will take you in a buggy. Took two gentlemen up yesterday and was there nearly all day. Drove them over to Willoughby, so they could take the evening train for Cleve land." - i -> LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF As I wished to go to Cleveland in the evening, I inquired if I could not come back and take the train at Mentor. "No," he replied, "the express for Cleveland does not stop here, only at Willoughby, four miles below." The boy was so intelligent and pleasant that my prejudice against him began to give way, and I al most forgave him for the misfortune of his sore! eye. " Breakfast for the gentleman," said a cheery voice, and I saw at the door for a moment the head of the stout woman. " Thereupon the boy showed me in with all the dignity of a landlord, the stout woman all the while apologizing pro fusely for the meagreness of the breakfast. The " fresh meat had not come down from Cleveland," where they got it; she was very sorry. I did not mind this, however, as there were plenty of poached eggs, hot biscuit, fresh butter, coffee and bread, and all of country quality. After breakfasting I examined the only two pictures the room boasted rude paper cuts, of a frontiersman s cabin and the "Arkansas Traveler." I went out to find the boy all ready with his buggy to convey me to Garfield s home. The drive was over a flat country, which had evidently once been overflowed, and a part of the bottom of the lake now distant about two miles. The boy told me all about it. It "was Mentor all along there, not a regular town but a thickly GEN. GARFIELD S HOME, MENTOR, OHIO. JAMES A. GARFIELD. * T ,- settled neighborhood." There were houses every hundred rods or so, and little farms, orchards and gardens around them. The General, as Garfield was called, was the big man of the place, and owned one hundred and sixty acres of land. While driving along the Mentor road one day in 1877, ne observed the quiet country beauty of the place, and thought he would like to live there. He bought one hundred and twenty acres, and afterward added forty. There was a cottage on the ground, and it made a very comfortable home for the family until the general went to Washing ton, when he ordered it removed and a better building put in its place. We soon arrived at Lawnfield and my loqua cious companion deposited me in front of the house. I went to a little office just behind the house, though in view, and inquired for the general. "He s out on the farm/ replied one of the two secretaries busy at work writing, "I will go and find him." During the minute the secretary was absent I examined the house with my eyes. It was two and a half stories high and in an unfinished state. o The walls were painted white and relieved by a roof of a dark Turkish red. The lawn about was liberally dotted with fruit trees, in the spreading branches of one of which a cherry a boy was busy plucking the luscious fruit. Several girls clustered beneath sharing the work and the re- 2 i 6 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF freshment. A double row of noble elms was in front of the house Not far off I noticed goose berry and currant bushes, betokening a garden, and just back of the house beyond the office a commodious-looking barn. Subsequently I learned other particulars. . The cottage that stood upon the place when the general purchased it proved altogether too small and too barren of conveniences. A Cleve land architect was employed for the metamor phosis. He decided that the walls could be raised and the building enlarged without pulling it down. It was then rebuilt from plans prepared by Mrs, Garfield, that is, in this way: A sketch was first drawn by the architect; this Mrs. Garfield filled out and then the general marked in various direc tions with a bold pen. When the ideas of Mrs. Garfield had been put upon paper the general indorsed them in the following gentle hint to the builders: " These plans must stand as above, unless otherwise ordered hereafter. If any part of them is impracticable, in form me soon and suggest change. "J. A. GARFIELD. "Washington, March 6th, 1880." The house stands upon a crest or ridge and cannot be called grand in any sense of the word, but certainly deserves the name of a very pleas ant, comfortable-looking country home. The ar- JAMES A. GARFIELD. o j g chitecture is composite, the Gothic sentiment pre vailing. There are two dormer windows one in front and one in the rear and a broad veranda extends across the front and part of the side toward Cleveland, affording opportunities to enjoy the breezes, out of the heat of the sun. Lattice work has been arranged for trailing vines. The dimensions are sixty feet front by fifty deep. The apartments are all roomy for a country house and the hallway is so wide that it attracts atten tion the moment you enter. The first floor contains a hall, with a large writing-table, a sitting-room, parlor, dining-room, kitchen, wash-room and pan try. This last on the plan bears the generous indorsement "plenty of shelves and drawers." Up-stairs in the rear part of the second floor is a room that on the plan is entitled "snuggery for general." It is rather small, measuring only thir teen and a half by fourteen feet. It is filled up with book shelves, but it is not intended to usurp the place of the library, a separate building out side and to the north-east of the house. Two of the best apartments in the eastern and front part on this floor are especially filled up for occupancy of the general s mother. The front room has a large old-fashioned fire-place and the greatest pains have evidently been taken to make this room a Mecca of comfort. The rooms are finished in hard woods, and everything about the place, while plain and un- ->2O LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF pretentious, gives it an appearance of quiet com fort. There are very few of the timbers of the old house, over which the new has been con structed, visible at this time, and there will be none in sight when the carpets are laid down. The cost of the structure when finished will be between three thousand five hundred and four thousand dollars. The barn, at the rear, furnishes accommodations for the two carriage-horses, the single carriage-horse and the heavy working- team. Of the one hundred and sixty acres com prising the farm, the yard, garden and orchard take up about twelve. Some seventy acres are under tillage, and the rest are in pasture and woodland. About ten minutes slipped away, and then the tall, broad-shouldered, full-chested, strongly-knit, six-foot-two-inch form of Garfield came out from between the buildings. Two telegraph men were with him, and they were arranging for putting a private wire into his office. With that charming, unpretentious politeness for which he is distin guished, he asked me to go to the front of the house and sit on the broad veranda, where he said we would find it much cooler and pleasanter than within doors. While he sat on the porch, I had a good opportunity to read and study the man. His head is massive as well as his frame, and his brain is gigantic. He has light brown hair, reddish-brown beard, large blue eyes and a JAMES A. GARFIELD. full, round, fair face. His weight is, perhaps, two hundred and forty pounds. He dresses plainly and prefers to wear a soft, slouch hat, with a broad brim. Visitors who come unannounced, often find him working in the hay-field with his boys, with his genial face sheltered from the sun under a big, chip hat, and his trousers tucked in a pair of cow hide boots. He is a thorough countryman, by in stinct. The smell of the good, brown earth, the lowing of cattle, the perfume of the new cut hay and all the sights and sounds of farm-life are dear to him from early associations. He excused himself for a moment: the tele graph men needed some advice. As I sat there, I recalled some of the many things concerning the man that had been told me during the last day or two. I could easily appreciate, seated on his veran da, all I had heard about his fondness for the country ; being, as I saw him to be, essentially a home man, and, perhaps, he has never quite ap preciated the possession of a home so much as he does now, in his days of rest, after the bustle and excitement of the past few weeks. His habits, I am told, are regular and methodical. Rising early, he frequently mounts his horse and goes over the farm, directing the workmen and studying out what suggests itself as a needed improvement. Quite as often, instead of mounting his horse, he 322 LIFE A ^ D PUBLIC CAREER OF walks about the place and, if the fever seizes him, jerks off his coat to hold the plow in the furrow, or to rake hay. It reminds him of old times, and is, of itself, invigorating exercise. He has a great taste for improvements, and has made something of a study of farming since his early experience as a practical yeoman. He farms, therefore, sci entifically. He interests himself in the affairs of the village, and attends the Disciples Church, where he sometimes speaks. The liberal people of Mentor on one occasion invited him to say something about the formation of a Murphy Tem perance Society. They were much pleased when, in his earnest, impressive way, he told them he was not a believer in total abstinence, while cautioning the young against the evil of immoderate drink ing, and earnestly urging them to check and con trol their appetite. Garfield was fond of showing visitors over the place, and especially fond of taking them down the lane back of the house to the top of the ridge, and explaining that the flat space below was once a portion of Lake Erie before the blue waters re ceded and left the sand and wave-washed pebbles on the top of the ridge. He is a hard worker, and punctual in perform ance of promises and duty. One infallible rule of his public life has been that every civil letter, on whatever subject or from whatever source, de mands an answer. His correspondence has, there- JAMES A. GARFIELD. fore, always been large and exacting. The very morning of my arrival ninety letters and over two hundred papers were brought to the house, and before night there were as many more. He han dles them, however, with ease, for he is possessed with what William Wirt entitled the " genius of labor." There are few men living, or who ever lived, that can or could endure more mental work than he, and do good work. As a collegian, twenty hours without sleep was common with him, and not one of the twenty but had its stated task of work or recreation. This, mind you, is all done thoroughly. His work on the Fitz John Porter case involved immense labor, and the references and documents relative to that case, piled apart in his library, at Washington, are appalling to a mind of ordinary grasp. It takes all of one large closet to contain the letters received and answers sent about this case, which, with the multitude of docu ments, were personally examined by the general. Most of the letters received on the morning of my visit, to which I have referred, were letters of congratulation, but there were also requests for offices in the event of an election, requests for everything, from the delicately-hinted desire of a seat in the new cabinet to an openly-demanded place as a country postmaster. Others were recommendations for some of those who asked, who appeared, indeed, to be fit for anything ever heard of beneath the broad panoply of heaven, *<>* LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF O-"T and still others were full of political advice and suggestions. His work on the Fitz John Porter case recalled again his giant-like capacity for mental labor. But few, in comparison to the number delivered, of his congressional speeches, have obtained wide circulation in print. And yet, just look at the titles of those that have so appeared and been cir culated : "Free Commerce between the States;" "Na tional Bureau of Education;" "The Public Debt and Specie Payments;" "Taxation of United States Bonds;" "Ninth Census;" "Public Expenditures and Civil Service;" "The Tariff;" "Currency and the Banks;" "Debate on the Currency Bill;" "On the McGarrahan Claim;" "The Right to Originate Revenue Bills;" Public Expenditures;" "National Aid to Education;" "The Currency;" "Revenues and Expenditures;" "Currency and the Public Faith;" "Appropriations;" "Counting the Elec toral Vote;" "Repeal of the Resumption Law;" "The New Scheme of American Finance;" "The Tariff;" "Suspension and Resumption of Specie Payments;" "Relation of the National Government to Science," "Sugar Tariff." What a record this is, even if it stood alone ! What American statesman can show a better list of titles ? Does it not read like a table of con tents to the speeches of Daniel Webster? And these speeches could not have been prepared with- JAMES A. GARFIELD. 325 out ability, knowledge and the intent of a states man who works for his country s good to animate their purpose. They were the results of his deliberate and ac curate foresight. For he saw, when the war was over and reconstruction a fact, that American poli tics were entering upon a new era. No man could then serve the nation by rehearsing the old anti-slavery debates, by fighting over the battles of the war on the floors of Congress, by unduly prolonging controversies that were forever settled. He saw that what the country needed was wise discussion and legislation on the civil service, the revenue, currency, banking, resumption and the hundred other questions that are by no means sentimental, that do not appear to the imagina tion, but are dry, statistical, unpoetic and distaste ful to any speaker who has the God-given gift of eloquence. In a noble speech on the currency, delivered in 1868, Garfield said: " I am aware that financial subjects are dull and uninviting in comparison with those heroic themes which have absorbed the attention of Congress for the last five years. To turn from the consideration of armies and navies, victories and de feats, to the array of figures which exhibits the debt, expendi ture, taxation and industry of the nation, requires no little courage and self-denial ; but to these questions we must come, and to their solution Congress, political parties and all thoughtful citizens must give their best efforts for many years to come." 326 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF One would not suppose that, in the midst of the busy life incidental to such public duties as are lightly suggested above, and, later, the political leadership of the House, General Garfield found much time to devote to society and literature, yet he has for a long period been an active and honored member of the Washington Literary So ciety, an organization embracing the most promi nent men and women in music, art and literature of the national capital. He is usually present at their meetings, and takes an earnest yet modest part in their discussions. During the last season he was president of the society, and entertained the members at his house. He was usually ac companied by his wife, who has always been his companion, counselor and friend. His love of literature was early manifested, re ceived a great impulse while at Williams College, and grew steadily while professor of languages and president of Hiram College. Even now his most congenial recreation is the study of classical literature, and it is related of him that during the busy session he was found behind a big barricade of books, which proved upon examination to be different editions of Horace, and works relating to that poet. " I find Fam overworked, and need recreation," he said. " Now, my theory is that the best way to rest the mind is not to let it lie idle, but to put it at something quite outside the ordi nary line of employment. So, I am resting by JAMES A. GARFIELD. 327 learning all the Congressional Library can show about Horace, and the various editions and trans lations of his poems." And an application of this theory to his every-day life has made him a student, and ripened a scholarship rare among public men. The record of the Congressional Library shows that he uses more books than any member of Congress. The number of volumes taken from the library last year and read and ex amined by him, has never been exceeded by any man who ever used the library except Charles Sumner. He reads everything histories, novels, newspapers, etc., and a wide range of miscel laneous matter. Outside of the early classics, Shakespeare is his favorite poet, and Tennyson is oftener in his hand than any other song-writer of modern times. His novel reading is a peculiarly happy illustration of his character, as it is, so to speak, confined to Thackeray, Scott, Dickens, Kingsley, Jane Austen and Honore de Balzac. His books all bear his library motto: "Inter Folio Fructus," " Fruit between leaves." The house at which I was is not the only prop- * erty the general owns. He has a house in Wash ington. Ten years ago, finding life in hotels and boarding-houses particularly uncomfortable, he bought a plot on the corner of Thirteenth and I streets, and with money borrowed from a friend, he built a substantial house. The money was repaid in time, and was probably saved in great part from LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF what would otherwise have gone to landlords. Five or six years ago the cottage at Hiram was sold, and for a time the only residence the general had in his district was a summer home he built on Little Mountain, a bold elevation in Lake County, which commands a view of rich farming country along the shores of Lake Erie. I suppose, as to his other possessions, he might be said to be in comfortable circumstances. The Washington house is owned clear of incumbrances, and is per haps worth between ten and twelve thousand dol lars. The Mentor Farm is valued at about nine thousand dollars, but as yet is only partly paid for. These two pieces of property, with the Little Mountain home, form his whole material fortune, and they might be disposed of so as to leave him about fifteen to eighteen thousand dollars after paying all incumbrances. The money with which these purchases have been made has come from his Congressional salary and his practice as a law yer, mainly in the Supreme Court, at Washington, where he has had about seven cases a year. JAMES A. GARFIELD. 329 CHAPTER XXIV. THE FAMILY CIRCLE. MY recollections were here interrupted by the general, who came to excuse him self, saying that the telegraph men would be clone with him in a few minutes, when he would be at my service. Just as he had arranged where and how the wire was to be put in, an old friend of his arrived and wished to talk with him. I told him to go on, as my business could wait. About an hour was so taken up, during which I collated something I had learned about his Washington residence. o This, a modest, unpretentious brick mansion, plain and square built, stands, as I have said, on the corner of I and Thirteenth Streets. The house is square, with a wing on the east side, comprising dining-room and library. The parlor side-windows look out upon the pleasing prospect of the park, while the front commands a corner view of I and Thirteenth Streets. On entering on the south side, the parlor is on the left. It is small, comfortably, but by no means lavishly furnished. An upright piano, a slate mantel, a solemn-looking pair of Chinese vases, three feet high ; a tall, narrow mirror, reaching /,//-: AND PUBLIC CAREER OF almost to the ceiling, are the objects your eye first rests upon. Then you note that the ceiling, as well as the walls, is frescoed, the latter in indis tinct panels, the ceiling light, with gilt borders. Just over the grand piano hangs a picture of Gen eral Garfield s mother, to whom he is most devoted. The face is small, and beams benevolently from a snowy cap. Opposite hangs a portrait of the gen eral s first daughter, a face of surpassing sweet ness. Two landscapes a farm and a mountain subject count two more on the walls, and under one of them hangs a photograph of the general in camp, taken surrounded by his officers, who, like himself, are in undress uniform. A few choice en gravings complete the wall decorations. To the right you are tantalizingly invited to enter and rest by the comfortable, cozy look of a small sitting-room, furnished in tasteful modesty. A small walnut mirror-mounted desk, table and whatnot, monopolizes one corner, and this is strewn with books that make, to their owner, life worth living. In the rear of this, and occupying a portion of the wing is a somewhat luxurious dining-room, that is, it is luxurious in color and decoration. The paper is a rich drab and brown, set off by a dado of Japanese pattern. Over the mantel there hangs a relic of an idea, a half portrayed inspira tion. The general one evening, in the company of some literary and artistic men, in the course of JAMES A. GARFIELD. 33 T a discussion on Shakespeare, remarked that none of the illustrations by Falstaff satisfied his concep tion. An artist present begged him to describe his ideal, and from the description then given at tempted the picture now hanging over the mantel. The artist dying before it was completed, the half- finished sketch was framed by the general and placed where it now is. The finished portion em braces the figure of the rollicking knight leaning his right arm on the inn table, and balancing in his left hand an empty glass. In the background the "drawer" is bringing in a fresh cup of sack. The conception is quite effective even in its present state. On the opposite wall is a large painting of a hunting scene, with horses and slain deer in the foreground. Here is a trout very cleverly painted, there a walnut sideboard, and yonder another book-case filled to bursting. Over it is a copy of "Love or Duty." Much of the furni ture of this room is of Austrian bent wood. The particular shrine in the Garfield home to which you will willingly hasten your steps is the library, situated just over the dining-room. This is the man of energy s workshop. It is here the student and the scholar lives. It is here the poli tician rests. The room is about twenty-five feet by fourteen feet, three of its windows open on I Street and one on the eastern side. The carpet does not entirely cover the floor, a three-foot mar gin of stained wood is visible all round. Occupy- 332 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF ing the centre is a double walnut office desk, with the addition of pigeon-holes, and boxes, and drawers on one end, while just above hangs a heavy chandelier. It is very evident from the or derly disorder of the room that the owner cares far more for immediate convenience than general symmetry. Half a dozen book-cases occupy the available space around the walls, and three thou sand volumes fill their shelves. No two of these cases are of the same height, width or make. It suggests to the visitor, that from time to time, as the books overflowed their limits, another case was hastily procured in which to accommodate the surplus, and then when that was full another was added, and so on. And, undoubtedly, the over flow has been regular, as you can go nowhere in the general s home without coming face to face with books. They confront you in the hall when you enter, in the parlor and the sitting-room, in the dining-room and even in the bath-room, where documents and speeches are corded up like fire wood. And what is- a wonderful point in their owner s favor, there is not one trashy volume among them. They are law, history, biography, poetry, politics, philosophy, government and stand ard works of all sorts, the accumulation of years of study and the patient research of the scholar. A few pictures catch the eye for a moment : a portrait of Bismark, a gift from the Iron Count JAMES A. GARHELD. 333 dereiserne Graf- himself; one of General Thomas, whom Garfield always loved; one of General Sher man, and also Professor Agassiz and President Hopkins, personal friends. It is in this home that he has carried on his correspondence with his friends, and here he has received many of his acquaintances. The leading officers of the army are his more particular friends, General Sherman notably so. He still keeps up a tender friendship for his old com mander, Rosecrans. The late S. P. Chase was a firm friend of his and was often his guest. Among his correspondents the late Dr. Francis Leiber was one of the favored, as he received during his life time one hundred and seven letters from the general. Among those who correspond with him regularly are William D. Howells, Professor Winchell, of Ann Harbor, and Andrew D. White, President of Cornell University, and at present American Minister to Berlin. Professor Hinsdale, of Hiram, is also one of the regular correspon dents. These are but a few of the many who carry on active intercourse with the general, and the reader can imagine to himself how busy this man must be, what a world of labor he must carry, Atlas-like upon his broad and willing back. By and by, the old man came out. He told me, quite confidentially, that he had come for the express purpose of advising the general about LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF the conduct of the campaign. Bidding him good bye, the general set himself down beside me and announced he was ready to have his life taken. Then I got at him in true interviewer fashion, and he submitted most gracefully. I asked him for a copy of one of his earlier sermons or religious lectures. "I have no copies/ he replied. "I did not write my discourses in full, but merely made headings or memoranda, trusting to memory and the in spiration of the occasion to fill them out properly. I have over a thousand of these briefs, but it would be quite as difficult to fill one out as to write a new discourse." He then brought in a number of scrap-books, in which he had preserved in the order in which they had been delivered, all of his public speeches. He also had a most elaborate index to everything he had ever read, which must be invaluable to a man hunting particular passages. Let me illus trate this. Suppose you are keeping an index on General Garficld s principle. You have been reading that brilliant invective against treason in Congress, and the paragraph on coercion strikes you as being both sound and well worth remem bering: " No statute was ever enforced without coercion. It is the basis of every law in the universe human or divine. A law is no law without coercion behind it. You levy taxes JAMES A, GARFIELD. * ^ ? O v) J coercion secures their collection. It follows the shadow of the thief and brings him to justice. It lays its iron hand on the murderer, tries him and hangs him. It accompanies your diplomacy to foreign courts and backs the declaration of the nation s rights, by a pledge of the nation s strength. But when the life of the nation is imperiled, we are told that it has no coercive power against the paracides in its own bosom ! !" This, then, you enter in your index thus: "Co ercion under the Constitution. Opinion of James A. Garfield Speech upon Treason in Congress, House of Representatives, April 8th, 1864. Vol. -,_page - -." This the general has done for all the books he has read, and the reader can imagine what a mine of information he can prove on any subject at a moment s notice. This system also permits him to hoard to advantage fugitive scraps from news papers, and in its maturity, is the pro.duct of his thought. He ascribes to it much of his success in extempore speaking, the like of which, for wealth and information, and glowing illustration, are not heard in either branch of Congress to-day, and have not been for many years. There is a com mon-place saying in the reporters gallery, that when Garfield chooses to cram on a subject, there is no man in Washington who can stand before the deluge of facts with which he will overwhelm all opposition. In these books there were many hundreds of pages filled with scraps, annotations, picked sen- 336 ^ - ^ -0 ri GLIC CAREER OF tences, incidents and witticisms, from a collectio of authors and newspapers representing the be; thought in literature, ancient and modern, of a most the entire world. Besides these there wei innumerable thoughts of his own upon the inm merable things he had read in the course of h prolonged studies, and which he had embalmed i black and white while yet the "idea divine" ws warm and living in his brain. "It is perfectly astounding," said the genera "how much we are indebted to other people fc our opinions. Comparatively few men or wome take the trouble to think for themselves. Mo: persons frame their opinions from what they rea or hear others say. I noticed this early in life, bi never saw the evil of it until I went to Congres Committees appointed to investigate particuk subjects would meet together, and no one woul say much at first. After a while some one woul get up and state his opinion positively, give h reasons for thinking so, and in nine cases out < ten that man s opinion would be adopted as th opinion of the committee. The other membe] either had not or did not care to investigate tli matter, and rather than take the trouble to loo up the facts, would accept this member s opinio as their own." It was this that had made him such a close sti dent, and caused him to read so much on mattei that affected Congressional legislation. He warne JAMES A. GARFIELD. very one against the pernicious practice of taking ther people s opinions as correct, and holding lat every man and woman should try and find ut the fact and think for themselves. His scrap-book offered abundant evidence that himself followed this sound advice. All were irranged in the nicest order, and through the en- ire series I could follow the trail of the great de bater s readings from their beginning almost to :he present time. Thus, for the year 1859, I bund the first annotation on financial subjects. Fhese are at first somewhat straggling, .mixed in vith more or less of the classic poets. Then they Become more frequent, until finally they outnum- )er all other topics, and are full of "Tooke s His- :ory of Prices," and "Sir Archibald Allison," that vere so useful when Garfield followed Pig-Iron elley into the history of France and England last vinter and fall, to the discomfiture of the old man md his soft-money* friends. Re-enforcing his scrap- x>ok, the general has a large case of pigeon-holes, lolding, perhaps, fifty boxes; labeled " The Press," French Spoliation," "Tariff," "Geneva Award," General Politics," "State Politics," "Public Men," Parliamentary Decisions," Anecdotes," "Elec- :oral Laws and Commission," etc., etc. These are illed with the choicest references and bits of cur- *ent literature on the various special topics, and ire continually replenished from every product of :he printing press. 338 1 - IFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF One of the children came and interrupted us * this point. The general took the child, answere all its questions and then tenderly sent it awa with "there, my darling, go now and play. * Jus then Mrs. Garfield came to the head of the stair and the general called her in. After introducing her, he put his arm about her and said, laugh ingly, "you see, my dear, I am having my lif< taken." He then went out with her, Mrs. Garfiek saying she wished to speak to him about som< household affairs. Mrs. Garfield is not what would be called i pretty woman, but she is tall, fine-looking, has i kind, good face, and the gentlest of manners. She has a slight but well-knit form ; small features with a somewhat prominent forehec-d, and hei black hair, crimped in front and done up in a mod est coil, is slightly tinged with gray. A pair o black eyes and a mouth about which there plays a sweetly bewitching smile are the most attrac tive features of a thoroughly expressive face She is a quick observer, an intelligent listener but undemonstrative in the extreme. When the general was at Chickamauga, and everybody ai Hiram was painfully anxious to get the latesi news from the field of battle, she sat quiet anc patient in what is now Professor Hinsdale s library and was able to control the inmost emotions thai swayed her breast. She impressed me as a thoroughly domestic JAMES A. GARFIELD. woman, who loves her home, her children and her husband. Mary Clemner pays her the following tribute : " She has the philosophic mind that Wordsworth sings of, and she has.a self poise, ^strength of unswerving absolute rectitude. * * * Much of the time that other women e to distributing visiting-cards, in the frantic effort to make themselves leaders of society, Mrs. Garfield spends in the alcoves of the Congressional Library, searching out books to carry home to study while she nurses the children. You may be sure of one thing the woman who reads and studies while she rocks her babies will not be left far behind by her husband in the march of actual growth. I have seen many women come to the surface of capitolian life out of obscurity and go back into obscurity again ; have seen hundreds of so- called leaders of society shrivel and go out in the scorch ing flame of fashion; while I have followed with a tender heart this woman^the wife of a famous man a woman whom nobody called a leader. She, meanwhile, has not been lifted off her feet, as many women are, by her husband s rising fortunes ; no spreading forth in style of dress or living, no airs. And in Washington, in official life, that means everything indicative of character. She has moved on in the tranquil tenor of her unobtrusive way, in a life of absolute devotion to her duty ; never forgetting the demands of her position or neglecting her friends, yet making it her first charge to bless her home, to teach her children, to fit her boys for college, to be the equal friend, as well as the honored wife, of her husband. Gentle, patient, unobtrusive almost to timidity, keenly intelligent, liberally educated, con scientiously devoted to everything good this is the woman who will perpetuate the loving, consecrated life that to-day abides in the White House, if as its mistress she enters it." Of Mrs. Garfield the general said on his return, and his voice had a touch of tenderness : 340 LIFE AXD Pl lU.IC C./A /.V-.A OF "I have been wonderfully blessed in the discretion of my wife. She is one of the coolest and best-balanced women I ever saw. She is unstampedable. There has not been one solitary instance of my public career where I suffered in the smallest degree for any remark she ever made. It would have been perfectly natural for a woi^an often to say something that could be misinterpreted ; but without any design, and with the intelligence and coolness of her character, she has never made the slightest mistake that I ever heard of. With the competition that has been against me, many times such discretion has been a real blessing." She has borne the general six children. The first, a daughter, who died in infancy. Two boys, Harry Augustus and James R., aged seventeen and fifteen respectively, are studying at St. Paul s School, Concord, N. H., under the charge of the Rev. Dr. Coit. Tlrey entered the school in Sep tember last, and have already proved themselves sturdy, manly boys, and good, faithful students. At the close of the school this year (June 24th), Harry won the prize for the best English decla mation, the qualities for which he h^s no doubt inherited from his father the Webster of the West. The boys will both be in the fifth form next year, and will be prepared to enter college September, iSSi. The third child is Mary, a rosy-cheeked, laughing-eyed girl of thirteen, who is called " Mollie " by everybody. The next is Iryin McDowell so named as a sort of protest against the unwarranted abuse that General Mc Dowell, Garfield s close friend, received during JAMES A. GARFIELD. 341 and after the war. The boy is nine years old. The youngest is aged six, and named Abram after his grandfather. This is the boy I noticed up in the cherry tree, as I waited for the general on my arrival. " Have you met mother?" asked my host. " No," I replied. " Oh, I want to introduce you then ; you must know mother." He spoke of her so often, and so tenderly, I could not but see that she was constantly in his thoughts. I went down-stairs to see her. She is a very small woman, and looks almost diminutive beside her stalwart son. She is seventy-nine, quick in her movements, and in full possession of her mental faculties. She is thin, white-haired, rosy- cheeked, and has a prominent nose like many another who has adorned the pages of history. On being introduced I found her rather reti cent. She seemed to be most concerned about the children and the work around the house, that it should go on uninterruptedly and in the proper manner. She was evidently a matter-of-fact, common-sense old lady, and I could not but ad r mire her, remembering her sacrifices for her children, and how she had cared for her boy James, laying for him the foundation of his present eminence when she counseled him to "re member his God and study books." She did not once express the least surprise at 20 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF what had happened at Chicago, nor in any way refer to the general as a public man. She called him " my son," and remarked on the weather, their new place, and asked if I was married and how many children I had. I could not get her to talk about politics in Washington, and I do not believe she is over-well pleased with her son s nomination for President. Of course, she is proud of him, and desires his success, but he was already a senator, and I think the old lady would have preferred to have had him go no higher. Now she knows he will be away from their rural home most of the time, and, pressed by public care and duty, she can have him less to herself. When informed of the nomination, Mother Gar- field and the general s -wife expressed to their in timate friends, their fear that there was now "an end to privacy for several years." Neither were surprised from newspaper reading of the outcome of the convention. They had both heard the talk about the general s name, but had hoped it meant nothing. In fact, they had come to the conclusion that it did mean nothing, when suddenly, the news came that he was nominated. While I was talking with Mother Garfield, the general s wife, clad in a plain, calico dress, came in with a work-basket, and sat down to darn the children s stockings. Presently, it began to rain, and, to my surprise, the old lady went out bare headed, and brought in a chair off the lawn. I JAMES A. GARFIELD. n .- remonstrated, and desired to assist her, but she only laughed and said: "Nevermind, it won t hurt me." At dinner, everybody was hunted up, and one of the general s secretaries said: "It is the general s orders everybody shall come; he would not like it if any one went away hungry. * As there were five or six of us, I thought it something of an im position, and began to apologize, saying I could wait until I got to Cleveland, but the general would not hear to such a proposition, so I went in and sat down. I found at the table before us a goodly company of a dozen guests, among whom were Colonel Rockwell, a school-mate of Garfield s, as the general himself informed me, with his wife, Hon. A. G. Riddle, of Washington, and Major Bundy, of the New York Mail; both these gen tlemen, like myself, engaged in writing a history of Garfield s life. I sat next to Mrs. Garfield, and she almost im mediately began talking about the army, mention ing her cousin, General Ingalls, and asking^me if I had not often met, out in the West, an old friend of hers and the general s General Hazen. I found her a ready and charming conversation alist, and withal, so easy, modest, gentle and at tentive in her manner, it was a pleasure to be beside her. The children had a separate table, near Mrs. Garfield, and they kept constantly speaking to 346 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF mamma, and breaking in on her conversation. One of these wild, romping boys, came and put ting his arm around her neck, whispered in her ear. She tried to quiet them, but they were so full of life and spirits they would not be still. Turning to me, she said: " What would you do with such a lot ?" " Let them alone, and bless God for them." " Ah, you have children," she continued, and on my answering in the affirmative, she asked about them, how many were boys, how many girls, and then their respective ages, until she had learnt all. And with such mutually interesting chat, the dinner hour sped rapidly away. After it was over, I went with the general to his office, where, producing a handful of cigars, and lighting one, he talked freely of many things. I asked him about his early life, and he spoke modestly and earnestly of his struggles with poverty. The sea he mentioned enthusiastically, as the memory of his first fancies came over him. " But even now, at times, the old feeling (the longing for the sea) comes back," and, walking across the room, he turned, with a flashing eye: " I tell you I would rather now command a fleet in a great naval battle than do anything else on this earth. The sight of a ship often fills me with a strong fascination, and when upon the water, and my fellow-landsmen are in the agonies of sea- JAMES A. GARFIELD. 347 sickness, I am as tranquil as when walking- the land in the serenest weather." I saw from his conversation *he thought I had been raised in a city or town, and knew nothing of farm-life. I did not then undeceive him, for I wished to hear his story, but after he had finished, I remarked : " I know all about that, and how hard it is ; for I have been through it all." " Ah," he exclaimed, " then you were raised on a farm." " Yes, and a poor one at that, at the foot of the Alleghany Mountains, where we all had to scratch to get a living." Laughing heartily, he said, musingly : " Tell me, now, do you think we can raise men for high positions ? There are my boys, I am educating them carefully, but I can t tell if they will ever be heard of, and I question it. No doubt you will do the same with your boys but will they rise in the world? Won t it happen that some poor and obscure little fellow,, who has to scratch for every inch, will run ahead of them and come to the front, while they will pass away un known to fame ?" " That is nearly-always the case." " So it is ; and it makes me wonder if tender rearing of boys, and giving them an elaborate education, is so much of a benefit to them, after all." 348 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF One of the lads about whom we had been talk ing came in at the moment, to say the workmen who were building a fence about the yard wished to see the general. He put on his hat and went out, first giving me his scrap-books, and asking me to amuse myself by looking them over until his return. He stayed so long, I lit a cigar and went down into the hall to smoke. While I was waiting, the same boy came back and told his mother, papa wanted to see her about the fence. She put on a hat and went out, and on going to the door, I saw the general was himself helping the workmen with the palings and posts. Seeing me, he seemed to remember he had left me wait ing, and at once came up to excuse himself: "You see we have a new place here, and I am trying to get it fixed up. I . came here expecting to spend a quiet vacation, and when the nomination at Chi cago dropped on me, it found us all up-side down. So many people are coming constantly, I want to get it in order, and am pushing it all I can by superintending the work personally." He then offered to go up to the office again and give me all the time wanted of him, but 1 excused him, saying I thought I had taken up quite enough of his day already. He expressed great willingness to attend to me, but said if I did not want him he would go up-stairs and do some writing. I went up with him to get my hat, and he pointed to a JAMES A. GARFIELD. 349 sheet of paper lying on his desk which I saw, from the different headings and divisions, was the outline of his letter of acceptance, and that he was hunting up authorities which he wished to consult in preparing it. "A tough job," I ventured. "Yes, * he replied, laughing, "rather a tough job," and with that I left him to his work, the gen eral seeing me to the door and bowing me out. Twice during the afternoon he came to ask if there was anything further he could do to serve or oblige me, and, on being assured there was not, he went off to attend to other matters. At five my young man with the sore eye came to drive me to the depot, and I went to bid the general good-bye. He said he did not like me to leave without supper, and invited me to stay, but I declined in order to catch the train. He then called his wife, saying, " Come, mother, and bid the general good-bye." I spoke to her of the impend ing election : " I suppose we will see you in Washington next winter?" " Oh yes," she replied, " you know we go there any way to attend the sessions of Congress." " I hope we shall see you in the White House, Mrs. Garfield," remarked a gentleman who was leaving with me. "Thank you," she replied, and laughing quite heartily added, " we shall know better about that by and by." 350 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF The general went with us to the carriage and extending his great hand shook each of us heartily by the hand, telling some to come and see him in Washington, asking others to write, and telling me to be sure and send him a copy of my book with " the author s compliments " upon the fly-leaf. JAMES A. GARFIELD. - O J * CHAPTER XXV. TWO PEN PORTRAITS. HIS home is about half-way between Men tor and Willoughby, so that we had but two miles to drive to the station. About a mile and a half west of his home is a curiosity in the shape of Joe Smith s first Mormon temple. It is a plain, but queer-looking structure, that served its purpose for a while, now only a curi osity almost useless. This, however, did not de tain me. It was but" a speck in the landscape of a country that was quite attractive and enabled me to realize why the general wished to reside away from the city s bustling walls. His hard student life and the incessant cares of public duty in Washington could all be left behind, and he always hastens to his home when Congress ad journs. The house is sufficiently lonely to be out of the way of idlers or mere curiosity callers, and few would break in upon the rest of the great statesman, unless they were called thither by im perative business. He needs rest and leisure to prepare himself for the winter sessions of Con gress at Washington, and from the midst of this beautiful scenery he returns each year to the capital thoroughly invigorated. 352 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF My youthful companion spoke eloquently of the general and seemed most anxious to convince me that Garfield was really a great man. I asked him if the general was very popular with the peo ple of that section, and he replied: "Well, I should say so, why they are all going to vote for him." From others I learned about the same thing, and came to the conclusion, that if a man is best judged by the opinions of those among whom he has lived, General Garfield is peculiarly fortunate. From one end of his district to an other, among Republicans and Democrats alike, no one speaks of him but in the language of praise, respect, love and admiration. The same statement applies in a large degree to the State. But in his own district, among his old friends and neighbors, he stands as a synonym for all that is manly, good and honest. The reader has men tally photographed him from what I have related above. He is equally interesting as others see him. George Alfred Townsend drew this picture of him in the Cincinnati Enquirer : "The writer has known General Garfield pretty well for thirteen years. He is a large, well-fed, hale, ruddy, brown- bearded man, weighing about two hundred and twenty pounds, with Ohio German colors, blue eyes, military face, erect figure and shoulders, large back and thighs, and broad chest, and evidently bred in the country on a farm. His large mouth is full of strong teeth ; his nose, chin and brows are strongly pronounced. A large brain, with room for play of thought and long application, rises high above his JAMES A. GARFIELD. clear, discerning, enjoying eyes. He sometimes suggests a country Samson strong beyond his knowledge, but un guarded as a school-boy. He pays little attention to the affectation by which some men manage public opinion, and has one kind of behavior for all callers, which is the most natural behavior at hand. Strangers would think him a little cold and mentally shy. On acquaintance he is seen to be hearty above everything, loving the wife around him, his family, his friends, his State and country. Loving, sympa thetic and achieving people, and with a large, unprofessing sense of the brotherhood of workers in the fields of progress, it was the feeling of sympathy and the desire to impart which took him for chief, while as to the pulpit, or on the verge of it, full of all that he saw and acquired, he panted to give it forth after it had passed through the alembic of his mind. Endowed with a warm temperament, copious expression, large, wide-seeing faculties and superabundant health, he could study all night or lecture all day, and it was a provi dence that his neighbors discovered that he was too much of a man to conceal in the pulpit, where his docility and rever ence had almost taken him. They sent him to the State Legislature, where he was when the war broke out, and he immediately went to the field, where his courage and pains taking parts and love of open-air occupation, and perfect freedom from self-assertion made him the delight of Rose- crans and George H. Thomas successively. He would go about any work they asked of him; was unselfish and enthu siastic, and had steady, temperate habits, and his large brain and reverence made everything novel to him. "There is an entire absence of nonchalance or worldliness in his nature. He is never indifferent, never vindictive. A base action or ingratitude or cruelty may make him sad, but does not provoke retaliation or alter that faith in men or Providence which is a part of his sound stomach and athletic head. Garfield is as simple as a child ; to the serpent s wis dom he is a stranger. Having no use nor aptitude with the 354 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF weapons of coarser natures, he often avoids mere disputes, does not go to the public resorts where men are familiar or vulgar, and the walk from his home in Washington to the Capitol, and an occasional dinner out, comprise his life. The word public servant especially applies to him. He has been the drudge of his State constituents, the public, the public societies and the moral societies of his party and coun try, since 1863. Aptitude for public debate and public affairs are associated with a military nature in him. He is on a broad scale a school-master of the range of Gladstone, of Agassiz, of Gallatin. "With as honest a heart as ever beat, above the competitors of sordid ambition, General Garfield has yet so little of the worldly wise in him that he is poor, and yet has been accused of dishonesty. He has no capacity for investment, nor the rapid solution of wealth, nor profound respect for the penny in and out ot pound, and still, is neither careless, improvident nor dependent. The great consuming passions to equal richer people and live finely and extend his social power is as foreign to him as scheming or cheating. But he is not a suspicious nor a high-mettled man, and so he is taken in sometimes, partly from his obliging, unrefusing disposition. Men who were scheming imposed upon him as upon Grant and other crude- eyed men of affairs. The people of his district, who are quick to punish public venality or defection, heard him in his defense, in 1873, and kept him in Congress and held up his hand, and hence he is, by their unwavering support for twenty-five years, candidate for president and a national character. Since John Quincy Adams, no president has had Garfield s scholarship, which is equal up to this age of wider facts. The average American, pursuing money all day long, is now presented to a man who had invariably put the busi ness of others above his own, and worked for that alleged nondescript the public gratitude all his life. But he has not labored without reward. The great nomination came to-day to as pure and loving a man as ever wished well of JAMES A. GARFIELD. anybody and put his shoulder to his neighbor s wheel. Garfield s big, boyish heart is pained to-night with the weight of his obligation, affection and responsibility. To-day, as hundreds of telegrams come from everywhere, saying ki-nd, strong things to him such messages as only Americans, in their rapid, good impulses, pour upon a lucky friend he was with two volunteer clerks in a room, opening and reading, and suddenly his two boys sent him one little fellows at school and as he read it he broke down, and tried to talk, but his voice choked and he could not see for tears. The clerks began to cry, too, and people to whom they after ward told it. This sense of real great heart will be new to the country, and will grow if he gets the presidency. "He is the ablest public speaker in the country, and the most serious and instructive man on the stump ; his instincts, liberal and right ; his courtesy, noticeable in our politics ; his aims, ingenuous, and his piety comes by nature. He leads a farmer s life, all the recess of Congress, working like a field hand, and restoring his mind by resting it. If elected, he will give a tone of culture and intelli gence to the executive office it has never yet had, while he has no pedantry in his composition, and no conceit whatever. A more elaborate analysis of the man was made by Professor B. A. Hinsdale, President of Hiram College: "His power of logical analysis and classification is very great; of rhetorical exposition hardly surpassed. He excels in the patient accumulation of facts, and in striking generalizations. As a student, he loves to roam in every field of activity. He delights in poetry and other works of the imagination ; loves the abstruse things of philosophy; takes keen interest in scientific research ; gathers into his store-house the facts of history and politics, and throws over it all the life and ^ 35<5 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF warmth of his own originality. Of course, he is not a Srali- ger, a Des Cartes, a Newton ; no man in public life not even Gladstone can be these. But his general culture is broad, deep, and generous. He has the best instincts and habits of the student and the scholar. Probably no man in Congress these twelve years past has more won upon our scientists, our scholars, and our men of literature. He was the friend of Henry and of Agassiz : he is the friend of How- ells, of Lowell, and of Parkman. Withal, he is an orator. He has not the massive grandeur of Webster, the brilliant declamation of Clay, or the fervid passion of Henry. But his speeches are strong in fact, ribbed with principle, lucid in argument, polished in diction, rich in illustration, and warm with the vital power of a noble heart. "His moral character is the fit crown to his physical and intellectual nature. No man has a kinder heart or a purer mind. His generosity of nature is unstinted; all his life, public and private, is marked by great unselfishness. For the most part, he has neglected material acquisition; but his means, as well as his time and talents, are at the call of those who need them. I fearlessly say that the nearer men have come to General Garfield the greater has been their confi dence. I may say that he has inspired unusual respect and faith in all large-minded and generous men without regard to politics. He has commanded success. His ability, knowl edge, mastery of questions, generosity of nature, devotion to the public good, and honesty of purpose have done the work. He has never had a political machine. He has never for gotten the day of small things. " I am far from indorsing all of General Garfield s public acts. Those who know me will hardly charge me with being a fulsome eulogist. He has said and done some things that I have been sorry to have him say and do. He has failed to say and do some others that I have had much at heart. But this I see : He has served the public with conspicuous ability and a single eye. He has moved all the time in the right di- JAMES A. GARFIELD. rection. He has striven to make the public service clean and honorable; to make the government one of statesmen and patriots, not of demagogues and place-men ; and in every way to dignify and ennoble the republic. "A newspaper man from a distant city asked me the other day : How do you explain the common lack of confidence in Mr. Garfield s courage? I said: Who doubts his courage ? He answered that he had heard in Washington and in other places that he lacked backbone. A few ques tions revealed that those who held this opinion thought that he did not denounce the Solid South with sufficient sever ity, and was not properly active in stirring up the brigadiers. If I may parody Madame Roland, O courage, what folly is committed in thy name! I have known a minister of the Gospel to be called a coward because he could recognize the worth of those who did not worship in his conventicle. Similarly, eager partisans charge with cowardice the man who, loyal to his own convictions of truth and duty, dares to think and act for himself. In both cases what is called cowardice is the genuine moral courage. To go with the stream to bless with your sect or to hurrah with your party is slight proof of courage; but to stand out by yourself in moral isolation, to bear the jibes of those whom you call your brethren, is a very high proof of character. Such a man is General Gar- field. He has uttered many noble words ; but none nobler than these, spoken in the Ohio Senate Chamber just after his late election : " Let me venture to point a single instance in regard to that work. During the twenty years that I have been in pub lic (almost eighteen of it in the Congress of the United States), I have tried to do one thing. Whether I was mis taken or otherwise it has been the plan of my life to follow my convictions, at whatever personal cost to myself. I have rep resented for many years a district in Congress whose approba tion I greatly desired, but though it may seem perhaps a little egotistical to say it, I yet desired still more the appro- -1-8 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF O \} bation of one person, and his name was Garfield. He is the only man that I am compelled to sleep with, and eat with, and live with, and die with, and if I could not have his appro bation, I should have bad companionship. It is not necessary to supplement these with the eulogy of the general pronounced by my young companion. It was terminated by my arrival at the station. The train was there and an hour later drew into the beautiful Lake City of Cleveland. JAMES A. GARFIELD. CHAPTER XXVI. PREPARING FOR BATTLE. THE National Convention of the Republican Party that nominated James A. Garfield for the Presidency, was one of the most important political conventions ever held in this country. Aside from the ever-interesting issue of a national convention a nominee this convention was the battle-ground on which several questions of the utmost importance to political life in this country were settled only at the conclusion of a hard-fought struggle. The unit rule, the third- term issue, district representation, and the still more vital issue of party managers trampling on popular wishes and opposing the will of those who placed them in power, made up a total of interest never before equaled in the history of the party. The struggle surpassed in fierceness the bitterest fights on record. A brief history of this conven tion is, therefore, valuable for present reading, as it furnishes many a lesson for the campaign, and most happily illustrates the peculiar fortunes of General Garfield, who, while ever in patient wait ing, has had his long succession of honors seek him openly. It is a curious story of cause and effect. 21 5o LIF& AND PUBLIC CAREER OF TJie convention assembled in the Exposition Building, at Chicago, on June 2d. The great men of the party were all there, and the list of those who held seats is as follows : ALABAMA. George Turner, J. H. Thomaston, B. S. Tur ner, G. H. Brayton, James Gillette, Allen Alexander, Paul Strobach, G. W. Washington, J. Heyman, William Young- blood, W. J. Stevens, J. T. Rapier, L. E. Parsons, H. C. Bryant, W. S. Byrd, N. W. Tremble, R. A. Mosley, A. Bingham, A. McCulloch, J. M. Hines. ARKANSAS. S. W. Dorsey, M. W. Gibbs, H. P. Robinson, S. H. Holland, J. H. Johnson, O. A. Hadley, Powell Clay ton, O. P. Snyder, Jacob Tireber, James K. Barnes, J. A. Barnes, Ferdinand Havis. CALIFORNIA. J. C. Wilmerding, Samuel Mosgrove, J K. Doak, Creed Raymond, E. A. Davis, Joseph Russ, Alexander D. Sharon, Socrates Huff, H. T. Fairbanks, John Mansfield, D. S. Paine, F. M. Pixley. COLORADO. Ex-Governor Rosett, Amos Sleek, J. A. El- lett, L. Head, George T. Black, M. M. Megure. CONNECTICUT. Henry C. Robinson, John M. Douglass, Augustus Brandagee, Samuel Fessenden, Andrew S. Upson, William M. Corbin, Hobart B. Bigelow, William C. Hough, Daniel Chadwick, Jeremiah Olney, Edgar S. Tweedy, N. T. Baldwin. DELAWARE. Christian Febiger, Levi R. Clarke, N. B. Smithers, James R. Lofland, Benjamin Burton, Albert Curry. FLORIDA. W. W. Hicks, F. C. Humphreys, E. J. Alex ander, R. E. Smith, Joseph E. Lee, V. J. Shipman, Sherman Conant, James Dean. GEORGIA. E. C. Wade, J. F. Long, W. A. Pledger, Ed win Belcher, L. B. Toomer, Floyd Snelson, B. F. Brimberry, John Fow, Jack Brown, Elbert Head, R. D. Lock, J. C. Beall, A. E. Buck, H. A. Rucker, W. W. Brown, J. B. De- JAMES A. CARFIELD. veaux, A. M. Middlebrook, H. B. Hickenbotom, C. H. Prince, J. W. Lyons, S. A. Darnell, Madison Davis. ILLINOIS John A. Logan, E. A. Storrs, G. B. Raum, D. T. Little, John Wentworth, S. A. Douglas, A. M. Wright, R. S. Tuthill, John L. Beveridge, L. J. Kadisch, N. C. Thomp son, N. N. Ravlin, J. B. Brown, Miles White, Henry T. Noble, W. H. Shepard, E. F. Bull, E. W. Willard, J. B. Wilson, R. J. Hanna, Joab Mershen, R. H. Whitney, Hosea Davis, F. B. Burgett, O. B. Hamilton, T. G. Black, G. M. Brinkerhoff, C. M. Eames, John McNulta, Major V. Warner, J. V. Harris, Hayworth, W. H. Barlow, A. P. Green, J. M. Truitt, Lewis Krueghoff, A. W. Metcalf, Richard Rowett, C. O. Patrel, J. M. Davis, C. W. Pavey, W. H. Williams. INDIANA Benjamin Harrison, George W. Friedley, Daniel B. Kumler, James S. Collins, Alexander Gilchrist, W. M. Hoggatt, John B. Glover, S. E. Kerchival, W. B. Slemmens, J. H. Friedley, John H. Crozier, F. Adkinson, David A. Beem, Joseph B. Homan, Milton Peden, T. M. Little, R. O. Hawkins, J. B. McFadden, William R. McKeen, E. H. Ne- becker, B. K. Higginbottom, G. F. Crittenden, F. S. Bedell, John W. Wimer, J. J. Todd, J. F. Vail, W. M. Clapp, C. K. Baxter, Clement Studebaker, B. F. Davenport. I OWA j. s. Clarkson, S. M. Clark, D. B. Henderson, George D. Perkins, J. S. Hurley, H. A. Burrell, H. C. Carr, J. W. Thompson, George W. Bassett, P. F. Sturgis, H. L. Huff, L. F. Butler, F. J. Upton, R. M. Haines, J. F. Green- lee, George D. Wooden, J. S. Runnells, J. R. McKee, C. W. Llewellen, W. P. Sharpe, B. F. Harkness, W. D. Lucas. KANSAS John A. Martin, George H. Case, S. S. Bene dict, B. W. Perkins, H. P. Walcott, Perry Hutchinson, Simeon Motz, B. F. Simpson, P. B. Plumb, William Thompson. KENTUCKY Walter Evans, W. O. Bradley, John D. White, John H. Jackson, J. R. Puryear, J. R. Happy, A. H. Clark, E. C. Hubbard, W. G. Hunter, George F. Blakey, E. 3 62 LIFE AXD rCBLIC CAREER OF H. Hobson, John W. Lewis, Silas F. Miller, James F. Buck- ner, J. E. Hamilton, John E. Barbour, R. P. Stoll, William Brown, J. K. Faulkner, Logan McKee, A. E. Adams, A. T. Wood, W. W. Culbertson, Morris Hutchings. LOUISIANA H. C. Warmoth, John T. Ludeling, William P. Kellogg, A. S. Badger, A. H. Leonard, J. S. Matthews, David Young, J. Wharton, James Lewis, A. J. Dumont, Richard Simms, Samuel Wakefield, William Harper, W. L. McMillen, J. H. Burch, Don A. Pardee. MAINE Eugene Hale, E. T. Gile, Joseph R. Bodwell, Almon A. Strout, William W. Thomas* Jr., Jos. R. Libby, William P. Frye, J. W. Wakefield, Joseph H. Manly, S. S. Marble, Lewis Baker, Llewellyn Powers, L. G. Downs, John S. Case. MARYLAND James A. Gary, Jacob Tome, Lloyd Lowndes, J. Morrison Harris, Charles T. Wescott, Samuel Mallalieu, J. A. J. Cresswell, J. J. Weaver, D. R. West, W. W. John- son, Dr. H. J. Drown, W. J. Hooper, Colonel J. Rowan Crone, John W. Bell, Upton W. Boorman, B. H. Miller. MASSACHUSETTS George F. Hoar, Charles R. Codman, John E. Sanford, J. M. Barker, C. W. Clifford, A. Eldridge, W. C. Lowring, F. A. Hobart, Phineas Pierce, C. Burnham, Eustace C. Fitz, J. O. Wetherbee, Henrj- C. Lodge, Daniel Russell, Dudley Porter, N. A. Morton, G. S. Boutwell, G. A. Marden, R. M. Morse, Jr., G. W. Johnson, W. S. B. Hop kins, William Knowlton, A. Harding, T. Merrick, W. Smith, M. B. Whitney. MICHIGAN James F. Joy, Perry Hannah, Omar D. Con ger, E. C. Watkins, W. G. Thompson, D. O. Farrand, J. D. Rowan, L. L. Penfield, C. D. Randall, Morgan Bates, A. H. Morrison, J. W. French, George A. Farr, A. B. Watson, Charles Kipp, E. M. Adams, B. W. Huston, William Jenny, E. O. Avery, Thomas N. Stevens, J. H. Chandler, D. A. Blodgett. MINNESOTA D. Sinclair, D. M. Sabin, A. O. Whipple, Dorilus Morrison, A. C. Wedge, J. V. Daniels, Marcus John son, George Bryant, E. F. Drake, C. F. Kindred. JAMES A. GARFIELD. 36 3 MISSISSIPPI B. K. Bruce, James Hill, George M. Bu chanan, Haribee C. Carter, W. H. Kennon, George C. McKee, Henry C. Niles, Joshua R. Smith, George W. Gales, F. M. Libby, Samuel P. Hurst, W. W. Bell, Green C. Chan dler, Charles W. Clarke, Richard F. Beck, R. H. Mont gomery. MISSOURI C. I. Filley, H. E.^Havens, David Wagner, R. T. Van Horn, John A. Weber, Nicholas Berg, T. B. Rogers, J. A. Wheeler, John H. Pullman, Thomas Gallen, William Ballentine, James Lindley, J. G. Baker, T. A. Lowe, R. C. McBeth, W. E. Maynard, A. D. Jaynes, A. G. Hollenbeck, W. J. Terrell, L. C. Slavens, N. F. Essex, S. C. Closky, Thomas D. Neal, George Hall, G. J. Whiteman, H. N. Cook, H. N. Killer, J. E. Adams, R. A. Bucker, Stuart Cartaner. NEBRASKA J. W. Dawes, L. C. Crounse, William Gastin, J. L. Mitchell, N. Perringer, D. A. Lewis. NEVADA E. Strother, C. C. Stevenson, M. D. Foley, W. W. Bishop, J. J. Meigs, T. D. Edwards. NEW HAMPSHIRE William E. Chandler, Ruel Durkee, David H. Buffum, Benjamin F. Prescott, Charles H. Murphy, Joel Eastman, Charles Holman, James G. Sturgis, Anson L. Brown, S. W. Hale. NEW JERSEY Judson Kilpatrick, George A. Halsey, Wil liam J. Sewell, William Walter Phelps, C. H. Sinnickson, Samuel Hopkins, John S. Irick, John S. Schultz, John F. Babcock, Chffion Robbins, N. W. Voorhies, W. A. Stiles, H. L. Butler, A. A. Vance, E. L. Joy, A. P. Condit, James M. Gopsill, B. W. Throckmorton. NEW YORK Roscoe Conklin, Chester A. Arthur, Alonzo B. Cornell, James D. Warren, John Birdsall, S. L. Hawkins, James Jourdan, Amos F. Learned, F. A. Schroeder, Alber Daggett, Jacob Worth, Benjamin F. Tracey, Edwards Pierre- pont, E. W. Stoughton, Charles E. Cornell, DeWitt C. Wheeler, J. M. Patterson, Jr., J. J. O Brien, J. D. Lawson, Charles Blaikie, Solon B. Smith, Bernard Biglin, Joel W. Mason, S. B. French, Thomas Murphy, Jacob Hess, W. H. 364 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF Robertson, J. W. Husted, L. F. Payne, S. B. Butcher, M. D. Stivers, B. G. Wales, George H. Sharpe, Rufus H. King, Henry R. Pierson, C. P. Eaton, John M. Francis, Isaac V. Baker, Jr., W. W. Rockwell, O. Abell, Jr., W. S. Dickinson, H. R. James, Webster Wagner, George West, David Wilber, Ferris Jacobs, J. P. Douglass, S. Sylvester, E. H. Shelley, W. H. Comstock, George L. Case, C. L. Kendedy, D. McCarthy, James G. Belden, W. B. Woodin, J. B. Murray, F. O. Mason, G. N. Hicks, T. C. Platt, O. W. Chapman, Justin S. Cole, C. J. Langdon, E. A. Frost, H. A. Brunner, G. G. Hoskins, J. E. Pound R. V. Pierce, John Nice, N. H. Allen, L. B. Sessions. NORTH CAROLINA W. P. Canady, D. H. Starbuck, J. H. Harris, Rufus Barringer, Poleman John, Samuel T. Carrow, Israel B. Abbott, C. Faison, O. H. Blocker, George W. Price, Isaac J. Young, Stuart Ellison, Thomas B. Keogh, J. H. Hardin, O. J. Spears, W. R. Myers, W. W. Rollins, D. C. Pearson. OHIO William Dennison, Warner M. Bateman, James A. GarfiekL Charles Foster, Benjamin Butterworth,- Albert Schwill, Henry Kessler, C. Fleischmann, D. W. McClung, A. R. Creamer, W. D. Bickham, F. G. Thompson, Joseph Lawrence, J. W. Conklin, J. H. Ritchie, M. M. Fourelle, Marcus Boggs, Alphonso Hart, C. B. Wright, J. F. Gotvery, William C. Cooper, James Glover, I. F. Mack, D. M. Hark- ness, William Nash, David Willetts, F. C. Sessions, John Groce, A. W. Train, J. Buckingham, H. C. Hedges, S. H. Hunt, R. M. Stevenson, J. L. Dougherty, J. S. Pierce, J. D. Taylor, J. H. Tripp, A. W. Jones, W. H. Williams, L. A. Sheldon, Evan Morris, J. C. Beatty, S. T. Everett, James Burnett. OREGON J. H. Mitchell, D. K. Hanna, J. M. McCall, N. W. Scott, D. N. Ireland, O. P. Tompkinson. PENNSYLVANIA Matthew S. Quay, Linn Bartholomew, James McManes, Christopher L. Magee, William Elliott, W. S. Douglass, W. R. Leeds, David H. Lane, William L. Smith, JAMES .-/. GARFIELD. ^ David Mouat, W. Ellwood Rowan, H. Disston, Thomas J. Powers, Adam Albright, Amos Gartside, W. B. Waddell, C. N. Taylor, D. O. Hitner, Chester N. Farr, Samuel R. Deppin, A. J. Kaufmann, William K. Seltzer, H. J. Reeder, Harrison Bortz, S. V. Thompson, W. A. W. Grier, J. J. Albright, Alexander Farnham, Samuel A. Losch, William S. Morehead, J. D. Cameron, John K. Clement, O. D. Kinney, C. C. Jad- win, W. H. Armstrong, Thomas L. Kane, John Cessna, David Over, J. G. Isenberg, B. F. Wagenseller, James Hurst, John Hays, James A. Beaver, M. L. Brosius, George Huff, George S. M. Baile, W. C. Moreland, James D. McDevitt, William B. Rogers, James H. Lindsay, J. H. Harrah, John McKinley, Joseph Buffington, James E. Long, Thomas Robinson, John T. Gordon, C. M. Reed, Harrison Allen. RHODE ISLAND John P. Sanborn, Thomas W. Chase, Isaac M. Potter, Almon K. Goodwin, Charles H. Handy, David L. Aldrich, William A. Price, Horace A. Jenckes. SOUTH CAROLINA E. W. M. Mackey, Samuel Lee, E. M. Brayton, R. B. Elliott, D. D. McCall, W. A. Hayne, C. C. Bowen, W. N. Taft, W. M. Fine, C. M. Wilder, Samuel T. Poinier, Wilson Cook, W. F. Myers, W. J. Whipper. TENNESSEE L. C. Houck, H. H. Harrison, J. M. Thorn- burg, David Nunn, R. R. Butler, Jesse T. Rogers, E. T. San- ford, J. N. Cordell, W. S. Tipton, W. T. Cate, H. L. W. Cheatham, J. S. Smith, W. H. Wisener, W. Y. Elliott, S. O. W. Brandon, W. H. Young, A. M. Hughes, Jr., B. A. J. Nixon, T. E. Muse, E. G. Rigely, W. M. Hall, H. Summer- ville, Larkin Williams, Fred H. Hunt. TEXAS. E. J. Davis, Webster Flanagan, A. B. Norton, W. H. Holland, G. M. Dilley, William Chambers, A. G. Malloy, W. H. Hakes, C. C. Binckley, D. A. Robertson, J. G. Tracey, W. R. Chase, N. W. Cuney, R. A. Harber, A. Scimering, E. H. Terrell. VERMONT. John Gregory Smith, John W. Stewart, Fred erick Billings, George W. Hooker, J. G. McCullough, L. Bart Cross, John B. Mead, Henry C. Belden, G. G. Bene dict, C. S. Page. ^66 LIFE AND PWL1C CAREER OF VIRGINIA Sheffey Lewis, Peter J. Carter, Joseph Jorge sen, J. W. Poindexter, L. A. Stewart, John W. Woltz, Ro ert Norton, George E. Bo\vden, Otis H. Russell, Josk Crump, W. L. Fernald, James D. Brady, H. C. Harris, V H. Pleasants, J. F. Wilson, W. R. Watkins, F. T. Wan John Donovan, William Brown, L. L. Lewis, H. O. Austii C. C. Thompkins. WEST VIRGINIA A. W. Campbell, S. P. McCormick, \\ J. Burley, John H. Riley, C. D. Hubbard, A. C. Moore, J T. Hope, J. M. Hagans, Z. D. Ramshell, L. A. Martin. WISCONSIN T. B. Cassidy, Thomas B. Scott, Ed war Sanderson, M. Van Steenwyk, J. V. Quarles, Charles Palmer ter, A. J. Turner, George E. Bryant, W. E. Carter, N. L James, F. C. Winkler, E. M. Rogers, W. H. Hempschc rneyer, J. C. Wedge, Levi Rowland, Philetus Sawyer, J. M Rush, F. L. Gilson, Isaac Stevenson, S. W. Hunt. When the convention opened its doors, th< three great political leaders who were expected t< change every result, rather by opposition than ad vocacy, were Senator Conkling, of New York Senator Logan, of Illinois, and Senator Cameror of Pennsylvania. These gentlemen were leader of an alliance of the most formidable and aggres sive character. Senator Cameron was absolut master of the Republican organization in Penn sylvania, Senator Conkling had almost as firm hold upon that of New York, and Senator Logar though not quite so thoroughly monarch of 111: nois, sat far more securely upon his self-estat lished throne than any one imagined. No one c these men could give himself the nomination, nc hand it over to anybody who would recognize th JAMES A. GARFIELD. giver as the only power behind the throne. Working together for a common end, to serve their common ambition for political power, a vic tory seemed easily possible. If they could not, like Caesar, Cassius and Pompey, divide "this great empire " between them, they might jointly frovern it through a man of their own selection, o o and each be secured in the absolute patronage of a State, so great as to be an empire in itself. Ulysses S. Grant, already twice president, was the fast friend of these three who were deter mined to nominate him for the presidency, whether it was the wish of the people or not. He was their choice, and they recognized no other law. The higher law of the nation s will was nothing to them. The State conventions had been adroitly managed, packed with Grant delegates, and with these the great leaders went to Chicago, to force Grant s candidacy. Arrayed against them were the friends of James G. Blaine, John Sherman, Elihu B. Washburne, Senator Windom, Senator Edmunds, and a number of other gentlemen, who were esteemed fit to fill the office of President of the United States. There was no waiting to begin the battle ; as fast as delegates and delegation body-guards arrived, they engaged at once. By Monday pre ceding the Wednesday the convention assem bled, Chicago was in a boil. The battle had opened in earnest. The city seemed transformed, 368 LIJ-J-: AXD PUBLIC (-.1 A /:/: A OF it bubbled with an unknown excitement. Those who had witnessed every convention of the Re publican party, since it was a party, say that they never had seen such a seething mass of political wranglers as gathered in and around the palatial Chicago hotels. Immense and numerous as these hotels are, they were crowded to the utmost. The more prominent of them were made dazzling as the noonday sun with the un-sunlike glare of electric lights. Statesmen, professional politicians, carpet-baggers, all sorts, sizes and colors of men, thronged the halls, dining-rooms, parlors, corri dors and the stairs of acceptable rooms occupied as head-quarters of regular delegations, com mittees, clubs, and every possible form of organi zation that gave any promise of hindering or pro moting particular candidates. Indeed, the whole battle seemed to be one of mean ambition, or meaner cupidity, and candidates were favored or opposed, as a rule, by the ruck not the great men by those who hoped to profit by their efforts. The first effort of the anti-Grant men was to break down the unit rule, by which the delegates from New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois were bound to the wish of Conkling, Cameron and Lo gan. A meeting of the National Committee was called, and all interest at once centred in the pro ceedings. The corridors of the Palmer House, leading to the committee-room, were choked by JAMES A. GARFIELD. -^ earnest, eager, anx?ous people. The meeting of the committee was secret. Senator Cameron pre sided, and hardly had he called the committee to order before the following resolutions were offered <.> by William E. Chandler of New Hampshire : Resolved, That this committee approves ana ratifies the call for the approaching Republican National Convention, which was issued by its chairman and secretary, and which invites two delegates from each Congressional District, four delegates-at-large from each State, two from each Territory and two from the District of Columbia, to compose the con vention, i Resolved, That this committee recognizes the right of .each delegate in a Republican National Convention freely to cast and to have counted his individual vote therein, according to his own sentiments ; and, if he so decides, against any unit rule or other instructions passed by a State Convention, which right was conceded without dissent and was exercised in the conventions of 1860 and 1868, and was, after full debate, affirmed by the convention of 1876, and has thus become a part of the law of Republican Conventions, and until reversed by a convention itself, must remain a governing principle. The first resolution was adopted unanimously. Senator Cameron then showed his hand, and ruled the second resolution out of order. An appeal from his decision he refused to entertain. At this there was much consternation among the anti- Grant people, who for a moment seemed be wildered. Representative Frye, of Maine, in quired of the chair where he had learned parlia mentary law, and William E. Chandler announced 370 LIFE AXD PUBLIC CAREER OF that if the chairman would not pay any respect tc the committee, the same power that made hirrt chairman would remove him. Mr. Filley, of Mis souri, came to the chairman s assistance in a short speech, that availed him nothing. The issue was clear, Senator Cameron was determined on forcing the unit rule, and refusing to recognize any motion that would interfere with the enforcement of that rule. But, unfortunately for him, the majority of the committee were opposed to him. A commit tee of six was appointed to nominate a temporary chairman, and the committee adjourned for a recess. During this the determined purpose of the anti- Grant men to depose Senator Cameron was made abundantly apparent. They considered the crisis reached, and when the committee again assembled they had determined to deprive Cameron of his power, or exact from him a promise. This plan was, however, abandoned, Senator Cameron re maining obstinate in his position and refusing to give any promise that he would not enforce the rule, as the committee had it in their power to ap point an acceptable chairman. At midnight the committee adjourned, the Hon. George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts, was chosen temporary chairman, he being acceptable to the Grant men. For further protection, a resolution was adopted before ad journment, that should Mr. Cameron be unable, through sickness or any other cause, to present JAMES A. GARFIELD. -> 7 r o / the /name of Mr. Hoar to the convention, Mr. ndler, as chairman of the committee reporting name, should do so. / The excitement over these proceedings was ntense, and all night long the heated partisans discussed Mr. Cameron s extraordinary ruling and arbitrary action as chairman of the National Committee. Eighteen of Mr. Cameron s own delegation from Pennsylvania protested, and twenty-two of the New York delegates made haste to write out o and sign the following paper : The undersigned, delegates to the Republican National Convention, representing our several Congressional districts in the State of New York, desiring, above all, the success of the Republican party at the approaching election, and realiz ing the hazard attending an injudicious nomination, declare our purpose to resist the nomination of General U. S. Grant by all honorable means. We are sincere in the con viction, that in New York at least his nomination would en sure defeat. We have a great battle to fight, and victory is within our reach, but we earnestly protest against entering the contest with a nomination which we regard as unwise and perilous. 12. W. H. Robertson, 22. John P. Douglas, 26. W. B. Woodin, Sidney Sylvester, 33. Lorin B. Sessions, 13. John B. Dutcher, 14. W. D. Stivers, 19. Henry R. James, 20. Webster Wagner, Wells S. Dickson, George West, 12. James W. Husted, 3. Albert Dagget, 21. Ferris Jacobs, Jr., 14. B. G. Wales, 18. Oliver Abel, i. Simeon Shawkins, 33. N. M. Allen. John Birdsall, 272 i- WE AND FWTJC CAREER OF The interest in the situation grew deeper ever hour, the lines were sharper drawn, the leader bent more stenuously to their wheels, upon which so many of them were destined to be broken. Th< long night of war and words faded into a morn ing that promised relief to none, and victory t< some leader yet in the shadow of obscurity. Th< early morning was signalized by an open revolt hitherto asserted by the anti-Grant men, an< denied by their opponents in the Pennsylvania delegation, headed by Mr. James McManes Their protest was similar to that of the New Yorl delegation, and was signed by the following: Delegate-at-large James McManes. 1. W. S. Douglass, 10. Harrison Bortz, 2. W. R. Leeds, 20. M. L. Brosius, 4. W. E. Rowan, 24. J. McKinley, 5. Hamilton Disston, 18. B. F. Wagenseller, 25. J. E. Long, J. G. Isenberg, 19. John Hays, 8. S. R. Deppin, 12. Alexander Farnham, 7. C. N. Taylor, 15. O. D. Kenney, n. W. A. W. Grier, C. C. Jadwin, S. Y. Thompson, 6. W. B. Waddell, 7. P. Wanger (sub). A. Gartside, Conkling, Cameron and Logan, and their ad herents, had now reached a deadlock with the op position. The situation was bitter in its intensity and prodigal in stubbornness. An attempt at relief was made by General Chester A. Arthur and ex-Secretary Gorham, of California, who, in JAMES A, GARFIELD. behalf of the Grant men, submitted the following proposition : "That Senator Hoar should be accepted as temporary chairman of the convention, and that no attempt should be made to enforce the unit rule, or have a test vote in the convention, until the committee on credentials had reported, when the unit-rule question should be decided by the convention in its own way." A long conference ensued among the anti- Grant men to debate this proposition, and late in the afternoon this peace proposition was accepted by all parties, and it was further agreed that the regular delegates from Illinois and Louisiana should be admitted to participate in the temporary organization, and then take their chances with the committee on credentials. Amid the excitement and turmoil of these pre liminary struggles, the spectator will have noticed one incident of significance the bringing forward as a candidate for the second honor on the Repub lican ticket a colored man Senator B. K. Bruce, of Mississippi. He was serenaded by his friends from the Southern States, enthusiastic speeches were made in his favor, and his "boom " assumed quite respectable proportions. The attempt, how ever, met with but little encouragement the time for a parti-colored ticket has apparently not yet arrived. 374 Lll-E AND PUBLIC CAREK OF CHAPTER XXVII. THE BATTLE BEGUN. WEDNESDAY, June 2cl, dawned in Chi cago, amid an animation, a stir, a mighty something in the air, only felt upon great occasions. That morning the conven tion met, and the hours before noon were devoted to a grand struggle for tickets a struggle that, in its brief intensity, quite overshadowed the greater issue that hung upon the burdened air. When Chicago bells chimed high noon, there were not a thousand people in Exposition Hall, and they resembled scattered pilgrims at a deserted shrine. Not for long, however. The crowds poured into the building like the whirl of autumn leaves before the wind, and scattered to their places. An hour later more than ten thousand were within the building, and massed in every inch of room. By this time the delegates were due, and the eager spectators craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the early birds. One who was there thus describes the assembling of the convention : "The Alabama delegation was first to file in as a body, and its two rows of President-makers JAMES A. GARFIE1D. nestled down in front of the stage, displaying every shade of complexion, from the pure white to the genuine African. Arkansas fell in greatly be hind Alabama, with the familiar face of ex-Senator Dorsey at the head. Meantime the places allotted to the various States were being rapidly filled up by the rank and file of the delegations. But the leaders were slow in getting to their respective commands. The dignitaries who had been as signed to the seats for distinguished guests began to swarm in, and Frye, of Maine, and Chandler, of New Hampshire, buzzed them as they gathered in little knots to discuss the situation. General Beaver, chairman of the Pennsylvania delegation, swung himself along the side aisle on his crutches and sat down at the post of honor for his State, with Quay close by his side, and Cessna flitted hither and thither as if uncertain that anything would be well done unless he gave it a helping hand. McManes dropped in late, a little paled by illness, but with all his Scotch-Irish doggedness written in his face. Jewell and Creswell, both of the Grant Cabinet, came in about the same time, ihe first hoping to look down on the defeat of his old chief from the gallery of distinguished guests, and the other marshaling his delegation to give him back his Old Commander. " Both look fresh and rosy as they did when they hugged their portfolios and enjoyed the hol low homage that is paid to honor at the capital 22 376 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF The tall, sturdy form of Long John Wentworth towered over all as he joined his delegation. He is stouter, redder, grayer and balder than eight years ago, when he rebelled against Grant. He had returned to his first love, and now wilts down his collars early in the morning working and cheer ing for the Silent Man. "Just when the building had pretty nearly filled up there was a simultaneous huzza throughout the hall and galleries, and it speedily broke out in a hearty applause. The tall and now silvered plume of Conkling was visible in the aisle, and he strode down to his place at the head of his delega tion with the majesty of an emperor. He recog nized the compliment by a modest bow, without lifting his eyes to the audience, and took his seat as serenely as if on a picnic and holiday. He has aged rapidly during the last year, and his once golden locks are thinned and whitened, while hard lines dispel the brightness of his finely-chiseled face. The Grant men seemed to be more com fortable when they found him by their side and evidently ready for the conflict The sable Grant men from the South, who believe Grant to be their political savior, look upon Conkling r as his prophet, and they worship him as a demigod. Logan s swarthy features, flowing mustache and Indian hair were next visible on the eastern aisle, but he stepped to the head of his delegation so quietly that he escaped a special welcome. He sat aj if JAMES A. GARFIELD. **y in sober reflection for a few moments, and then hastened over to Conkling to perfect their counsel on the eve of battle. The two senatorial leaders held close conference until the bustle about the chair gave notice that the opposing lines were about to begfin to feel each other and test their o position. " Cameron had just stepped upon the platform with the elasticity of a boy, and his youthful but strongly-marked face was recognized at once. There was no applause. They all knew that he never plays for the galleries, and that cheers are wasted upon him. The man who can bring him votes when he is in want of them, can make his cold gray eyes kindle and his usually stolid features toy with a smile, but no man in the land more justly estimates the crowd that ever cheers the coming guest than does Cameron. He quiet ly sat down for ten minutes, although the time for calling the convention to order had passed by an hour, and. he looked out upon the body so big with destiny for himself and his Grant associates. As he passed by he was asked: What of the battle? To which he answered: We have three hundred to start With, and we will stick until we win. " It was said with all the determination that his positive manner and expression could add to lan guage, and it summed up his whole strategy. While he waited the vacant places were fast ^g LIFE AND PUJU.IC CARKF.R OF filling up. Generals Sewell and Kilpatrick took their posts at the head of the New Jersey men, and just behind them the rosy faces of Garfield and Foster, and the tall, spare form of Dennison were holding a hasty last council of the Sherman wing of the opposition. The youthful, olive- shaded features of Bruce, of Mississippi, were visible in the centre of his delegation, and the dream of the Vice-Presidency made him restless and anxious. "At five minutes after one Cameron quickly rose from his chair, advanced to the front, and brought his gavel down gently upon the speaker s desk. At once the confused hum of voices began to still and the nearly ten thousand people present set tled into perfect order. Cameron stood for half a minute after silence had been obtained, appar ently free from all embarrassment, and finally said, in a clear voice: " The convention will come to order, and will be opened with prayer. After the last words had fallen from the lips of the clergyman and a moment more had been, spent in silence, Senator Cameron rose and said : "GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION: Before the convention enters upon the important duties that have called it together, I ask your attention for a single moment. During the canvass just ended there has been manifested in many sections of the country considerable bitterness, which, I trust, JAMES A. GARFTELD. 379 will entirely disappear before entering upon the grave duties devolving upon us. Let there be but one motive governing our action and let that be a determination to place in nomination the strongest possible candidates men strong in themselves, strong in the confidence and affec tions of the people, and men who will command the respect of the civilized world. Our country, of which we are justly proud, has grown so rapidly in population, wealth and influence during the existence of the Republican party that we have attained a position as one of the leading powers of the world. We cannot longer be satisfied with our isolation. Recognizing the changed condition, we must place in position men whose familiarity with other nations will enable them to direct our affairs so that we will take the lead in commerce as we have in agriculture and manufactures. Do not for a moment doubt the strength of our institutions. They have been tried in blood and came from the contest better, stronger and purer than the most ardent patriot dared to hope. No combination of circumstances, no coterie of individuals, no personal ambition can ever prevail against the intelligence and inborn love of liberty which are implanted in the hearts of Americans. When the nominations are made and the convention has completed its work, let there be but one sentiment animating all earnest, sincere and unselfish Republicans, and let that be 380 LIFE AND PUBLIC C./AY^A 1 OF that each shall vie with the other in carrying our grand old party through the coming contest to victory." Senator Cameron then presented the name of Senator George F. Hoar as temporary chairman. Applause greeted the announcement, which was a distinct defeat of the senator who announced it. No objection was raised, and Senator Hoar came upon the platform, escorted by ex-Governor Davis, of Texas, Congressman Frye, of Maine, and Reve nue Commissioner Raum, of Illinois. The chairman immediately delivered the cus tomary speech, in which he grandly arraigned the Democratic party for its sins of omission and com mission. It confronted the Republican party to day, unchanged in purpose, in temper, or in char- acter, and united in nothing else, proposing no other measure of policy than war upon the safe guards which the nation had thrown around the purity of elections. Then he continued : "The Democratic party sees nothing of evil, except that a free man shall cast a free vote under the protection of the nation. In Louisiana and Mississippi the Democratic party is the accomplice of the White League and the Ku-Klux. In South Carolina it took the honest ballots from the box and stuffed tissue ballots in .their places. In New York it issued fraudulent naturalization papers, sixty thousand in number. In Maine its ambitious larceny tried to pilfer a whole State, and in Dela- JAMKS A. CAR FIE I $ f . . . ware it stood accomplice by the whipping-post. The Republican party has no such miserable his tory. It speaks of rebellion subdued, slaves freed, of great public works constructed, of debt diminished, of sound currency restored, of a flag floating long and everywhere honored and re spected. The key-note of every Republican plat form, the principle of every Republican union, is found in respect for the dignity of the individual man. Until that becomes the pervading principle of the Republic, from Canada to the Gulf, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the Republican mission is not ended ; the Republican party lives by faith that every man within the borders of the Repub lic may dwell secure in a happy home, may cast his equal vote and have it counted, and may send his children at the puplic charge to a free school. Until these things come to pass, the mission of the Republican party is not ended, nor its conflict with its ancient adversary ended." * Applause followed. When it had ceased, Messrs. J. H. Roberts, of Illinois, and Christopher Magee, of Pittsburg, were elected secretaries. Eugene Hale then got up from the midst of the Maine delegation and moved for a call of the States and the naming of the several members of the committees on permanent organization, reso lutions, rules and credentials. This completed, Congressman Frye, of Maine, from the platform, desired that Utah should be represented upon the 382 I WK --IM> /Y.7> /./r CAREER OF credentials committee, and so moved, as it had been left off. Upon this Senator Conkling took the floor, and in the midst of applause indicated with a flourish that if the fight had opened he was ready for it. He objected to Utah, as he understood it was a part of the agreement for the preliminary organi zation that it should not be called. He made a point of order against it, and when that was over ruled he asked if it would be in order to put in Louisiana. Mr. Frye here interrupted, explaining that he had the authority of the secretary of the National Committee for saying that Utah had been left off by mistake ; and he did not suppose a Republican convention would refuse to correct a mistake. Utah thereupon secured its representation. The roll of States was called for notices of contests, of which there were a good many, and an adjournment until Thursday morning at eleven was carried on motion of Senator Conkling. The adjournment was necessary in order to give the various committees an opportunity to get to work and complete their reports. The com mittees now historical were composed as follows : States. Permanent Organization. Rules and Business. Alabama Benjamin T. Turner J. II. Thomasson. Arkansas ....O. P. Snyder J. H. Johnson. California John Mansfield E. A. Davis. Colorado John A Ellet M. N. Negroeve. JAMES A. GARFIELD. States. Permanent Organization. Rules and Business. Connecticut ................. John M. Douglas ............ Daniel Chadwick. Delaware .................... Christian Febiger .............. Benjamin Burton. Florida ...................... B. J. Shipman ................. James Dean. Georgia ...................... Madison Davis ............... R. D. Lock. Illinois ....................... Richard Whiting ............. Andrew W. Metcalf. Indiana ...................... J. J. Todd ..................... Bryo W. Langdon. Iowa .......... ............. John W. Sharp ............... S. M. Clark. Kansas ...................... S. S. Benedict ................. George H. Case. Kentucky ................... Morris C. Hutchins. ......... W. G. Hunton. Louisiana ................... Contest ......................... Contest. Maine ...... . ................ L. G. Dawnes ................. Llewellyn Powers. Maryland ................... Charles T. Westcott ......... Jacob J. Weaver, Jr. Massachusetts .............. William B. Hopkins ......... Robert M. Morse, Jr. Michigan .................... E. C. Watkins ................. J. H. Chandler. Minnesota ................... J. V. Daniels .................. E. F. Drake. Mississippi .................. James Hill ..................... H. C. Carter. Missouri ...................... Luther C. Slavens ............ Thomas B Rodgers. Nebraska .................... V. L. Bierbower .............. J. L. Mitchell. Nevada ...................... E. Strother ..................... W. W. Bishop. New Hampshire ........... S. W. Hale .................... James G. Sturgis. New Jersey ................. James Gopsill .................. C. H. Sinnickson. New York .................. Henry R. Pierson ............ George H. Sharpe. North Carolina ............ Rufus Barringer ............. O. H. Blocker. Ohio .......................... Alphonso Hart ................ James A. Garfield. Oregon ...................... O. P. Tompkins .............. D. C. Ireland. Pennsylvania ............... Howard J. Reeder ........... W T m. H. Armstrong. Rhode Island .............. Almon R. Goodwin ......... Thomas W. Chase. South Carolina ............ W. J. Whipper .............. Charles M. Wilder. Tennessee .................. W. E. Gate .................... J. M. Cordell. Texas ................... .....W. H. Hokes ................. William Chambers. Vermont ..................... Henry C. Belden ............ John B. Mead. Virginia ..................... H. Clay Harris ............... W. R. Watkins. West Virginia .............. J. H. Riley .................... A. C. Moore. Wisconsin ........... , ...... Wm. E. Carter ............... A. J. Turner. Arizona ...................... None ............................ J. S. Vosburg. Dakota ....................... None ............................ C. T. McCoy; District of Columbia ...... None ............................ John F. Cook. Idaho ........................ George L. Shoup ............. George L. Shoup. Montana ..................... Robert E. Fisk ............... Henry M. Blake. New Mexico ........ ^ ...... William Breeden ............. Wm. L. Ryneson. Utah... ...V. L. C. Silvos ....... None. 334 J.IFE AND PUBLIC C.lKl .ER OF States. Permanent Organization. Rules and Business. Washington Thomas L. Minor Thomas H. Brents. Wyoming W. A. Carter None. States. Credentials. Resolutions. Alabama Isaac Ileyman Wm. Youngblood. Arkansas Powell Clayton H. S. Holland. California Creed Raymond D. S. Payne. Colorado George T. Clark Amos Steck. Connecticut Samuel C. Fessendon H. C. Robinson. Delaware James R. Lofland Levi G. Clark. Florida Joseph E. Lee F. C. Humphries. Georgia Edward Belcher A. E. Buck. Illinois Green B. Raum E. A. Storrs. Indiana B. K. Higginbottom George W. Fridley. Iowa J. S. Clarkson George G. Perkins. Kansas B. F. Simpson R. R. W. Perkins. Kentucky Richard B. Stoll A. T. Wood. Louisiana Contest Contest. Maine A. A. Stroul Lewis Barker. Maryland William J. Hooper J. Morrison Harris. Massachusetts Charles R. Codman James M. Barker. Michigan .... Homer D. Conger George A. Farr. Minnesota E. M. Sabin D. Sinclair. Mississippi F. M. Libbey Charles W. Clark. Missouri Harrison E. Haven R. T. Van Home. Nebraska N. W. Passenger J. W. Dawes. Nevada M. D. Foley T. D. Edwards. New Hampshire Wm. E. Chandler Charles Holman. New Jersey Chellian Robbins William W. Phelps. New York \ Benjamin F. Tracey Edwards Pierrepont. North Carolina George W. Price, Jr James A. Harris. Ohio Warren M. Bateman Rodney M. Stimson. Oregon....! John H. Mitchell H. W. Scott. Pennsylvania John Cessna W. B. Rogers. Rhode Island John P. Sanborn Charles H. Ilandley. South Carolina William N. Taft D. D. McCall. Tennessee J. M. Thornburg Horace H. Harrison. Texas Webster Flannagan J. G. Tracy. Vermont John W. Stewart George G. Benedict. Virginia C. C. Tompkins James D. Brady. West Virginia J. M. Hagan C. D. Hubbard. JAMES A. GARF2ELD. og^ States. Credentials. Resolutions. Wisconsin Ed. Sanderson Joseph V. Quarles. Arizona R. C. McCormick ...J. S. Vosburg. Dakota..... Porter Warner C. T. McCoy. District of Columbia Sayles J. Bowen John F. Cook. Idaho George L. Shoup Jones W. Brown. Montana Henry M. Blake Robert E. Fisk. New Mexico William Breeden William L. Ryneson, Utah None Presley Denney. Washington T. L. Minor Thomas H. Brents. Wyoming W. A. Carter W. A. Carter. LIFE AXD 1 L UUC CAREER OF CHAPTER XXVIII. THE SECOND DAY S FIGHTING. EXPOSITION HALL, as the convention began assembling on Thursday morning, presented much the same appearance that it did the day before. The attendance was, how ever, much larger, and the anti-third-term people had made arrangements during the previous evening to secure a greater representation in the spectators seats, and a better location for their sympathizers. The delegates, as the hour of eleven approached, straggled slowly in. Many of them came fatigued from committee work, and other matters not offi cial but incidental to a gathering of the kind. By the hour for assembling, every seat was occupied in the galleries, and the floor was unusually ani mated. There was a great deal of running round among the delegates and their friends, but the only outburst before the call to order was on the first day, when Conkling came down the aisle at a a quarter to twelve. He was euthusiastically cheered, and moved slowly to his seat, his tall figure rising above those who stood aside to let him pass. He was the lion of the hour and the JAMES A. GARFIELD. 387 chief curiosity of the multitude was always to see the silver-bearded senator from New York. It was within a few minutes of high noon, when Senator Hoar brought down his gavel upon his bouquet-embellished desk. A momentary confu sion was caused in the removal of outsiders, who crowded into every possible place. All knew that the Committee on Credentials, which had in band the important preliminary work of the con vention, would not be ready to report for several hours. Consequently, as soon as the prayer was concluded, Senator Conkling moved that a recess be taken until six o clock. This motion was re garded as an indication that he was not altogether prepared for any test vote, but the fact was it was impossible to reach a test vote until it came to the report of the Committee on Credentials. Eugene Hale, however, backed by the cheers of the gallery, antagonized the motion for a recess, and supported his wish with the precedent that four years before the convention had effected the permanent organization while waiting the report on contested seats. Senator Conkling dropped into the sarcastic in his reply, congratulated the convention that it had heard a speech from the gentleman from Maine, and managed to sneer at New England as a sec tion chiefly peopled by orators. Mr. Hale returned to the charge, and made great point, that in Congress business did not wait 3 88 LIFE AND FL BLIC CAREER OF for the settlement of contests. For this Mr. Hale was rewarded by a wild burst of applause. The crowds were ready and delighted to cheer, and when Hale went on to say that if he appeared in better humor that morning than the gentleman from New York, the great audience understood the reason why. The applause passed beyond all bounds. It became a gale of hurrahs. Mr. Conkling did not attempt a reply to this and a vote being secured on his motion for a re cess, it was lost. For several minutes after this it was not quite certain what would be the next step. Then Joy, of Michigan, sent up a resolution, to the effect that the contestants from Illinois should be allowed to be heard before the convention by such counsel as they should select. This raised quite a storm, and a motion to lay it on the table was made. This was submitted to a viva voce vote, and declared lost. A roll-call was ordered to sat isfy the demands of some rash delegates, but this was not acceptable to either side. Joy s motion was then withdrawn at the request of Eugene Hale. Later, General Sewell, of New Jersey, intro duced a motion that the Committee on Permanent Organization be instructed to bring in its report. This was adopted. The report continued Senator Hoar as permanent president, and provided a vice-president and secretary from each State. JAMES A. GAR FIELD. After the report was read and corrected, Senator Hoar said: "GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION: You have manifested in the choice you have made for per manent presiding officer a disposition to a wise economy in the matter of opening speeches. [Laughter.] One good reason occurs to me for the selection which you have made, and that is, that having heard one spQech from me, you have, for reasons entirely satisfactory to each delegate, no inclination to hear another opening soeech." [Laughter and applause.] The men from Maine were still anxious to go on with business, and Frye put a motion that the Committee on Rules be requested to report. This brought General Sharpe to his feet the New York member of the committee who said he had been instructed to prepare a minority re port, and as the committee was in session until within a few minutes of the assembling of the convention, he had no time to clo so. He also announced it was understood that a report would not be made until the Committee on Credentials had presented their report. The chairman of the Committee on Rules was then called upon by Mr. Frye. The chairman was General Garfield. As he mounted a chair to have a better opportunity, he was greeted with the most enthusiastic applause yet heard in the convention. It was a magnificent, 390 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER <>/ spontaneous tribute to his worth and universally recognized public services. General Garfield sai the statement of the gentleman from New Yor] was true. This satisfied everybody. Frye with drew his motion to propose a recess until five P. M Senator Conkling was immediately on his fee to congratulate his friends from Maine that s< & much had been accomplished. It was a matter t< stir the heart of every patriot to find the conven tion, in its organized state, rising in its might, 01 being able to accomplish the momentous, the criti cal, the portentous business that had been accom plished since his (Conkling s) motion to adjoun had been made. Mr. Frye returned the challenge and drew wild cheering from the galleries by ex pressing his thanks to the distinguished gentlemar from New York, who, he hoped, would be as will ing and as ready to congratulate Maine at the conclusion of the convention. There was no reply to make to this clever sail} of the man from Maine, and the motion for a re cess was adopted without dissent. The conven tion stood adjourned until five P. M. It was half-past that hour, however, before the convention came to order again. The galleries were packed as before with interested spectators As soon as the convention was ready for business Mr. Henderson, of Iowa, announced that the Com mittee on Credentials would not be ready to re port at that session, and moved that the Committee JAMES A. GARFIELD. 391 on Rules be requested to report, so that the con vention could proceed to business. This again precipitated a clash between the opposing fac tions. . Senator Logan said the committee had agreed to defer their report on rules and order of business until after the action on contested seats. (This, as it will be remejnbered by the reader, was for the purpose of delaying everything decisive until such time as all the delegates were in the hall, the Grant men hoping to gain by the action of the credentials committee). If the convention desired victory for its work, it ought not to raise too hastily the axe to the heads of their brethren. The rules ought not to be adopted before they knew who were entitled to seats as representa tives in the body, especially as one of the rules to be reported would limit the speakers to .five min utes each. Let the compact be kept that was agreed to by members of the committee, and let the consideration of the rules be deferred until the report of the Committee on Credentials was made. He urged the withdrawal of the motion. [Cries of "No."] Some gentlemen, he said, cried "no." Was it because they were determined not to stand by the agreement of the committee ? Did they desire to ride rough-shod over members ? The Associated Press report of this debate, which led to the first test vote between the Grant and anti-Grant men, continues it from this point, as follows: 392 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF " Mr. Henderson replied that he was glad to learn the sentiments of the distinguished gentle man from Illinois. They would gratify the whole country. From no gentleman was he more glad to hear than from him that there must be no rough riding over, this convention. [Tumultuous ap plause.] He was glad to see the contending columns here coming together in the field of fair play. [Applause.] The gentleman asked why this haste ? He, on the contrary, asked, why this delay ? [Applause.] The chairman of the Com mittee on Rules indicated here this morning that there was no compact made in said commit tee, such as Mr. Logan had asserted. On the contrary, he said he was ready to report, but the convention, by general concurrence, took a recess to give a minority of the committee the time he asked to prepare a minority report. But now the convention was organized and ready for work, and he must insist on his motion to proceed to busi ness, in conclusion he stated, on authority of a Kentucky member of the committee, who signed the minority report, that it was in fact ready for being reported this morning. "Mr. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, inquired of the chairman of the Committee on Rules whether it was true that they would recommend the adoption of the five-minute rule in the debate on contested seats. The Kentucky member of the committee arose, and announced as a misrepresentation Mr. Hen- JAMES A. GARFIELD. derson s statement that the minority report was ready this morning. "Another cornmitteeman, rising, shouted excit edly that Mr. Henderson s statement was accurate and true. [Applause and excitement.] "Mr. Boutwell, resuming, said that he would vote against the pending motion if the five-minute rule was to be applied to arguments on the ques tion of contested seats. "Mr. Harrison said, though he differed with Mr. Logan on most of the questions, here he was with him in opposition to the five-minute rule in the discussion of the title of representatives to their seats [applause], but he was not in favor of in definite and unreasonable and endless debate to tire everybody out. Even in that issue there ought to be some agreement on this point which would be fair and just to all parties. "Mr. Henderson, of Iowa, said the arguments presented against the five-minute rule would be all right and proper and fair for consideration after the report was made. It would then be subject to discussion and amendment. He and his asso ciates had no desire to take unfair advantage of any one, but he wanted the business to proceed, and the way to do these things was to receive the report and act upon it. "Mr. Clarke, of Iowa, said at the proper time he would himself move to except the credentials discussion from the five-minute limitation, and OQ* LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF pledging the entire Iowa delegation to support it. [Applause.] "Mr. Sharpe, of New York, said his minority report was now ready, and it was signed by rep resentatives of nine States, whose vote was neces sary to the success of the Republican party if in the comincr contest it was to succeed. The com- > mittee had agreed to postpone the enforcement of the five-minute rule until the composition of the convention was decided. If that agreement was not unanimous, it had been at all events reached without a dissenting voice. He now moved to amend the motion by ordering the Committee on Credentials to make its report. "Mr. Garfield, of Ohio, who was received with a storm of applause, said that there was no ground for any charge of bad faith by anybody in the Committee on Rules. He did not understand that any such charge was made. The fact was that the committee agreed that they would not, of their own motion, present their report until after the Committee on Contested Seats had reported ; but whenever the convention chose to order the report from his committee, the latter had no other duty but to obey. He said, also, that the pro posed rules were so drawn as to leave to the con vention the power to extend any speaker s time beyond five minutes whenever it should so choose, even though the general limitation of each of the speakers should be fixed at five minutes. JAMES A. GARFIELD. "Mr. Conkling said that some hours ago the convention had adjourned until five o clock, for the purpose of giving the Committee on Credentials time to report. The meaning of the recess was, that when the convention came together again the Committee on Credentials would make its report. He had been told by members of that committee that they were ready to report not on one or two or three cases, but nearly every case referred to it. Why should not that committee make such report as it was ready to make, and let the con vention pass upon it? He submitted that the good fctith and good understanding of all con cerned would be promoted and observed by pro ceeding now to consider that report of the Com mittee on Contested Seats. "Mr. Henderson, of Iowa, replied that a good reason why the amendment should not" prevail was the fact, that while the Committee on Rules had finished its work and was ready to report, the Committee on Credentials had not completed their work, and would probably not do so before to morrow morning, and until then could not be here themselves to explain and sustain their own action. "The chair stated that the question was first upon Mr, Sharpe s motion to amend so as to in struct the Committee on Contested Seats to report. "Mr. Sharpe asked that the question be taken by yeas and nays, and the chair, exercising his 3g6 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF own discretion in the absence of any adopted rules, so ordered." The roll was then called and Alabama led off with 19 yeas. When this vote was announced a delegate from that State rose and said he wished to vote in the negative. Senator Hoar: "If the gentleman wishes to vote no his vote will be received and recorded." At this announcement, which was an out-spoken, manly declaration against the obnoxious unit rule and one of the best principles of political faith that the Republican party ever affirmed the absolute inviolability of every man s share in the*govern- ment of the governed the convention sent up a great shout led by the galleries. This was ap plause worth listening to, the echo of which went through every State with the rapidity of great and good news. Alabama was therefore recorded "Yeas 18, Noes i," and the vote was continued thus: Arkansas Yeas, 1 2 ; California Noes, i 2 ; Col orado Yeas, 6; Connecticut Noes 12; Dela ware Noes, 6; Florida Yeas, 6; Georgia Yeas, 6 ; Noes, 16; Illinois Yeas, 42 ; Indiana Yeas, 6 ; Noes, 23 ; Iowa Noes, 22 ; Kansas Noes, 10. Kentucky announced 24 yeas. A Kentucky delegate arose and said there were delegates from that State who desired to vote no. There were four stalwarts who desired their votes recorded "no." [Applause and hisses.] JAMES A. GARFIELD. Because of the delegates excited and boisterous manner the chair ruled that all debate on any thing else than correction of the vote be out of order. The chairman of the Kentucky delegation here rose and said he would then give the names of the four, but just then Senator Conkling went up to him and said a word, which led him to forego his purpose and take his seat. Then the four Kentucky dissenters stood upon their chairs in the presence of the convention amid great applause. The vote of Kentucky was then recorded as 20 ayes and 4 noes. Maine, 1 4 noes ; Maryland 7 ayes, 8 noes ; Massachusetts, 7 ayes, 1 7 noes ; Michigan, i aye, 20 noes ; Minnesota, 3 ayes, 6 noes ; Mississippi, 8 ayes, 7 noes ; Missouri, 29 ayes, i no ; Nebraska, 6 noes ; Nevada, 6 noes ; New Hampshire, 10 noes; New Jersey, 18 noes; New York Mr. Conkling, by instructions of his delegation, cast 47 ayes, 23 noes ; North Carolina, 5 ayes, 15 noes; Ohio, 3 ayes, 41 noes; Oregon ? 6 noes; Pennsylvania, 29 ayes, 23 noes, Rhode Island, 8 noes; South Carolina, 7 ayes, 5 noes,; Tennessee, 1 5 ayes, 7 noes ; Texas, 9 ayes, 7 noes ; Vermont, 10 ayes; Virginia, n ayes, 8 noes; West Virginia, 10 noes; Wisconsin, 2 ayes, 18 noes; Arizona, 2 noes; Dakota, i aye, i no ; Dis trict of Columbia, 2 ayes ; Idaho, 2 noes ; Mon tana, 2 noes ; New Mexico, 2 noes ; Utah, 2 noes ; Washington, 2 noes ; Wyoming, 2 noes. Total Ayes, 316; noes, 407.. 398 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF Pennsylvania asked to cast two additional votes aye of delegates who had just arrived. This gave Pennsylvania 31 ayes to 23 noes. Michigan cor rected its votes to i aye, and 2 1 noes. Thus corrected, the chair announced the result yeas, 316; nays, 406. Mr. Sharpe s amend ment was rejected. The result, an unquestioned and overwhelming defeat for the Grant forces, was received with tumultuous applause in the galleries and not a little pleasure among the 406 victors on the floor. For it showed just exactly how much Grant could get on any one ballot and demonstrated beyond peradventure that if the opponents of the third- term stood together they could at any time defeat their enemies. The question now recurring upon the original motion, Mr. Brandagee, of Connecticut, got up and said he did so in the interest of order, harmony and peace. He had voted against the amendment just rejected, but he thought there was a fair understanding in the Committee on Rules, that their report should not be made until after that of the Committee on Credentials. He moved to lay on the table the pending motion in structing the latter committee to report, with a view to adjourning. This was agree d to, and on motion of Mr. Metcalf, of Illinois, the convention adjourned until fehe next day June 4th at ten o clock, A. M. JAMES A. CAKFIELD. 399 CHAPTER XXIX. WAR TO THE KNIFE, AND KNIFE TO THE HILT. {T was readily seen by this time that the fight was to be a long-continued one, inaugurated and conducted on the basis of war to the knife, and knife to the hilt. The country was aroused to a deep and untiring attention to every detail of the Chicago proceedings, and the newspapers were devoured by their thousands of readers with an avidity that spoke well for the political fortunes of our country. For no people can come to great disaster who show an intelligent, jealous interest in the proceedings of those who govern them. To return to the convention. The Committee on Credentials had a hard time of it. At midnight on Thursday it had been in continuous session for six hours. It had settled the Illinois district contestants at the expense of eighteen votes for Grant (this was a question of whether delegates elected by a gag-law convention or by the districts should be seated), had agreed to the admission of a divided delegation from Louisiana, and had reached the Pennsylvania cases (the question here was somewhat similar to that of Illinois a packed convention instructing delegates the opposite way 402 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF the vote of that State, defended his position. H had suffered contumely and violence for his Re publican principles, and if he was now to be denie the free expression of his opinion in a Republica: convention, he was willing to withdraw from tha convention. He had imbibed his Republican prin ciples from the great New York statesman, Willian H. Seward. He had been a newspaper edito since the John Brown raid at Harper s Ferry, an< had always consistently supported the nations Republican nominee. But he felt that there wa a principle in this question. He would never g to any convention and agree beforehand that what ever might be done by it should have his indorse ment. He always intended to guard his ow sovereignty. [Applause.] He never intende that any body of men should take that sovereignt from him. As he had not been afraid to stand u for Republican principles in West Virginia, h was not afraid to go home and face his cor stituents. Mr. Hale, of West Virginia, who voted aye, de fended the right of his colleague to vote as he sa^ fit, [applause], to utter his .own sentiments as a individual delegate. Mr. Brandagee, of Connecticut, said the que< tion was not one of free speech. No man her will seek to hinder any delegate s free speech, was only a question as to what any man would d for the support of Republican principles. He cor JAMES A. GARFIELD. 403 nued at considerable length until greeted with isses. Mr. McCormick, of West Virginia, avowed him- elf one of the three dissenters, not because he id not expect to support the nominee of this con- ention, for he did intend to do that, no matter ho he should be. He was as good a Republican s the gentleman from New York, and whereas the itter made only one speech for the nominee of last National Republican Convention, he Mr. McCormick) made one hundred. [Great pplause and cheers.] He opposed the resolution nly because it declares that men are not fit to sit i the convention if they differ from other mem- ers of it. Mr. Garfield, of Ohio, who was received with a lost flattering ovation, expressed his fear that the onvention was about to commit a grave error, le would state the case. Every delegate save iree had voted for a resolution, and the three ho had voted against it had risen in their places nd stated they expected and intended to support nominee of the convention. But it was not, in leir judgment, a wise thing at this time to pass resolution which all the rest of the delegates ad voted for. Were they to be disfranchised ecause they thought so ? [Cries of " No ! No!"] That was the question. Was every delegate to have his Republicanism inquired into before he was allowed to vote ? Delegates were responsi- LIFE AND rCBLIC CAREER OF ble for their votes, not to the convention, but their constituents. [Cheers.] He himself we never, in any convention, vote against his ju ment. He regretted that the gentlemen fr West Virginia had thought it best to break harmony of the convention by their dissent. did not know those gentlemen, nor their affi tions, nor their relations to the candidates. If convention expelled these men, then the conv tion would have to purge itself at the end of ev vote and inquire how many delegates who ] voted "no" should go out. [Cheers.] He trus that the gentleman from New York would w draw his resolution and let the convention proc< with its business. [Loud cheering.] When this had subsided, Mr. Pixley, of Cali: nia, moved to lay the resolution on the tai [Applause.] Mr. Conkling demanded the call of the r [Hisses long and furious.] A call of the roll was ordered. Mr. Conkl inquired of the chair whether the three gentlen from West Virginia did say that they would v for the nominee of the convention. The cl said it was not his province to answer the qu tion. Mr. Conkling said he would not press resolution if his question was answered in the firmative, and finally he withdrew the resoluti as he said there seemed to be some doubt. [J- plause and hisses.] JAMES A. GARFIELD. * Qr . General Sewell, of New Jersey, moved that the Committee on Rules be ordered to report, with the understanding that no action should be taken upon the report until after the report of the Com mittee on Credentials had been presented. During the reading of this report, Senator Bruce, of Mississippi, temporarily occupied the chair, and was received with applause on taking it. The rules were then read by the secretary ; the one forbidding the employment of any unit rule was received with great applause. This was Rule 8, and provided as follows : " In the record of a vote by States, the vote of each State, Territory and District of Columbia shall be announced by the chairman, and in announcing the vote of any State, Territory and District of Columbia, the chairman shall announce the number of votes cast for any candidate, or for or against any proposition, but if exception is taken by any delegate to the correct ness of such announcement by the chairman of a delegation, the president of the convention shall direct the roll of such delegation to be called and the result shall be recorded in accordance with the vote individually given." The five-minute rule was enforced by Rule 9. Mr. Sharpe, of New York, presented a minority report recommending the adoption for Rule 8 of Rule 6 of the convention of 1876, as follows: " In the record of votes by States the vote of each State, Territory and the District of Columbia 404 LIl-K AXD PUBLIC CAREER OF ble for their votes, not to the convention, but 1 their constituents. [Cheers.] He himself woul never, in any convention, vote against his judj ment. He regretted that the gentlemen froi West Virginia had thought it best to break th harmony of the convention by their dissent. H did not know those gentlemen, nor their affili; tions, nor their relations to the candidates. If th: convention expelled these men, then the conver tion would have to purge itself at the end of ever vote and inquire how many delegates who ha voted "no" should go out. [Cheers.] He truste that the gentleman from New York would witl draw his resolution and let the convention procee with its business. [Loud cheering.] When this had subsided, Mr. Pixley, of Califoi nia, moved to lay the resolution on the tabl< [Applause.] Mr. Conkling demanded the call of the rol [Hisses long and furious.] A call of the roll was ordered. Mr. Conklin inquired of the chair whether the three gentleme from West Virginia did say that they would vot for the nominee of the convention. The chai said it was not his province to answer the ques tion. Mr. Conkling said he would not press hi resolution if his question was answered in the al firmative, and finally he withdrew the resolutior as he said there seemed to be some doubt. [Ap plause and hisses.] JAMES A. GARFIELD. General Sewell, of New Jersey, moved that the Committee on Rules be ordered to report, with the understanding that no action should be taken upon the report until after the report of the Com mittee on Credentials had been presented. During the reading of this report, Senator Bruce, of Mississippi, temporarily occupied the chair, and was received with applause on taking it. The rules were then read by the secretary ; the one forbidding the employment of any unit rule was received with great applause. This was Rule 8, and provided as follows : " In the record of a vote by States, the vote of each State, Territory and District of Columbia shall be announced by the chairman, and in announcing the vote of any State, Territory and District of Columbia, the chairman shall announce the number of votes cast for any candidate, or for or against any proposition, but if exception is taken by any delegate to the correct ness of such announcement by the chairman of a delegation, the president of the convention shall direct the roll of such delegation to be called and the result shall be recorded in accordance with the vote individually given/ The five-minute rule was enforced by Rule 9. Mr. Sharpe, of New York, presented a minority report recommending the adoption for Rule 8 of Rule 6 of the convention of 1876, as follows: " In the record of votes by States the vote of each State, Territory and the District of Columbia 406 /.///; AXJ) 2 T/; L1C CAREER OF shall be announced by the chairman, and in case the vote of any State, Territory or the District of Columbia shall be divided, the chairman shall an nounce the number of votes cast for any candidate, or for or against any proposition." After this was buried in the adoption of the majority report, the convention did nothing in par ticular while waiting the long-delayed report of the Committee on Credentials. At last it was presented by Mr. Conger, of Michigan. In Louisiana the committee recommended the admission of the Warmouth delegation, excluding the Beattie delegation, because the Beattie bolt was without adequate cause. In Alabama they recommended the admission of Mr. Rapier, believing that the State Convention had no right to override or ignore his selection by his district because of his failure to approve the condition that he should obey the instructions that the State delegation should vote as a unit for Grant. In the case of Smith and Warner, in Ala bama, the facts were substantially the same as in the case of Rapier. They were duly chosen by their respective districts, and the State Convention undertook to revoke their appointment because they failed to accept the unit rule. The committee recommended their admission. In Illinois the committee recommended the admission of the contestants to the seats of the sitting members from the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, JAMES A. GARFIELD. 407 Tenth, Thirteenth and Seventeenth Congressional Districts. The committee also reported against the contestant in the Second Illinois District, and did not sustain the objections of the delegates-at- large in the same State. They further reported in favor of the sitting members from the Ninth and Nineteenth Districts of Pennsylvania and Third District of West Virginia. They also re ported in favor of the contestants from the Second and Third Districts of Kansas, and that the ten delegates should be allowed to retain their seats, but only six votes be cast. They recommended that the delegates from Utah should keep their seats. The committee suggested that the final decision of many of these contests depended upon the adoption by the convention of the principle of Congressional District representation. This the committee believed to be sound. The report cited J. D. Cameron s support of the right of individual district representations at the convention of 1876, under precisely similar circumstances and a similar call for a National Convention. The report did not believe that the right of Congressional District representation should be invaded for the first time by the action of a National Convention. If the State Convention could, by a bare majority, over ride the will of the people, fairly expressed in the selection of district delegates, it might as well ap point at once all the delegates. Nominations made through such misrepresentations were not 24 4oS LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF likely to be ratified by the people. It was the duty of the convention to disapprove emphatically all attempts to override the high moral customs of the party. The report was received with applause, and Mr. Clayton, of Arkansas, presented the report of the minority, which differed upon the vital question of district representation. The recommendation of the majority, if adopted, would, the minority con sidered, \vork as an ex post facto rule, reversing the long-established usage of the party in many States. They urged that there was a vacancy in the district claimed by Rapier, and that the sitting members were entitled to the seats which the majority report awarded to Smith and Warner. The minority said that as Rapier refused to accept the pledge exacted by the State Convention, he was there without credentials ; also, that he was not elected by his district, but only nominated, and that, except through the action of the State con vention ratifying his nomination, he had no au thority whatever. It did not appear that there had been any district conventions in Alabama at which the Alabama contestants had been chosen. Their authority there could rest only on action in the State Convention. If the principle of district representation was a sound one, then more than half of the delegates sitting in the convention were there without right, and if the rule was rigidly applied the body would find itself without JAMES A. GARFIELD. a quorum. In the ~ase of Illinois, the minority report made an elaborate statement of facts, and denied a charge made against the State Conven tion that it entered into a gigantic conspiracy to defraud 1 the electors. The State Convention de clared its preference for Grant, and instructed the delegates to vote as a unit for him. Was the con vention to say that the majority of the convention of the State of Illinois possessed no such power ? Would the convention undertake to say, and would the country justify it in saying, that the ma jority of the people in so great a State should not be permitted to express their preferences on ques tions of this character, and that if they had clear and distinct preferences they should be utterly helpless in the selection of the methods by which that preference was to be made effectual ? It was absurd upon the face of it, to say that Illinois, or any other State, had a right to instruct its dele gates to vote for a particular candidate, and yet had not the power to make such instructions ef fectual and binding. The report took the ground that local squabbles, as in the case of Cook Coun ty, should be left to the State, and not transferred to the National Convention. The report ended with a recommendation that the sitting delegates should be allowed to keep their seats. Mr. Conger handed in the corrected list of delegates as reported by his committee, and moved the convention proceed to consider the LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF Louisiana cases. This was the signal for a run ning fight in debate, and the delegates soon got at it. Mr. Cessna, of Pennsylvania, moved to adopt all the report on which the committee haci agreed, and then proceed to the separate consideration of the disputed issues involving the contests in Ala bama, Illinois, West Virginia and Utah. Mr. Conklino- called for the consideration of the o questions which fell within the list of undisputed cases. Mr. Confer said this list embraced the cases of o Louisiana, the Second District of Illinois, the Illi nois delegates-at-large, the Second and Fourth Districts of Kansas, and the Ninth and Nineteenth Districts of Pennsylvania. Mr. Logan inquired how it happened that there was any report as to the four delegates-at-large from the State of Illinois. It was the first time that he had heard of the right to their seats being questioned. Mr. Conger replied that petitions against the right of the four delegates-at-large had been pre sented to the convention and referred to the com mittee, and hence it was necessary for the com mittee to notice the subject in its report. Mr. Logan indignantly protested against his right to a seat being called into question, and intimated that he perfectly well understood the object of it. He submitted that he \vas entitled to fair play, and he JAMES A. GARFIELD. . j j complained of the treatment to which he and the man who had led the armies of the nation to vic tory had been treated. [Cheers for Grant] Had the Republicans of Illinois ever failed to do their duty in the hour of peril, when the dark cloud lowered over the peace and prosperity of the country ? Had they not given their muscle and nerve and soldierly qualities for the preservation of the Republic? [Applause.] A Kansas delegate objected to the inclusion of Kansas in the list of undisputed questions." Mr. Cessna modified his motion so as to give separate action on the Kansas case. Mr. Sharpe, of New York, moved to amend the pending motion so as to strike from the majority report so much of it as related to the Illinois dele- gates-at-large. [Applause.] Mr. Conger replied to Mr. Logan, expressing profound regret that a gentleman whom he so much loved and honored should have imagined that the Committee on Credentials intended the slightest reflection upon him. He reminded him that the credentials of all delegates had been sub mitted to the committee those of the high and lifted up as well as those of the humblest delegate from the wilds of the South. [Laughter and ap plause.] It wonld have been unworthy of the splendid Committee on Credentials not to have told the convention in distinct words that the lofty and distinguished citizen of the State of Illinois was 412 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER entitled to a seat in the convention. He made no apology to that gentleman, or to the State of Illi nois, or to this great body of people, for the moral courage of the committee which enabled it to say to the world that the gentleman (Mr. Logan) was entitled to his seat. Mr. Cessna s amendment was then adopted without dissent. The question was then stated on Mr. Sharpe s motion to amend, and Mr. Haywood, of California, pointed out that if Mr. Sharpe s mo tion should prevail, the seats of the Illinois dele gates would be contested, while the committee proposed to put their title beyond question or dis pute in history. After some personal sparring between Mr. Hay- wood and Mr. Logan in regard to the latter s action at Springfield, Mr. Sharpe s motion, modi fied so as to strike from the majority report as much of it as implied that there was any contest regarding the Illinois delegation at large, was adopted. So much of the committee s report as was undisputed, was then adopted, and on motion of Mr. Bruce, of Mississippi, the convention ad journed until seven P. M. The convention re-assembled at half-past seven, and continued in session for several hours, during which the debates were confined exclusively to the question of contested cases, as reported by the Committee on Credentials, and the interruptions in the shape of applause were remarkable in their JAMES A. GARFIELD. . l ~ singular spontaneity and prolongation when James G. Elaine and U. S. Grant were mentioned by the speakers. The brilliancy of the scene during this session was remarkable, the unusual presence of ladies in bright colors, the thousands of gas-jets, the flowers, flags, banners and portraits, sur rounded by the National bunting, framed in a picture never to be forgotten by those who wit nessed it. In the contested cases, that of Alabama was first taken up, and debate was limited to twenty min utes on each side. The case of Mr. Rapier was shown to be whether the State Convention had a right to deprive him of his vote merely because he refused to vote for General Grant. The same point was the issue in all the Alabama cases. The sparring continued to the time of limit of the de bate, and the question having been stated to be the motion to substitute the minority report for the majority s, Mr. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, moved the following : Resolved, That all the cases of contested seats be decided by adopting the usage of each State, and that in every State where the uniform usage has been to elect delegates to the National Republican Convention by the State Convention, that usage shall be deemed binding, and the same shall be true in respect of delegates sent by District Conventions where that has been the usage. Mr. Conger rose to a point of order, that the resolution was not germaine to the pending ques- LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF tion, and the chair sustained the point. The ques tion was put and decided viva voce overwhelm ingly in the negative. A division was demanded, and the result was, yeas 306, nays 449. The announcement which settled the question of a State Convention s power to compel a delegate to vote as it directs, was received with tumultuous ap plause. The majority report was then adopted. The case of Illinois was then taken up, and Mr. Quarles, of Wisconsin, moved that the debate be limited to one hour, to be equally divided between both sides. This brought the irrepressible Hot spur of Illinois, John A. Logan, to his feet, who urged greater allowances of time, and made another reference to " the old soldier," that drew applause. " If," he said, " you can beat the old soldier, all right ; you beat the man who has been recognized by every civilized nation of the world. But do not by tactics drive Illinois down to prevent the old soldier from having his share of the States." Mr. Lo^an said he was informed that the Califor- o nia delegates were not awarded their credentials until they had taken the pledge to support the candidate for whom the State Convention in structed them to vote. He asked the California delegation to say what the fact was. In a moment there was silence, followed by de risive laughter, under the supposition that the Californians could not deny the accusation. Finally, Mr. Haymond, of California, got up on JAMES A. GARFIELD. his chair and said the question could not be an swered in one word, but he would be most happy to respond if he could be allowed a little time in which to do so. " California selected her -delegates to this convention by the vote of each district represented here ; their appointment was con firmed by the State Convention, and that in order that there should be no mistake about it, the State Convention had then, with perfect unanimity, in structed the delegates to vote first, last and all the time, for the distinguished senator from Maine." These last words proved the spark that had all along been wanted to fire the train of dry Elaine powder within Exposition Hall. His name acted like an electric flash, and there followed Mr. Hay- mond s allusion to the Maine senator such a scene of excitement as has rarely been witnessed in a political convention within the United States. Three-fourths of the immense throng in the gal leries and on the floor outside of the space allotted to delegates, and fully one-half of the delegates themselves, sprang to their feet, cheering, shout ing, waving hats, handkerchiefs, umbrellas, for the space of several minutes, before any attempt at restoring order could make the least impression on the excited mass. Subsequently the time allotted to the Illinois case was limited to an hour on each side, and Mr. Conger opened the debate in favor of the majority report, which he said asserted, confirmed and es- 416 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF tablished in that convention the rule that had pre vailed in Illinois from the birth of the Republicar party down to the present time, the rule of dis trict representation. Mr. Raum replied for the sitting delegates, but had no adequate argument* against Mr. Conger s facts. Eliott Anthony spoke for the opposition, and was succeeded by Mr. Storrs of Illinois, who made a speech, the principal effec of which was to cause wild bursts of applause foi Blaine and Grant. The sentence, "Nominate James G. Blaine if you will," was the signal foi another grand outburst of applause, which wa< renewed and intensified when he finished the sen tence thus: "And then those who now shout ir the galleries shall by and by be reposing undei the influence of the summer sun ; but the followers of the grand old silent soldier will still be founc wide awake and watching by their camp-fires anc carrying the banners of the sluggards." The scene which followed and continued foi several minutes was most exciting, the uproai dying away, then breaking out again many times a perfect epidemic of cheers. What came nexl was thus described by a correspondent: "Mr. Conkling was conspicuous in leading the chorus, first by waving his handkerchief and late] by standing on his chair and waving the illumina ted little banner placed to designate the seats o the New York delegation. Finally some one started the campaign songs: We ll Rally Rounc JAMES A. GAltFIELD. ^j ie Flag, Boys, Shouting the Battle-cry of Free- om, and Marching through Georgia. "At this time nearly every person within the hall as on his feet, each cheering for his own favorite, lags, shawls, parasols, hats and all other movable lings within reach were swung furiously to and o. Bob Ingersoll, seizing a lady s shawl, waved frantically from the platform. In the centre of ie stage, just back of the chair, a fine-looking ady, with a flag in one hanrd and parasol in the ther, swung them to and fro and repeated time ind again, Hurrah for Blaine ! She appeared :o be in company with Governor Jewell, of Con- lecticut. Finally, she obtained two flags, and ivith one in each hand continued her enthusiastic efforts as long as the uproar lasted. It may >afely be said that no public assemblage ever be- bre witnessed such a scene. People seemed ac- ;ually to have lost their senses in the giddy whirl." For half an hour this continued before the chair nade any effort to control the members. The llinois cases were then disposed of in favor of the najority, and, worn out with excitement, the con tention shortly after adjourned to Saturday norning. LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF CHAPTER XXX. THE THUNDERS OF ORATORY. THE weather, which till now had been aus picious, changed its mood with the dawi of the fourth day of the great battle, am those who left their hotels and homes for Exposi tion Hall had to face inclemency. Inside th< Hall, however, there was but little change. / distinguished editor, writing home to his paper thus described the opening on June 5th: " Cameron looked freshest of all the chie gladiators. He wasted none of his vitality in ora tory, and his energies had not been lavishl] taxed, like those of Logan, Conger and others He flitted about on the platform before the con vention opened, visibly anxious, but calm and im perturbable as ever. When the call to arms ran^ out from the chair, he hastened down to his com mand, where the Grant leaders were admirabl] posted. Cameron, with his Pennsylvania phalanx shattered, but yet defiant, was in the centre of th< western block of the convention ; Conkling, witl his better-preserved New York corps, in the cen tre of the field, with Boutwell and his few Massa chusetts followers, and with Creswell and his cun ningly broken Blaine column of Maryland, anc JAMES A. CARFIELD. 410 his dozen of Ohio Grant men, forming a semi-cir- He in the rear of the undisputed third-term chief bn the eastern block. Within easy call of Ala bama and Arkansas was the clouded face and burly form of Logan. A brood of strangers sat with kirn in his own delegation, whom he had rejected Lt Springfield ; but he was their oracle neverthe- ess, although he made discord in the Grant melody that so uniformly came from Illinois when [he roll-call was ordered. Logan was early at his place ; his dark face was darker than ever, and the nervous twitching of the right arm that he twings so violently in debate told that he was im patient for the final charge. His hand was lammed into his wealth of Indian locks every few moments and then would drop from force of habit to adjust the right lapel of his coat. Creswell tame in as serene as if a Grant victory were gained ; but Boutwell betrayed the harassing con flict going on between his hopes and fears. tie has outgrown his amiability with departing powers, and he is not vested with a command in critical emergencies. Taft sat complacently be tween the Sherman and Garfield expectants, pa tiently waiting for the hour when he could take a third or more of his delegation to his old com mander. " Conkling awaited, as is his custom, until the ten thousand people had come and got clearly seated, and then he strode down the centre aisle LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF in his imperial manner. He knew that his c pearance would be the signal for a thunderi salute to himself and the first round of party 2 plause for Grant, and he was not mistaken. I played it nobly and smiled in his sweetest mann to his worshipers. The Elaine leaders were f. getyand flying hither and thither until they had get in line for the battle. Hale and Frye look worn with anxiety and seemed to be distrustful themselves. They knew that they could croA Elaine up close to and probably abreast wi Grant on the first ballot, but they trembled wi apprehension lest the Sherman wing should f them in their extremity. They entered the cc test hopeful on Sherman, preferring Elaine Grant, but they knew that they had many da gerous rocks and shoals to encounter in getti their craft to shore. It is the day of fate 1 Elaine. His generals entered jhe fight this moi ing conscious that if they lost, the execrations Elaine s millions of followers would fall up them. They had been reproached for two da for missing the golden opportunity to nomine Elaine on Thursday, when the Grant lines h been broken and when a vigorous pursuit woi have scattered them beyond the hope of conce trating again under the flag of the old soldi Just in front of Conkling sits the shrewdest a most level-headed of all the Elaine leaders. / though seldom seen at the front, General Sew< JAMES A. GARFIELD. 4 2I of New Jersey, would have had Elaine nominated on Thursday evening had he been in command ; but Chandler, Frye and Hale spoke, and Chand ler spoke away two hours of valuable time. "The residuary legatees in expectancy sat at long range from each other. The little Vermont delegation was nestled down in the south-west cor ner of the hall ; and they had the Yankee shrewd ness that keeps its own counsels and throws its tubs most judiciously to the jostling whales. They made no speeches, played no tricks for the gal leries, but patiently waited and hoped for the line to be thrown to them by the snarling disputants for its possession. They did not even boast of a leader, although they have some of the Green Mountain State s best men in their ranks. " The other camp of expectants presented several pretenders, each hoping to be preferred to the others. Governor Foster stepped in quietly, and sat down as serenely as if it was to be a day of pleasure. He did not attempt to rival Garfield in drawing the applause of the upper tiers, but he had a quiet impression creeping over him that if Sherman should be defeated, the governor of Sher^ man s State would be made the Vice-President to pull the ticket through the Buckeyes in October. Dennison and Taft came in at the rear of the herd, like the veteran bulls that have been dis patched from commanding the younger and more aggressive buffaloes. Bateman, the Sherman 422 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF strategists, dropped in early, and hastily visited every outpost before the bugle sounded the at tack; and Butterfield, handsome as a picture and graceful and fluent on the floor, chose his position where he could catch the eye of the chair. This delegation was the centre of interest in the morn ing, for all felt that it held the fate of battle in its keeping. The correspondents came straggling in, stiff and jaded, but they speedily forgot their weariness as the brilliant sallies, which the rising newspaper men can display, swiftly crossed their crowded tables. The strong-minded women filec in in good time and were cheered from the galle ries, and the distinguished guests crowded theii liberal space, and waited anxiously for the firs gun of the decisive struggle. "President Hoar did not call the convention to order until a quarter before twelve. The Kansas contest was the first business, and it was an em barrassing issue to both sides. The Blaine-Sher man men were compelled to vote out four of their men and to give their seats to Grant men, to justify their action in the Illinois case; and th< Grant men had to vote against the admission o their own friends to maintain their consistency The Elaine-Sherman men preserved their inten tion and voted out their own men, but some 6 the fiercest Grant men stood obstinately to their guns, and voted against the addition of four to their number. Logan rose and, in dramatic style, JAMES A. G. . cast the votes of his Illinois followers against his friends. The overwhelming vote of 476 to 184 showed, however, that separate district represen tation is henceforth to be the accepted law of the party. The next question brought about a sud den change of partners in the national waltz. Two Sherman men contested the seats of the Elaine delegates from West Virginia, and the Sherman men were thrown into an alliance with Grant as if by magic. The cut came from Massachusetts, and the Elaine leaders saw that an unexpected and serious danger threatened them. They threw out their flanks to stay the union between the Sherman and Grant forces, but it was Grouchy after Blucher over again. The Sherman men piled in with the Grant army, and Elaine was compelled for the first time to face the field alone as Grant had to meet it in several previous conflicts. An active rally was made along the Elaine lines, but the vote of every divided delegation proved that many who were bitterly against Grant were as bitterly against Elaine, and the ballot footed up 417 for the new Grant-Sherman combination, and 312 against it." o After this the Utah contesting delegates were seated by a vote of 426 to 312, and the contests were finished. Mr. Garfield, of Ohio, who on rising was re ceived with great applause, inquired of Mr. Sharpe, 25 424 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF of New York, who made the minority report from the Committee on Rules and Order of Business, how much time he desired for the discussion of the report. Mr. Sharpe could not tell exactly, and the mi nority and majority reports were then read. Mr. Garfield moved the adoption of the ma jority report. The ensuing debate was thus reported by the Associated Press: Mr. Sharpe criticized the proposed amend ment to the eighth rule, and moved to strike it out, that amendment being "but if exception is taken by any delegate to the correctness of such an announcement by the chairman of his delega tion, the president of the convention shall direct the roll of members of such delegation to be called and the result recorded in accordance with the votes individually given." He reminded the chair man of the Committee on Rules that the con vention had been in session three and a half days, and had had no trouble from the absence of that rule, which he regarded as entirely unnecessary. He was not here to seek further delay. The battle was formed; each side was ready, and the people were waiting for the verdict. [Applause.] They all felt that whatever was to be obtained on the skirmish line had been obtained, and that they were standing in the ranks of battle opposite each other, and ready to give the people news of the JAMES A. GARFIELD. , 2 - contest. He therefore offered the following reso lution: Resolved, That this convention will proceed immediately to ballot for a candidate for President of the United States, and that one speech of fifteen minutes shall be allowed for the presentation of each candidate, and one speech of ten minutes, to second each nomination, and that after such nominations are made a ballot .shall be taken by a call of the roll of the States. Mr. Garfield raised the point of order that under the order of the convention the report of the Committee on Rules was before the body and Mr. Sharpe s motion, being for proceeding to en tirely different business, was not in order. The chair ruled Mr. Sharpe s motion in order. A vote was ordered by call of States. Mr. Sharpe modified his resolution so as to provide that after the nominating speeches shall have been made the ballots for Presidential nomi nees shall be taken by call of the roll of the States. Mr. Garfield pointed out that if Mr. Sharpe s motion should be adopted the convention would be without rules for its government and especially without any rule prescribing whether or not the unit rule shall prevail in the balloting or whether the right of district representation shall prevail. He reminded the convention that it had witnessed a scene, which would be photographed in history, of four delegates from Kentucky rising on their 426 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF seats and protesting against their votes being counted in a way in which they had not cast them. Let the rule be settled and he would be bound by it. Let it be the unit rule or let it be the individ ual rule and he would -feel bound by it, the latter particularly, because he considered it eternally right. [Applause.] Mr. Frye (Me.) asked Mr.Garfield whether, with out the adoption of any of the rules as reported, and especially that one which made the rules of the House of Representatives the rules of the convention, there would be any such thing as a previous question. Mr. Garfield replied that there would not be. Mr. Frye. If there be no previous question, and if, after the first ballot is taken, as provided in the resolution offered by the gentleman from New York (Sharpe), another gentleman makes another nomination, is there any rule by which debate from that time forward can possibly be stopped ? Mr. Garfield. I take it that there is not. Mr. Conkling. The gentleman from Ohio yields a moment to let me reply to the closing words of the gentleman from Maine (Frye). They seem to have been pointedly aimed at me. I wish to say to that gentleman that I do not clearly see the "point" of his alarmed and anxious opposition. He dreads the cross of bayonets, shrinks and wants time. [Cheers and hisses.] JAMES A. GARFIELD. .^ Mr. Garfield. I have only made the point that we ought to have rules, and have them now to conduct and control the future business of the convention. Mr. Sharpe replied, urging that the dangers of trouble pointed out by Mr. Garfield, in the absence of any adopted rules, were imaginary, and inti mating distinctly that there would be no attempt to prevent each delegate from expressing his in dividual sentiments through the chairman of his delegation. o The chair stated the question to be upon the substitution of Mr. Sharpens resolution for the re port of the Committee on Rules. Upon a viva voce vote the negatives had it. A call of States was demanded, and being taken, re sulted: Yeas, 276; nays, 479. New York voted 48 yeas, 22 nays. The result was hailed with great applause. Mr. Garfield said the convention had wasted on this vote time enough to have adopted the rules and gone to work. He asked that the question now be taken without further debate. Mr. Sharpe moved to substitute the minority re port, which was rejected. Mr. Boutwell moved to amend the majority re port by adding the following: " And said commit tee (the National Republican Committee) shall, within twelve months, prescribe a method or methods for the election of delegates to the Na- 428 LIFE AND Pi BLIC CAREER OF tional Convention to be held in 1884, an d announce the same to the country and issue a call for that convention in conformity therewith." Mr. Butterworth (Ohio) moved an amendment by adding the following: "Provided, that nothing in such rules or method shall be so construed as to prevent the several Congressional districts in the United States from selecting their own dele gates to the National Convention. [Applause.] Mr. Boutwell accepted Mr. Butterworth s amend ment. Mr. Garfield hoped the amendment would be adopted, and it was so adopted by the convention, and then the rules were adopted as a whole. On motion of Mr. Garfield, the Committee on Resolutions were ordered to report. The committee having been ordered to report, did so, and the platform was the first thing read, a document presenting the issues of the hour. Its full text is as follows : The Republican party in National Convention assembled, at the end of twenty years since the Federal Government was first committed to its charge, submits to the people of the United States this brief report of its administration. It sup pressed rebellion which had armed nearly a mil lion of men to subvert the national authority. It reconstructed the union of the States with free dom instead of slavery as its corner-stone. It JAMES A. GARFIELD, transformed four million human beings from the likeness of things to the rank of citizens. It re lieved Congress from the infamous work of hunt ing fugitive slaves and charged it to see that slavery does not exist. It has raised the value of our currency from thirty-eight per cent, to the par of gold. It has restored upon a solid basis pay ment in coin for all the national obligations, and has given us a currency absolutely good and equal in every part of our extended country. It has lifted the care of the nation from the point where six per cent, bonds sold at eighty-six to that where four per cent, bonds are eagerly sought at a pre mium under its administration ; railways have in creased from thirty-one thousand miles in 1860 to more than eighty-two thousand miles in 1879; our foreign trade has increased from seven hundred millions to one billion one hundred and fifty mil lions of dollars in the same time, and our exports, which were twenty millions of dollars less than our imports in 1860, were two hundred and sixty- four millions of dollars more than our imports in 1879. Without resorting to loans it has, since the war closed, defrayed the ordinary expenses of government, besides the accruing interest on the public debt, and dispersed annually more than thirty millions of dollars for soldiers pensions. It has paid eight hundred and eighty-eight millions of dollars of the public debt, and, by refunding the balance at lower rates, has reduced the annual LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF interest charges from nearly one hundred and fifty-one millions to less than eighty-nine millions of dollars. All the industries of the country have revived, labor is in demand, wages have increased, and throughout the entire country there is evi dence of a coming prosperity greater than we have ever enjoyed. Upon this record the Republican party asks for the continued confidence and sup port of the people, and this convention submits for their approval the following statements of the principle and purposes which will continue to guide and inspire its efforts : i st. We affirm that the work of the last twenty- one years has been such as to commend itself to the favor of the nation, and that the fruits of the costly victory which we have achieved through immense difficulties should be preserved ; after that the peace regained should be cherished ; that the dissevered Union, now happily restored, should be perpetuated, and that the liberty secured to this generation should be transmitted undimin- ished to future generations ; that the order estab lished and the credit acquired should never be impaired ; that the pensions promised should be extinguished by the full payment of every dollar thereof; that the reviving industries should be further promoted, and that the commerce, already so great, should be steadily encouraged. 2d. The Constitution of the United States is a supreme law and not a mere contract. Out of JAMES A. GARFIELD 431 confederated States it made a sovereign nation. Some powers are denied to the nation, while others are denied to the States, but the boundary between the powers delegated, and those reserved is to be determined by the national and not by the State tribunals. 3d. The work of popular education is left to the care of the several States, but it is the duty of the National Government to aid that work to the ex tent of its Constitutional duty. The intelligence of the nation is but the aggregate of the intelli gence of the several States, and the destiny of the nation must not be guided by the genius of any one State, but by the average genius of all. 4th. The Constitution wisely forbids Congress to make any law respecting 1 an establishment of religion, but it is idle to hope that the nation can be protected against the influence of sectarianism, while each State is exposed to its domination. We, therefore, recommend that the Constitution be so amended as to lay the same prohibition upon the Legislature of each State and to forbid the appropriation of public funds to the support of sectarian schools. 5th. We affirm the belief, avowed in 1876, that the duties levied for the purpose of revenue should so discriminate as to favor American labor. That no further grant of the public domain should be made to any railway or other corporation ; that slavery having perished in the States, its twin bar- **, 2 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF barity, polygamy, must die in the Territories. That everywhere the protection accorded to citi zens of American birth must be secured to citizens by American adoption, and that we esteem it the duty of Congress to develop and improve our water-courses and harbors, but insist that further subsidies to private persons or corporations must cease ; that the obligations of the Republic to the men who preserved its integrity in the hour of battle are undiminished by the lapse of fifteen years since their final victory ; to do them per petual honor is and shall forever be the grateful privilege and sacred duty of the American people. 6th. Since the authority to regulate immigra tion and intercourse between the United States and foreign nations rests with Congress, or with the United States and its treaty-making power, the Republican party, regarding the unrestricted emigration of Chinese as an evil of great magni tude, invoke the exercise of those powers to re strain and limit that immigration by the enact ment of such just, humane and reasonable provi sions as will produce that result. 7th. That the purity and patriotism which characterize the earlier career of Rutherford B. Hayes in peace and war and which guided the thoughts of our immediate predecessors to him for a Presidential candidate have continued to inspire him in his career as Chief Executive, and that his tory will accord to his administration the honors JAMES A. GARFIELD. 433 which are clue to an efficient, just and courteous discharge of the public business, and will honor his interpositions between the people and the pro posed partisan laws. 8th. We charge upon the Democratic party the habitual sacrifice of patriotism and justice to a supreme and insatiable lust of office and patron age ; that to obtain possession of the National and State Governments and the control of place and position they have obstructed all effort to pro mote the purity and to conserve the freedom of suffrage, and have devised fraudulent certifications and returns, have labored to unseat lawfully elected members of Congress to secure at all hazards the vote of a majority of the States in the House of Representatives ; have endeavored to occupy by force and fraud the places of trust given to others by the people of Maine and res cued by the courage in action of Maine s patriotic sons; have by methods vicious in principle and tyrannical in practice attached partisan legislation to bills upon whose passage the very movements of government depend ; have crushed the rights of individuals, have advocated the principle and sought the favor of rebellion against the nation and have endeavored to obliterate the sacred memories of the war and to overcome its inesti mable valuable results of nationality, personal freedom and individual equality. The equal, steady and complete enforcement of laws and the LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF protection of all our citizens in the enjoyment oi all privileges and communities guaranteed by the Constitution are the first duties of the nation. The dangers of a solid South can only be averted by a faithful performance of every promise which the nation has made to the citizens ; the execution of the laws and the punishment of all those who violate them are the only safe methods by which an enduring peace can be secured and genuine prosperity established throughout the South. Whatever promises the nation makes the nation must perform, and the nation cannot with safety delegate this duty to the States. The solid South must be divided by the powerful agencies of the ballot, and all opinions must there find free ex pression, and to this end the honest voters must be protected against terrorism, violence or fraud, and we affirm it to be the duty and the purpose of -the Republican party to use every legitimate means to restore all the States of this Union to the most perfect harmony as may be practicable ; and we submit to the practical, sensible people of the United States to say whether it would not be dangerous to the dearest interests of our country at this time to surrender the administration of the National Government to a party which seeks to overthrow the existing policy under which we are so prosperous, and thus bring distrust and confusion where there is now order, confidence and hope. JAMES A. GARFIELD. The following resolution was appended : The Republican party, adhering to the principles affirmed )by its last National Convention of respect for the Constitu tional rules governing appointment to office, adopts the de claration of President Hayes that the reform in the civil service shall be thorough, radical and complete. To that end it de mands the co-operation of the Legislature with the Executive Departments of the Government, and that Congress shall so (legislate that fitness, ascertained by proper practical tests, shall admit to the public service. The reading was frequently interrupted by applause and cheers, and at its conclusion, Mr. I Barker, of Massachusetts, moved to amend by adding the following: The Republican party, adhering to the principles affirmed by its last National Convention of respect for the Constitu tional rules governing appointment to office, adopts the de claration of President Hayes that the reform in the civil service shall be thorough, radical and complete. To that end it de mands the co-operation of the Legislative with the Executive Departments of the Government, and that Congress shall | so legislate that fitness, ascertained by proper practical tests, shall admit to the public service. That the tenure of admin istrative offices, except those through which the distinctive policy of the party in power shall be carried out, shall be per manent during good behavior, and that the power of removal for cause, with the responsibility for the good conduct of sub ordinates, shall accompany the power of appointment. This precipitated a debate upon the question of civil service, in which nothing of particular mo ment was uttered. Mr. Barker s amendment LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF was eventually adopted, then the resolution, as amended, which omits the tenure of office clause, and otherwise leaves it as introduced, was adopted, and the convention, on motion of Mr. Creswell, took a recess until seven P. M. The evening session was particularly crowded, as nothing now remained but to get the nomina tions made, and then to ballot. The spectators were full of the intensest enthusiasm, and the crowd without lived upon every echo that came from the convention hall. As soon as the dele gates were ready, the chairman read a communi cation from Mr. James P. Root, calling attention to the historical associations connected with the gavel used by the presiding officer of the conven tion. Its head was made from a piece of wood grown at the home of Abraham Lincoln, and the handle from a cane grown on the Mount Vernon estate, the home of Washington. It was pre sented to the chair as a memento of the most re markable convention ever held in the history of the Republican party. After this incident the battle was renewed. Mr. Hale moved that the roll of States be called, for the announcement of names of members of the Republican National Committee. The roll was called and Alabama named Paul J. Stoback ; Ar kansas, W. Dorsey; California, Horace Davis; Colorado, John L. Routt ; Connecticut, Marshall Jewell; Delaware, Christian Febiger; Florida, JAMES A. GARFIELD. ,,,- William W. Hicks ; Georgia, James B. Deveaux ; Illinois, John A. Logan; Indiana, John C. New; Iowa, John S. Runnelly ; Kansas, John A. Mar tin ; Kentucky, W. O. Bradley ; Louisiana, W. C. Warmouth ; Maine, William T. Frye ; Maryland, James A. Gary ; Massachusetts, John M. Forbes ; Michigan, James H. Stone ; Minnesota, D. M. Sa- bin ; Mississippi, George McKee ; Missouri, C. J. Filley ; Nebraska, James W. Dawes ; Nevada, John W. Mackey ; New Hampshire, W. E. Chandler ; New Jersey, George A. Halsey ; New York, Thomas C. Platt ; North Carolina, W. P. Canady ; Ohio, W. C. Cooper ; Oregon, D. C. [reland ; Pennsylvania, J. D. Cameron ; Rhode [sland, W. O. Pierce ; South Carolina, Samuel Lee ; Tennessee, William Rule ; Texas, not ready; Vermont, George W. Hooker; Virginia, Samuel W. Jones ; West Virginia, John W. Mason ; Wisconsin, Elihu Enos ; Arizona, R. C. McCormick ; Dakota, unable to agree ; District of Columbia, not ready ; Idaho, George L. Shoup; Montana, A. H. Beatty ; New Mexico, S. T. EI- dn ; Utah, W. Bennett ; Washington, S. T. Mi ner ; Wyoming, Joseph L. Gary. As the two delegates from Dakota were unable to agree, Mr. Conger moved that the National Committee should fill the vacancy. Mr. Conkling objected. The chair ruled the motion in order, and it was adopted. 438 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF Mr. Drake (Minnesota) offered the following: Re$ofotd % That in case of the death or resignation of a member of the National Central Committee, the vacancy may be filled by appointment by the Central Committee of the State, territory or district. Adopted. The most interesting work of the convention was now close at hand. The ball was opened by Eugene Hale, who moved a call of States for the purpose of placing the various candidates in nomi nation. Ten minutes was allowed for each nomi nation, and five minutes to the seconder. The roll was then called. When Michigan was reached, James F. Joy took the platform, and said: "MR. CHAIRMAN: I shall never cease to regret the circumstances under which the duty is imposed on me to make the nomination of a candidate in this convention. I have been absent from the country for months. Since the convention has been in session I have been continuously employed on the floor. If, therefore, words of mine are im portant for the candidate who shall be proposed mine will benefit us not a little. I shall, however, bring him before the convention in as brief a man ner as possible. It was in 1860, I think, that a young man, born in the old Keystone State, but resident in the State of Maine, entered the House of Representatives. That was a time when the horizon was darkened with clouds indicating a o JAMES A. GARFIELD. 439 coming tempest. It was just before the war; the clouds burst over the country, and the war ensued and raged for four long years. Fortunately for us there were at the helm of the ship of State the right men, and it was manned with the right crew. Finally the strength of one of the contending par ties gave way, and peace at last settled down on the country. Then ensued the contest for recon struction, and that occupied four years more. During all that period of time that young man always true, always brave, always eloquent ap plied his talents in every way necessary either to carry on the war or to bring about reconstruction on a proper basis. His reputation grew and tow ered all that time, until at last, when reconstruc tion had been practically secured, he stood high Before the country, and his name became a house- lold word, familiar in every corner of the land and ooked up to from all quarters. That name was the name of James G. Elaine. [Cheers, applause and waving of hats and handkerchiefs.] When the nomination of General Grant was made, all eyes in the northern section of the country were turned on James G. Elaine, and he canvassed the country from the Mississippi and beyond for that candidate, so that the people of the North and of the great West became familiar with him. He had about him that wonderful power of attracting men which another great man Henry Clay, of Ken tucky possessed in an equally eminent degree. 26 44 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF " On the second nomination of General Grant, Mr. Elaine was again called upon, and he again traversed the country, exercising his eloquence and powers. He had become so well known to the people that when the last Republican Conven tion was held at Cincinnati, four years ago, he had become the leading candidate of the Northern people for the Presidency. He was the favorite candidate of the State which I represented in that convention. The delegates from Michigan went there with a view of urging and securing, if possi ble, his nomination, and he came within a few votes of getting it. But for some reason the nomination of another candidate, who had been before the country you all know, perhaps, the astonishment created in some sections of the country at that result and in the State which I have the honor to represent here was considered almost a calamity to the individual members of the Republican pa-rty of that day ; they felt it al most as a personal blow. But while he may have been disappointed, still when the canvass came on, and when it was doubtful whether the Republicans would succeed in electing their candidate, he, al though he had been repudiated in that conven tion, buckled on his harness, entered the tracks and again traversed the country, fighting man fully, gloriously, vigorously, until the battle was won." [Applause.] The chairman announced that the speaker s JAMES A. GARFIELD. 441 time had expired, but, on motion of Mr. Garfield, his time was extended. Mr. Joy, resuming : " The result was that he endeared himself to the Republicans of the North west even more than before, and when this con vention was called, the people of Michigan, who so earnestly advocated him before, again turned their gaze toward him. Michigan is not a doubt ful State. It is a State which stands by its ban ner ; that no matter who may be nominated in this convention Michigan will stand by the Repub lican banner whoever may be in the van. With these remarks I have the honor to present to this convention, as a candidate for the Presidency, the name of James G. Elaine." This was the signal for a wild scene of confu- o sion and excitement, the larger half of the audi ence and all the Elaine delegates rising and cheering vociferously, and waving flags, hats, fans, umbrellas, anything obtainable, in the most frantic fashion. After order was somewhat restored, Mr. Pixley, of California, seconded Mr. Elaine s name in a speech of considerable length. Its close was the signal for another outburst of cheers. Mr. Frye followed in an electric speech of ten minutes, which set the galleries wild again. Minnesota being called, Mr. E. F. Drake pre sented the name of Senator William Windom. There was no seconder. When New York was called, Mr. Conkling rose, 4^2 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAAEER OF mounted the reporters platform, took a position on a reporter s table, and began with great delib eration in clear tones and with his usual impres sive manner, the nomination of General Grant. The speaker said: "The need of the hour was not a candidate who can carry States which are surely Republican, but who can carry doubtful States, South as well as North. Grant could carry the doubtful State of New York and several in the South. [Ap plause.] The calumny against him had all been exploded; the powder had already been burned once and left his name untarnished. When those who have tried to tarnish that name shall have mouldered in forgotten graves, General Grant s fame will remain pure and bright in the hearts of the people. Never elated by success, he has manifested the very genius of success. He commended his civic policy in establishing in ternational arbitration, in opposing inflation and paving the way for specie resumption. To him unmeasurably more than any other is due the fact that every paper dollar is as good as gold. With him as the leader we should have no defensive campaign. [Applause.] No ! Nothing to ex plain away and no apologies to make. The shafts and arrows have all been aimed at him and lie broken at his feet." [Applause.] He briefly reviewed the third-term objections to Grant and urged that it was no objection to any man JAMES A. GARFIELD. 443 that he had been weighed in the balance and not found wanting or that he had obtained experience which rendered him better fitted for the duties con fided to his care. When he had occupied thirty minutes there were loud calls from the galleries of "Time! Time!" but he paid no attention to them and was soon permitted to proceed. A little later he re ferred to General Grant as being without telegraph wires running from his house to this convention, which was evidently construed as an insinuation against Mr. Elaine. This was greeted with laugh ter and a storm of hisses and loud cries of "Time! Time!" which continued until a delegate appealed to the American people to listen to the gentleman, who asked them to hear him finish. He was then permitted to proceed until he referred to "elec tioneering contrivances," which excited another outburst of objection. Mr. Conkling said: " When asked whence comes our candidate, we say from Appomattox. [Ap plause.] Obeying instructions I should never dare to disregard, expressing also my own firm convic tion, I rise in behalf of the State of New York, to propose a nomination with which the country and the Republican party can grandly win. The elec tion before us will be the Austerlitz of American politics. It will decide whether for years to come the country shall be Republican or Cossack. " The need of the hour is a candidate who can carry doubtful States North and South, and be- 444 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF lieving that he more surely than any other can carry New York against any opponent, and can carry not only the North, but several States of the South, New York is for Ulysses S. Grant. He alone of living Republicans has carried New York as a Presidential candidate. Once he carried it even according to a Democratic count, and twice he carried it by the people s votes, and he is stronger now the Republican party, with its standard in his hand, is stronger now than in 1868 or 1872. Never defeated in war or in peace, his name is the most illustrious borne by any living man ; his services attest his greatness, and the country knows them by heart. His fame was born not alone of things written and said, but of the arduous greatness of things done, and dangers and emergencies will search in vain in the future, as they have searched in vain in the past, for any other on whom the nation leans with such confi dence and trust. Standing on the highest emi nence of human destination, and having filled all lands with his renown, modest, simple and self- poised, he has seen not only the titled, but the poor and the lowly, in the uttermost ends of the earth rise and uncover before him. He has studied the needs and defects of many systems of government, and he comes back a better Ameri can than ever, with a wealth of knowledge and ex perience added to the hard common sense which so conspicuously distinguished him in all the fierce JAMES A. GARFIELD. ,. - light that beat upon him throughout the most event ful, trying and perilous sixteen years of the na tion s history. Never having had a policy to enforce against the will of the people/ he never betrayed a cause or a friend, and the people will never betray or desert him. Vilified and reviled, truthlessly aspersed by numberless persons, not in other lands, but in his own, the assaults upon him have strengthened and seasoned his hold on the public heart. The ammunition of calumny has all been exploded, the powder has all been burned out, its force has spent and Grant s name will glitter as a bright and imperishable star in the diadem of the Republic when those who have tried to tarnish it have mouldered in forgotten graves, and their memories and epitaphs have vanished utterly. Never elated by success, never depressed by adversity, he has ever in peace, as in war, shown the very genius of common sense. The terms he prescribed for Lee s surrender foreshadowed the wisest principles and prophecies of true recon struction." Toward the conclusion, Mr. Conkling said the convention was master of a supreme opportunity. It could make the next President, and also make sure of his peaceful inauguration. It could break that power which mildews the South. Democratic success was a menace to order and progress, which the convention could overthrow and eman cipate a solid South. It could make the Republi- 446 Z//V-* AND PUBLIC CAREER OF \ can army march to certain victory with its greatest marshal at its head. It was fully twenty minutes before order could be restored. The Grant men in convention and galleries took a regular jubilee, and President Hoar had to sit down and let disorder tire itself out. The Grant delegation " pooled " the flags which marked their seats, marched round the aisles and cheered and yelled as if they were dwellers in Bedlam, just home after a long absence^ Fi nally Mr. Bradley, of Kentucky, was allowed to speak, seconding Grant s name, but it was as nothing after Conkling s speech. When Ohio was called Mr. Garfield rose, and, amid tremendous cheering, advanced to the place Mr, Conkling had just vacated. When order was restored, he spoke in the following magnificent strain : "MR. PRESIDENT: I have witnessed the extraordi nary scenes of this convention with deep solici tude. No emotion touches my heart more quickly than a sentiment in honor of a great and noble character. But, as I sat on these seats and wit nessed tfrese demonstrations, it seemed to me you were a human ocean in a tempest. I have seen the sea lashed into a fury and tossed into a spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man. But I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea from which all heights and depths arc measured. [Applause.] JAMES A. GARFIELD. 447 When the storm has passed and the hour of calm settles on the ocean, when sunlight bathes its smooth surface, then the astronomer and surveyor takes the level from which he measures all terres trial heights and depths. [Applause.] Gentle men of the convention, your present temper may not mark the healthful pulse of our people. When our enthusiasm has passed, when the emo tions of this hour have subsided, we shall find the calm level of public opinion below the storm from which the thoughts of a mighty people are to be measured, and by which their final action will be determined. [Applause.] Not here, in this bril liant circle where fifteen thousand men and women are assembled, is the destiny of the Republic to be decreed [ That is so ] ; not here, where I see the enthusiastic faces of seven hundred and fifty- six delegates waiting to cast their votes into the urn and determine the choice of their party; [applause] but by four million Republican firesides, where the thoughtful fathers, with wives and chil dren about them, with the calm thoughts inspired by love of home and love of country, with the history of the past, the hopes of the future, and the knowledge of the great men who have adorned and blessed our nation in days gone by there God prepares the verdict that shall determine the wisdom of our work to-night. [Applause.] Not in Chicago in the heat of June, but in. the sober quiet that comes between now and November, in 443 LIFE AND PUBLIC CARTER OF the silence of deliberate judgment will this great question be settled. [Cries of Good. ] Let us aid them to-night. [Great applause.] "But now, gentlemen of the convention, what do we want? [A voice, Garfield. ] Bear with me a moment. Hear me for this cause, and, for a moment, be silent that you may hear. [Cries of Good. ] Twenty-five years ago this republic was wearing a triple chain of bondage. Long fa miliarity with traffic in the bodies and souls of men had paralyzed the consciences of a majority of our people. The baleful doctrine of State sov ereignty had shocked and weakened the noblest and most beneficent powers of the national Gov ernment, and the grasping power of slavery was seizing- the virgin territories of the West and o o dragging them into the den of eternal bondage. At that crisis the Republican party was born. It drew its first inspiration from that fire of liberty which God has lighted in every man s heart, and which all the powers of ignorance and tyranny can never wholly extinguish. [Applause.] The Re publican party came to deliver and save the repub lic. It entered the arena when the beleaguered and assailed territories were struggling for free dom, and drew around them the sacred circle of liberty which the demon of slavery has never dared to cross. It made th?m free forever. [Great applause, and cries of Good. ] Strength ened by its victory on the frontier, the young JAMES A. GARFIELD. arty, under the leadership of that great man who, n this spot, twenty years ago, was made its .eader, entered the national capital and assumed ;he* high duties of the government. [Applause.] he light which shone from its banner dispelled e darkness in which slavery had enshrouded the apital, and melted the shackles of every slave, nd consumed, in the fire of liberty, every slave- >en within the shadow of the capitol. Our na- ional industries, by an impoverishing policy, were ;hemselves prostrated, and the streams of revenue flowed in such feeble currents that the treasury it self was well-nigh empty. The money of the people was the wretched notes of two thousand uncontrolled and irresponsible State banking cor porations, which were filling the country with a irculation that poisoned rather than sustained the life of business. [Loud applause.] The Repub lican party changed all this. It abolished the babel of confusion, and gave the country a cur rency as national as its flag, based upon the sacred faith of the people. [Applause.] It threw its protecting arm around our great industries, and they stood erect as with new life. It filled with the spirit of true nationality all the great functions of the government. It confronted a rebellion of unexampled magnitude, with slavery behind it, and, under God, fought the final battle of liberty until victory was won. [Applause.] Then, after the storms of battle, were heard the sweet, calm LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF words of peace uttered by the conquering natioi and saying to the conquered foe that lay prostrat at its feet: This is our only revenge, that you joi us in lifting to the serene firmament of the Const tution, to shine like stars for ever and ever, th immortal principles of truth and justice, that a men, white or black, shall be free and stand equc before the law. [Loud applause.] "Then came the question of reconstruction, th public debt, and the public faith. In the settle mcnt of the questions the Republican party ha completed its twenty-five years of glorious cxisi ence, and it has sent us here to prepare it fc another lustrum of duty and of victory. How sha we clo this great work ? We cannot do it, m friends, by assailing our Republican brethrer [Great applause and cries of Good. ] God foi bid that I should say one word to cast a shadow upon any name on the roll of our heroes. Thi coming fight is our Thermopylae. We ar standing upon a narrow isthmus. If our Sparta hosts are united, we can withstand all the Persian that the Xerxes of Democracy can bring agains us. Let us hold our ground this one year, for th stars in their courses fiVht for us in the future > The census taken this year will bring re-enforce ments and continued power. [Applause.] Bu in order to win this victory now, we want the vot of every Republican, of every Grant Republica: and every anti-Grant Republican in Americ JAMES A. CARFIELD. ,-j [great applause], of every Blaine man and every anti-Elaine man. The vote of every follower of every candidate is needed to make our success certain [applause]; therefore, I say, gentlemen and brethren, we are here to take calm counsel together, and inquire what we shall do. [A voice Nominate Garfield. Great applause.] We want a man whose life and opinions embody all the achievements of which I have spoken. We want a. man who, standing on a mountain height; sees all the achievements of our past history, and car ries in his heart the memory of all its glorious deeds, and who, looking forward, prepares to meet the labor and the dangers to come. We want Dne who will act in no spirit of unkindness to ward those we lately met in battle. The Repub- ican party offers to our brethren of the South the >live branch of peace, and wishes them to return to brotherhood, on this supreme condition, that it shall be admitted forever and forevermore, that, in the war for the Union, we were right and they were wrong. [Cheers.] On that supreme con dition we meet them as brethren, and on no other. We ask them to share with us the blessings and honors of this great republic. [Applause,] "Now, gentlemen, hot to weary you, I am about to present a name for your consideration the name of a man who was the comrade and associ ate and friend of nearly all those noble dead whose faces look down upon us from these walls LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF . to-night [cheers], a man who began his career of public service twenty-five years ago, whose first duty was courageously done in the days of peril on the plains of Kansas, when the first red drops of that bloody shower began to fall which finally swelled into the deluge of war. [Cheers.] He bravely stood by young Kansas then, and, return ing to his duty in the National Legislature, through all subsequent time his pathway has been marked by labors performed in every department of legislation. You ask for his monuments. I point you to twenty-five years of national statutes. [Cheers.] Not one great beneficent statute has been placed in our statute books without his in telligent and powerful aid. [Cheers.] He aided these men to formulate the laws that raised our great armies and carried us through the war. His hand was seen in the workmanship of those statutes that restored and brought back the unity and married calm of the States. His hand was in all that great legislation that created the war currency, and in a still greater work that redeemed the promises of the Government, and made the currency equal to gold. And when at last called from the halls of legislation into a high executive office, he displayed that experience, intelligence, firmness and poise of character which has carried us through a stormy period of three years. With one-half the public press crying crucify Him/ and a hostile Congress seeking to prevent success, in . JAMES A GARFIELD. all this he remained unmoved until victory crowned him. [Applause.] The great fiscal affairs of the nation, and the great business interests of the country he has guarded and pre served, while executing the law of resumption and effecting its object without a jar and against the false prophecies of one-half of the press and all the Democracy of this continent. [Applause.] He has shown himself able to meet with calmness the great emergencies of the Government for twenty-five years. He has trodden the perilous heights of public duty, and against all the shafts of malice has borne his breast unharmed. He has stood in the blaze of that fierce light that beats against the throne, but its fiercest ray has found no flaw in his armor, no stain on his shield. I do not present him as a better Republican or as a better man than thousands of others we honor, but I present him fcr your deliberate con sideration. I nominate John Sherman, of Ohio." [Great applause.] Of this masterly effort, the Chicago Inter- Ocean, a strong Grant paper, said the following morning: "When Ohio is called, a form which probably comes nearer the people s ideal type of a statesman than any other in the convention arises near the centre of the middle aisle and moves toward the stage amid the sharp clapping of thousands of hands, which increases, as General Garfield mounts the same table upon which Senator Conkling 454 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF stood, to a roar of voices mingled with the noise of stamping feet. It is noticeable that in this ova tion a large number of delegates and alternates have joined. To the attention which Garfield always attracts is now added the romance of a possibility that is in every one s mind, and when ever he has moved into sight of the galleries during this convention, he has been warmly greeted. As he stands now on the table where Conkling but a few moments ago stood, many thousands are doubtless comparing the two men who, among many great men, have almost mo nopolized and about equally shared the attention of the people. There is much of similarity, and, at the same time, great dissimilarity between the two men. Both are large in stature, and both would be noted, if strangers, among thousands as remarkable types of physical development. The verdict of the great majority would be probably that Garfield looks more like the statesman than the New York senator. There is a grace and eloquence in the person and manners of Conkling that approaches too near airiness to be always strong in its effect, but the figure we now see be fore us is rough-hewn in form and rugged of fea ture. The verdict of the ladies in the gallery, many times during the convention, is that Conk ling is so handsome/ and Garfield so plain. But the Ohio school-teacher, minister, legislator and statesman, is not plain-looking. To the JAMES A. GARFIELD. .- - beauty of great strength is added the grace with which an illustrious and radiant renown will clothe any man. Large of form, with a huge head, the figure fixed like a rock on that table, while the building trembles with applause, is imposing, peer less and grand. To all of this, Garfield s nature adds a charm possessed by few men the beauty of a generous and affectionate nature. A big heart, a sympathetic nature, and a mind keenly sensitive to everything that is beautiful in senti ment, are the artists that shade down the gnarled outlines and touch with soft coloring the plain fea tures of a massive face. The conception of a grand thought always paints a glow upon Gar- field s face, which no one forgets who has seen him while speaking. His eyes are a cold gray, but they are often yes, all the time in this speech lit brilliantly by the warm light of worthy sentiments, and the strong flame of a great man s conviction. In speaking, he is not so restless as Conkling; his speech is an appeal for thought and calm deliberation, and he stands still like the rock of judgment while he delivers it. There is no invective or bitterness in his effort, but there is throughout an earnestness of conviction and an unquestionable air of sincerity, to which every gesture and intonation of voice is especially adapted." Whitelaw Reid telegraphed to the New York Tribune his opinion of this effort : " It seems to be 27 456 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF the verdict of the majority that General Garfield won the laurels of the night, as indeed he has of the convention thus far. Mr. Frye s speech,; though eloquent, was delivered without any pre paration whatever. General Garfield s speech was admirably adapted to make votes for his candidate, if speeches ever made votes. It was courteous, conciliatory and prudent. General Garfield honestly did his best for Secretary Sher man, and yet the general is so popular here that the chief effect of his speech has been to increase the talk and speculation as to the possibility of his being made the nominee if the situation were different." The Chicago Journal said editorially: "The supreme orator of the evening was General Gar- field. He is a man of superb power and noble character. The name of John Sherman could not have been better presented. His claims upon the good opinion of the American people and they are very great were urged in a way worthy the occasion. He indulged in no fling at others. It was a model speech in temper and tone. The im pression made was powerful and altogether whole some. Many felt that if Ohio had offered Garfield instead of Sherman, she would have been more likely to win." Sherman s nomination was seconded by Winkler, of Wisconsin, and Eliott (colored), of South Caro lina. Vermont being called, Mr. Billings rose to JAMES A. GARFIELD. Iv) / put in nomination Senator Edmunds, and said that no State could have a better right to name a Re publican candidate and none could name a better man. Republicanism runs in Vermont s blood. The man whom she named for the Presidency was no longer hers he was the property and pride of the nation. Vermont looked forward through the years and saw the ignominy and crime of giving up the Government to a revolutionary Democracy, and she implored this convention to let nothing put the Republican victory in peril, but to make that victory secure by putting on the platform a candidate far better even than the platform a candidate weak nowhere, but strong everywhere the incarnation of the principles of that platform. Any other course foreboded disaster and courted defeat. Such a candidate as was needed was that brave, keen, vigilant man on whom rested no shadow of evil report, the leader of the Senate, George F. Edmunds. [Cheers and applause.] Vermont nominated him for the Presidency, and asked the convention to accept him. [Applause.] The nomination was seconded by Mr. Sanford, of Massachusetts. Mr. Cassidy, of Wisconsin, then presented the name of Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois, who was seconded by Mr. Brandagee, of Connecticut. All the nominees being now named, and as it was within a few minutes of Sunday morning, the convention adjourned until Monday morning. 458 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF Half an hour later the great hall, that had re sounded to the thunders of oratory, was empty and silent as the great men s portraits on the walls. 2 AMES A. GARFIELD. ,._ CHAPTER XXXI. A DAY OF DOUBT. SUNDAY at Chicago was passed in feverish marches and counter-marches, combina tions, plots, arguments, speeches, dining and wining, rest for some and church for a few. Every nerve was strained to correct badly-con structed lines, to strengthen wavering delegates to capture new ones and to repair every weak spot in the chain of defenses. This, of course, lent to the work of Monday only a problematical outcome. No one could say exactly just what would happen, or predict, with the same reasona ble certainty possible to the prophets on Friday night. Every one waited and hoped. One of the clever correspondents at the con- Vention, described the opening services of Mon day morning in his special : " The sun rose in a cloudless sky this morning, and a gentle, cool breeze from the lake promised a charming day for the great conflict. There was active stir in all the camps at an early hour, and spirited skirmishing began with cocktails and ex tended throughout the halls, corridors, breakfast- rooms and street corners. The crowd had been 460 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF considerably thinned out since Saturday night. Many of the most boisterous elements, who were too expensive as strikers to be continued on duty indefinitely, had dropped out of the battle ; but the effective soldiery of all sides remained, and the rank and file seemed more impatient than the leaders for the struggle. The hour of meeting was the earliest that could be named, but most of the crowd and many delegates were clamoring at the barred doors long before. There was not that effervescence of wild expectation that was displayed when the same people first crowded into Exposition Hall on Wednesday morning. Their faces were freshened by rest, but they had been sobered by the realities of the contest and the gravity of its hue. When they first came to en compass the convention and its multitude of witnesses, they were ardent and reckless as en thusiastic volunteers who expected a harmless brush with the enemy and an easy victory. To day they wore the calmer and disciplined marks of veterans. It was plainly told on every face that the battle must be desperate, and none felt entirely assured of triumph. W r hen the doors were opened hurried streams of humanity poured in at every entrance, and when the hour arrived for President Hoar to swing his gavel, all the portions of the hall within possible hearing of the proceedings were jammed to the uttermost. Even the reserved platform of the correspondents JAMES A. GARFIELD. 461 was invaded by the crowd, until communication with the- hundred batteries which maintained their ceaseless clicking hard by was almost entirely interrupted. The ladies gave their wealth of smiles upon the conflict of the political giants in greater profusion than at any previous session, and the distinguished guests were wedged in upon each other as if they were no more than common flesh and blood. "Hoar came in ahead of time, and looked serene as a summer morning that Welcomed him to his task, and his face was fresh as the roses which shed their exquisite tints and fragrance on his table. He has borne himself so well, so impar tially, and so intelligently that all felt assured of a faithful umpire in the desperation of the last charge of the contending hosts. Alabama, as usual, was first to present a full delegation ; and Arkansas, just behind her, speedily followed. The colored, troops were generally among the first to the front, and they evidently meant to fight nobly. Conkling was mindful of the potency of dramatic strategy, and knew that he would meet his grand est welcome as he passed before his allies to lead them in the hand-to-hand struggle. He waited until just before the time for calling to order, and then strode into the hall with that magnificent bearing that none of his rivals could imitate. As soon as his tall form and silvered crown were visible the shout went up that all understood, and ^52 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF it was heartier and longer than ever before. He walked down the aisle with the utmost composure, and gracefully bowed his recognition of the hom age tendered him. Garfield is the member of the convention who divides with Conkling the popular welcome at every opening. " He received a royal welcome when he entered, and his strong, rugged features lightened like the rippled lake with its dancing sunshine. Cameron was active* silent and determined as ever. He flitted hurriedly among the distinguished guests before the signal-gun was fired, and then retired to his immediate command. Hale and Frye were among ^the first to take their position, and hope and fear were plainly wrestling with each other on their faces. Hale was pale with anxiety, and the usually flushed features of Frye were redder than are their wont. Both seemed well poised and reasonably self-reliant, but the contrast between their nervous apprehensions and the calm defiance of Conkling was a study for the intelligent ob servers of men. Chandler was restless, and his little face seemed to have shrunk away behind his eye-glasses. " Logan was as calm as the dark cloud that is just waiting to hurl its thunderbolt. He sat as still as a statue, his swarthy features appearing darker than usual, and his fierce black eyes now and then darting out their most defiant flashes, He seemed conscious that his leader was beaten. JAMES A. GARFIELD. 46. but he was evidently resolved that there should be a costly retreat for the pursuing hosts. Garfield, Foster, Dennison, Bateman, Butterfield and other Ohio leaders were to be seen in little knots of their delegation, as if they feared defection at an early stage of the contest, and there was evident un rest among the Indiana men. General Harrison s short form and sharply-cut features were shaded with anxiety. He feared Grant, and now that Grant seemed to be beaten, he was impressed with the possibility of the grandson of a President being the choice of exhausted factions. General Sewell sat in front of Conkling and his youthful face exhibited the coolness and determination which characterized him in the heat of battle. As far as faces could be distinguished in the great arena, all seemed to be soberly anxious for the order to advance. "When President Hoar called the convention to order there was a speedy hush, and the vast mul titude was seated with wonderful alacrity. All seemed anxious for the fight to begin. The min ister who opened with prayer shared the general appreciation of the value of the fleeting moments, and his petition had the merit of brevity." The chair, at the conclusion of the prayer, an nounced that during the balloting he would not allow any delay, debate or tricks, by changing votes after they were once cast. Eugene Hale thereupon moved: "That the 464 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF convention proceed to ballot." Senator Conkling seconded the motion, and the roll-call was begun in a silence that showed how intense was the anxiety to know the worst or best The result was announced by the secretaries, as follows : States. Grant. Elaine. Sherman. Edmunds. Windom. Washburne Alabama ........... 16 i 3 Arkansas .......... 12 ...... California ............ 12 Colorado ......... 6 Connecticut ...... ... 3 ... 2 .. 7 Delaware ............ 6 Florida ............ 8 ............ Georgia., .......... 68 8 Illinois ____ . ....... 24 id ... ... < ti 8 Indiana. ........... i 26 2 ... .., i Iowa..... .......... ... 22 Kansas ............ 4 6 Kentucky ......... 20 i 3 Louisiana ......... 82 6 Maine ................. 14 Maryland ......... 772 Massachusetts 3 2 20 .,. i Michigan ......... i 21 ... ... Minnesota ................. ... 10 Mississippi ....... 64 6 Missouri ........... 29 ... ... ... .<. i Nebraska ............. 6 Nevada ............... 6 New Hampshire. ... 10 New Jersey .......... 16 ... ... ... 2 New York ......... 51 17 2 Carried forward, 20 1 198 34 22 10 20 JAMES A. G ARFIELD. Statoe. Grant. Elaine. Sherman. Edmunds. Windom. Washburne. Brought forward, 20 1 198 34 22 10 20 North Carolina.. 6 ... 14 ... ... Ohio 9 34 i Oregon 6 Pennsylvania.... 32 23 3 ... Rhode Island 8 South Carolina... 13 ... I Tennessee 16 6 i i Texas n 2 2 ... .... i Vermont 10 Virginia.. 18 3 i West Virginia.... i 8 Wisconsin 17 3 ... ... 9 Arizona 2 Dakota i i Dis t of Columbia i i Idaho 2 Montana 2 ... New Mexico 2 Utah i i Washington i i Wyoming i i Total ....304 284 93 34 10 30 The incidents of this ballot were few and not very remarkable. There was faint applause when Arkansas voted solid for Grant, but all sides joined in hissing it down. When Pixley announced California s vote for Elaine, in a dramatic fashion, and with a sentence thrown in for the galleries, the President rose and notified the chairmen of dele gations that no comment of any kind would be 466 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF allowed. When Conkling rose to announce the vote of New York, every one strained forward to catch his words. In a distinct voice he responded "Two votes are reported for Sherman, seventeen for Elaine, and fifty-one are for Grant." This method of announcement was Conkling s inevit able sneer for his opponents. Ohio threw a wet blanket on the Sherman men by casting nine votes for Elaine, and the announcement bright ened the faces of a vast majority of spectators. Pennsylvania was another of the States that si lenced the audience when called, and she was about to declare how Cameron had held the Grant lines against the Elaine assaults. General Bea ver thundered out: " Pennsylvania votes thirty- two for Grant, twenty-three for Elaine, and three for Sherman." After this there was but little in terest, and the ballot closed in the most orderly manner. The result brought shouts from the Grant men, and some disappointment to the Elaine leaders. The moment the vote was an nounced the President ordered another, holding that nothing was in order but voting; and before the leaders could look to their lines they were in action again by the prompt roll-call. The second ballot was uneventful, the third and fourth thr same. The changes in these, and the succeeding ballots of the afternoon were very slight except the nomination of Garfield by a vote from Grier, a Pennsylvania delegate, and made without any JAMES A. GARFIELD. 467 particular idea of permanency. A recess was several times proposed but voted down, and there were a score of little incidents that were eventful for only the brief minutes of their existence. The last ballot taken at the morning session was the eighteenth, and immediately after its an nouncement, on motion of a Sherman man from Mississippi, a recess was ordered until seven o clock. The various ballots of this session were as follows : ist. 2d. sd. 4th. sth. 6th. 7th. 8th. gth. Grant 304 305 305 305 305 305 305 306 308 Sherman... T 93 94 93 95 95 95 94 .Wf 9 1 90 Edmunds.. 34 3 2 32 32 3 2 3i 32 3i 3 1 Washburne 3 3 1 3 1 30 3 3 1 3 1 3 2 3 2 Windom .. 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 Garfield... ... ... i i i 2 2 i 2 Harrison., i xoth. nth. lath. isth. i4th. isth. i6th. ijth. i8th. Grant 305 306 304 305 305 309 306 303 305 Elaine 282 281 283 285 285 281 283 284 283 Sherman... 92 92 92 89 89 88 88 90 91 Edmunds.. 31 31 31 31 31 31 31 31 31 Washburne 32 32 33 32 35 36 36 36 35 Wmdom... Garfield... 10 2 II 2 10 I IO I 10 10 IO 10 10 Hayes I I I McCrary.. I Davis. . . I The evening session started rather noisily and there was some slight trouble to keep order as 468 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF the call went on. The announcement of the first ballot at this session was greeted by the Sherman men with cheers, who saw their candidate was making a hole in the Blaine column. There was nothing of importance to disturb the situation of the Grant people. They held their own through the recess and came back showing their determi nation to stick by their candidate to the last. It was very clear there had been no wholesale re pairing of fences since the adjournment, and it began to look like an all-night siege. The vary ing fortunes of the different candidates are shown by the*votes tabulated below, it is hardly necessary to summarize them in detail. After the twenty-seventh ballot, Morse, of Mas sachusetts, proposed an adjournment till the next morning. It was nearly half past nine, and the hall was excessively hot. Not less than twelve thousand people were overlooking the progress of the ballot, and at the conclusion of each call, while the secretaries were footing up the totals, this im mense audience would rise with one accord to rest, by change of position, and the movement was suggestive of the distant roar of a coming storm. It was undeniably a brilliant scene at this time, but nobody could shut his ear to the fact that the multitude of spectators was a hindrance to busi ness. Morse s motion to adjourn was withdrawn .and another ballot was ordered, after which a mo tion to adjourn was carried by 446 to 303, and the JAMES A. GARFIELD. convention, at ten P. M., adjourned till ten A. M. the next morning. The ballots cast at the evening session were as follows : igth. 2oth. 2ist. 22d. 23d. 24th. 25th. 26th. 27th. s8th. Grant 305 308 305 305 304 305 302 303 306 307 Elaine 279 276 276 275 275 279 281 280 277 279 Sherman 96 93 96 97 97 93 94 93 93 91 Edmunds 31 31 31 31 31 31 31 31 31 31 Washburne 32 35 35 35 36 35 35 36 36 35 Windom 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 Garfield 1111222222 Hartranft.., i i i i 47Q LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF CHAPTER XXXII. THE PEOPLE S CHOICE. THE convention had now been in session for five days, and the result was not reached ; the country was impatient, the people were anxious for the termination of the battle. All Chicago rose on June 8th, with a set tled wish that "to-day might settle it." The wish was father to the thought. The politicians be lieved it would as they strolled out of their hotels, boarding-houses and resting-places, and streamed in the direction of the Exhibition building. General Garfield came forth from the Grand Pacific, arm-in-arm with his friend, Governor Fos ter, of Ohio. The suspicion that he would before nightfall be the nominee of the strongest party in the country for its president, never entered his head. "I think, Charlie," said Garfield, "we shall get through with this business of president-making, to-day." "Yes," returned Foster, "the delegates are all getting tired and want to go home." " I am quite sure they will select a candidate before another adjournment," continued Garfield. JAMES A. GARFIRLD. 471 "I hope it will be our man," answered Foster. " Honest John Sherman will be nominated, and again Ohio will be made proud by the work of the convention." " Amen," said Foster, " let us all take heart and work." "Yes, that is the word," cried Garfield. "Work! work ! work !" and the two friends continued on down the street. As Garfield turned a corner, one of the hundreds of people who were thrusting advertisements, circu lars and political squibs into the hands of passers- by, pressed a little piece of paper upon him, which he accepted mechanically, and as mechanically glanced at. His eye caught "Acts iv, 11." Thinking he would not throw a Bible-leaf into the mud, he rolled it up and put it in his pocket, where he afterward found it, and continued his walk. Had he read it, the spirit of its prophecy would, no doubt, have struck him, as the words of that verse are these: "This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." ACTS iv, 11-12. These, however, are but curious coincidences that, no doubt, would have exceedingly worked upon people of a superstitious turn of mind. But it was only the action of the convention 28 A - 2 /// /i /f-VZ? PUBLIC CAREER OF \ which met an hour late that morning, that gave them their value. When it was opened, the rev erend gentleman who asked the blessing of the Almighty, voicing the popular heart, prayed that the delegates might soon be restored to their friends. The call of the States was then ordered for the twenty-ninth ballot, for president. The re sult was 305 for Grant; 278 for Elaine; 116 for Sherman; 12 for Edmunds; 35 for Washburne; 7 for Windom, and 2 for Garfield. There were some indications as the thirtieth ballot progressed that the lesser candidates were giving way. Great amusement was created to ward the close by the announcement of one vote from Wyoming for General Phil Sheridan Sheri dan was on the stage near the chair, and when he was a moment after discovered by the people a shout went up from all over the house. He finally arose and said that he was very much obliged, but he couldn t take the nomination unless O he were permitted to turn "it over to his best friend. The galleries saw the point of this, since Sheridan s best friend is Grant, and all the Grant delegates made the best of the opportunity by an outburst of enthusiasm. The chair also detected the point, and said that while the distinguished soldier had been given permission to interrupt the order of the convention, it would be granted no one else. The next ballot demonstrated that the Grant JAMES A. GARFIELD. .*^ lines could not be broken, and the Elaine lines were at this time wavering. It was apparent the convention was on the edge of a break. The next ballot, which was finished by half-past twelve, was without exciting event. The close of the thirty-fourth was marked with some excitement, growing out of a break to Garfield, Wisconsin casting for him thirty-six votes. This was the be ginning of the end. To make up this breach, Washburne, Blaine and Sherman were drawn upon. When it was declared, General Garfield arose and addressed the chair. The chairman in quired for what purpose the gentleman rose. " To a question of order," said Garfield. "The gentleman will state it," said the chair. " I challenge," said Mr. Garfield, " the correct ness of the announcement that contains votes for me. No man has a right, without the consent of the person voted for, to have his name announced and voted for in this convention. Such consent I have not given." This was overruled by the chairman amidst laughter against Garfield, who had jnade the point on the vote cast for him by Wisconsin. Then the thirty-fifth ballot was taken, and proved the most interesting one of the day so far. The call was quick, and the people began to show better spirits. It was apparent that the Blaine movement had broken up. The ballot resulted as follows : A* A LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF s S "^ 6 3 "O STATES AND TERRITORIES. < c . c c c "S f 23 III* O c/5 W ? ? O Alabama 16 4 Arkansas 12 California 12 Colorado 6 Connecticut 3 9 Delaware 6 Florida 8 Georgia 8 9 5 Illinois 24 10 8 Indiana i 2 27 Iowa 22 ... Kansas 4 6 Kentucky 20 i 3 Louisiana 8 4 4 Maine 14 Maryland 7 3 2 4 Massachusetts 4 ... 21 i Michigan i 21 ... Minnesota i 6 3 Mississippi 8 4 3 i Missouri 29 i Nebraska 6 Nevada 6 New Hampshire 10 . .... Newjersey 14 2 2 New York 50 18 2 ... .,. North Carolina 6 ... 13 i Ohio 9 34 i ;.. Oregon 6 Pennsylvania 36 20 i i Rhode Island 8 , Carried forward 249 224 89 i 3 22 34 JAMES A. GARFIELD. . STATES AND TERRITORIES. w . j j? I I I I I I I Brought forward ...... 249 224 89 i 3 22 34 South Carolina ........... n i 2 10 ......... Tennessee .................... 17 4 3 ............ Texas ...................... 13 i i ...... i Vermont ..................................... .. Virginia .................. 16 3 3 ............ West Virginia ............ i 8 i ............ Wisconsin ................ 2 2 ........... . 16 Arizona ...................... 2 ............... Dakota .................... i i ............... District of Columbia... i i ......... Idaho ......................... 2 ............... Montana ..................... 2 ............... New Mexico ................ 2 ............... Utah ....................... i i Washington ................. 2 ............... Wyoming .................. i i ............... Totals .................. 313 257 99 ii 3 23 50 The call of the States for the thirty-sixth ballot began amidst considerable excitement. A dele gate thus described it: "Everybody saw that Elaine was now out of the way, and it was a mat ter of beating Grant, so far as the opposition was concerned. It was evident, too, that it would have to be done with Garfield, and Connecticut led off on this ballot with eleven votes for him. The most of the Washburne vote of Illinois followed this, and when Indiana was called, General Har rison cast twenty-nine of her thirty votes for Gar- 476 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF field. The storm at this point broke. The people rose up and gave one tremendous cheer, and hats and handkerchiefs were tossed high, as they had so often been before. The confusion had not fairly subsided when Iowa followed with twenty- two votes for Garfield, and the outburst was re newed and gained in force with every fresh start. A little further down Maine cast her fourteen votes for the Ohio man, and the cheering was greater than ever. The confusion was so great that it was almost impossible Jo go on with the call. The delegations of Maryland, Massachu setts, Michigan, Minnesota and Mississippi each insisted on an individual roll-call, and the Elaine and Sherman votes nearly all turned up for Gar- field. Conkling was dodging about a good deal at this time, but it dawned upon the Grant men that all was up with them. They were, well dis ciplined, however, and hung together all the way down the call. It was getting down to Pennsyl vania. Cameron sat imperturbable in the midst of his delegates, and was repeatedly urged to cast the solid Pennsylvania delegation for Elaine on this ballot. This would have prevented the nomi nation of Garfield on that ballot, at least, and might have stayed the Garfield cyclone by getting Elaine back on the track; but Cameron at this time would not acknowledge that Garfield could go through as he did go. "Ohio was finally called. The delegation had JAMES A. GARFIELD. 477 been thrown into confusion and it was some time in getting* around, but it finally turned up with forty-three for Garfield, the missing delegate being Garfield himself. The convention relapsed into cheers again, but recovered in a moment to hear General Beaver announce the Pennsylvania vote as thirty-seven fqr Grant, twenty-one for Garfield. Gordon had swung around to Grant, and Hays, who had voted for Elaine, felt himself released when Maine virtually put him out of the field, and went with the Grant people. The Grant men got in a little cheer here, but it was of short life. As the call went on, as well as it could in the confusion, the Elaine delegates wheeled into line for Garfield. Vermont was wildly cheered when the ten Edmunds votes swung around, and Wisconsin s eighteen following shortly after, gave the man from Ohio a majority of the whole number. "The thousands had kept tally and knew this. There was a momentary hush, as if the seven or eight thousand people were taking breath, and then the storm burst, and while the cheering went on the banners of the several States were borne to the placed/where Ohio s delegation sat, Garfield in the midst of them, and there was a scene almost equal to that of mid-night on Fri day. The band was playing The Battle-Cry of Freedom at the lower end of the hall, and when the cheerinof subsided for a moment the air was o 47 > LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF taken up and sung in chorus by thousands of voices. Everywhere flags were waving and on the outside of the building cannon were booming and thousands were cheering. This went on for a quarter of an hour, during which time Conkling sat in his place at the head of his delegation with out show of emotion of any sort. Efforts were made to get Garfield out, but he remained hidden in the midst of his Ohio friends." The ballot resulted as tabulated : States. Vote. Grant. Blainc. Sherman. Washburnc. Garfield. Alabama 20 16 4 Arkansas 12 12 California 12 ... 12 Colorado 6 6 Connecticut 12 ... i ... ... n Delaware 6 ... 6 Florida 8 8 Georgia 22 8 10 3 ... i Illinois 42 24 6 ... 5 7 Indiana 30 i ... ... ... 29 Iowa 22 ... ... ... ... 22 Kansas 10 4 ... ... ... 6 Kentucky 24 20 i ... ... 3 Louisiana 16 8 ... ... ... 8 Maine 14 ... ... 14 Maryland 16 6 ... ... ... 10 Massachusetts 26 4 ... ... ... 22 Michigan 22 i ... ... ... 21 Minnesota 10 2 ... ... ... 8 Carried forward, 330 120 40 3 5 162 JAMES A. GARFIELD. ^ _ States. Vote. Grant. Bbtae. Sherman. Wachborae. Garfidd Brought forward,33o 120 40 3 5 162 Mississippi 16 7 ... ... ... 9 Missouri 30 29 ... ... ... i Nebraska. 6 ... ... ... ... 6 Nevada. 62 i ... ... 3 New Hampshire. 10 New Jersey 18 ... ... 18 New York.... 70 50 ... ... ... 20 North Carolina.. 20 5 ... ... ... 15 Ohio 44 ... ... ... ... 43 Pennsylvania.... 58 37 ... ... ... 21 Rhode Island.... 8 Sooth Carolina... 14 * ... ... ... 6 Tennessee 24 15 i 8 16 13 _ 3 10 ... ... ... ... 10 Virginia 22 19 ... ... ... 3 West Virginia.... 10 i ... ... ... 9 Dakota 2 2 Dis t of Columbia 2 ... ... 2 Idaho 2 ... ... 2 M .r.:i-.: 2 ... ... ... ... 2 New Mexico 2 ... ... 2 Utah 2 ... ... 2 Washington 2 ... 2 ".Vy ^rr.ir.i- 2 ... ... ... ... 2 TofaL- 755 306 42 3 5 ::> This was the thirty-sixth and last ballot taken, 480 IFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF and completed a remarkable series of votes. In detail they were as here given : BALLOT. I .. . ! 7O4 a *> Elaine. c jl in I j 7O ^ Edmunds. IO * , 1 &!-*& I |l 3 i! 15 tt <1 rt 2 282 04 71 IO 282 07 J 7T 72 IO A 28l OS 71 72 Tn j 70S 28l OS 71 72 IO 6 70S 280 OS 72 IO 2 7... . 70S 04 71 72 IO 2 8 . 706 284 01 72 71 IO I 0... . 708 282 QO 72 10 2 io 282 02 77 71 IO II II . 70S 28l 07 j-j 72 O 71 IO 2 I 12 . 7O4 287 02 77 71 IO I I 17 70S 28s 80 77 71 IO I I 14... *^J 80 7S * 71 IO . 7OO 281 88 76 71 IO 16 . 706 287 88 76 71 IO 17... . 7O7 284 QO 76 71 IO I 18 . 70S 787 01 O v 7S IO 10... . 70S 270 06 72 71 IO I I 20 . 7o8 276 07 71 IO I i 70S 276 06 7S 71 IO 22 . 70S /** 27S yu 07 OD O L IO I I 27... . 7O4 27S 07 ft 71 IO 2 24... . 70S 270 07 7S 71 IO 2 2S.., . 7O2 281 04 7S 71 IO 2 26 . 70} 280 07 76 71 IO 2 27... . 706 277 07 71 IO 2 28 7O7 270 OI 71 IO 2 2Q... . .70S 278 7 116 is O 12 7 2 . JAMES A. GARFIELD. BALLOT. 3O... O . 306 4 H 270 1 1 2O I 1 33 1 1 1 J A w Garfield. Hayes. \ t Jf-fc i S ^ i* 31.., . 308 TT8 37 II 7 I ... . 32... . 3OO 27O H7 44 1 1 7 I ... . 33... . 3OO no 44 1 1 A I ... 34... 312 27C IO7 3O 1 1 \ I 7 jcr, . 31 3 2C7 00 23 II CQ .36... 0*0 . 306 42 J J 3 * J C. 300 . At the announcement of Garfield s nomination, the people again stood upon the benches to hur rah and yell in the old way. In the midst of it, the tall form of Logan rose up and sought to catch the eye of the President. Conkling was standing in the aisle seeking the same thing. As soon as order was restored, the latter was recognized, and in a husky voice, sadly in contrast with his tones before the result, he said : " MR. CHAIRMAN: James A. Garfield, of Ohio, having received a majority of all the votes cast, I rise to move that he be unanimously presented as the nominee of the convention. The chair, under the rules, anticipated me, but being on my feet I avail myself of the "opportunity to congratu late the Republican party of the nation on the good-natured and well-tempered disposition which has distinguished this animated convention. [Cries of Louder! from the galleries.] I should like to speak louder, but having sat here under a cold 482 LIFE AXD PUBLIC CAREER OF wind I find myself unable to do so. I was aboi to say, Mr. Chairman, that I trust that the zee the fervor and now the unanimity of the scenes < the convention will be transplanted to the field ( the country, and that all of us who have borne a pa against each other will be found with equal ze; bearing the banners and carrying the lances < the Republican party into the ranks of the enemy [Applause.] As he sat down, John A. Logan got up an spoke: " GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION: We are to b congratulated at having arrived at a conclusion i respect to presenting the name of a candidate t be the standard-bearer of the Republican part for President of the United States in union an harmony with each other. Whatever may hav transpired in this convention that may have prc duced feelings of annoyance will be, I hope, cor sidered as a matter of the past. I, with th friends of one of the grandest men on the face c the earth, stood here to fight a friendly battle fo his nomination, but this convention has chose another leader and the men who stood by Gran will be seen in the front of the contest for Mi Garfield. [Cheers.] We will go forward in th contest, not with tied hands, not with sealed lips not with bridled tongues, but to speak the trutl in favor of the grandest party that has ever beei organized in this country, to maintain its prin JAMES A. GARFIELD. . g ^ ciples, to uphold its power, to preserve its as cendency, and my judgment is that, with the leader whom you have chosen, victory will perch on our banners. [Cheers.] As one of the Re publicans from Illinois I second the nomination of James A. Garfield and hope it will be made unani mous." [Cheers.] Two of the senatorial triumvirate, the grand trio that had come to Chicago to nominate Grant and had been defeated, had now spoken. Penn sylvania was wanted to complete it. General Beaver a minute later rose, stood in his delegation and addressed the vast gathering: "The State of Pennsylvania having had the honor of first nominating in this convention the gentleman who has been chosen as the standard- bearer of the Republican party in the approaching national contest, I rise to second the motion which has been made to make the nomination unani mous, and to assure this convention and the peo ple of the country that Pennsylvania is heartily in accord with the nomination [cheers]; that she gives her full concurrence to it, and that this country may expect from her the greatest major ity that has been given for a Presidential candi date in many years." Then the defeated leader of the Elaine forces, Eugene Hall, stepped into the line and spoke for his friends: "Standing here to return our heartfelt thanks LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OP to the many men in this convention who have aided us in the fight that we made for the senator from Maine, and speaking for them here, as I know that I do, I say this most heartily. We have not got the man whom we hoped to nominate when we came here, but we have got a man in whom we have the greatest and most marked con fidence. The nominee of this convention is no new or untried man, and in that respect he is no dark horse. When he came here representing his State in the front of his delegation, and was seen here, every man knew him, because of his record ; and because of that, and because of our faith in him, and because we were, in the emer gency, glad to help make him the candidate of the Republican party for President of the United States ; because, I say, of these things I stand here to pledge the Maine forces in this convention to earnest efforts from now until the ides of Novem ber to help carry him to the Presidential chair." [Cheers.] The nomination was then made unanimous, amid the wildest excitement, and at half-past two a recess was taken until five P. M. The evening session was short, and resulted in the choice of Chester A. Arthur, of New York, for the second place on the ticket, and the convention adjourned sine die, after one of the most gigantic political struggles ever recorded. Here, for amoment, we must turn aside to re- JAMES A. GARFIELD. 4S5 late a little incident, that had just happened in another city. General Garfield owns a residence, as the reader knows, in Washington. During his absence it was occupied by his private stenog rapher, Mr. George W. Rose. This gentleman says: "On the day of the general s nomination for President, at about the very moment of absolute time (as the Signal Service Bureau would say) that the nomination was made , allowing for the difference in longitude between here and Chicago, a magnificent bald eagle, after circling round the Park, swooped down and rested on the general s house. One of my children was playing out of doors at the time, and ran in to call the attention of the family to this striking spectacle. Several of the family and myself went out and saw the source of the child s wonder. Before the eagle rose from its strange perch a dozen people noticed and commented upon it. An old Roman would have seen in this an augury of the most inspiring character. But we Americans are free from su perstitions, and so it was a mere coincidence. Yet, as a coincidence, a most inspiriting one. 486 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF CHAPTER XXXIII. HOW IT HAPPENED AND WHAT WAS SAID OF IT. THE nomination of General Garfield was an entirely spontaneous movement. He was not put in nomination with any thunders of eloquence he had no long 1 list of politicians tc urge and manage his candidacy. He did not seek the place, it sought him. He was not a candidate for the nomination. When his name first came to be mentioned in connection with the office, he caused to be published in. the Cleveland Herald the following: "We are authorized to say that all statements made either in the press or by private persons, that General Garfield has changed his views in re gard to the canvass of Secretary Sherman for the Presidency, are absolutely without foundation, General Garfield is not, and will not be a candi date for President, and stands squarely and flatly upon his letter recommending the Republicans ol Ohio to give their united vote in favor of John Sherman for President. He believes that Mr. Sherman is the choice of a large majority of the party in the State, and that the highest political wisdom, and best interests of the Republicans will be advanced by sending a unanimous delega- JAMES A. GARFIELD. 4 ,s 7 tion from Ohio in his favor. We do not make this statement because we needed any assurance that General Garfield was the firm and devoted friend of Mr. Sherman, or that he had changed his views of the propriety and fitness of Mr. Sher man s nomination, but as so many statements have been made and telegraphic specials printed, calculated to mislead the public, we desire to put the whole question at rest by an authoritative statement. "General Garfield will continue to give Secre tary Sherman his sincere, earnest and hearty sup port, and will be personally gratified if all his friends and those who are influenced by his wishes or opinions, would aid in securing for Mr. Sher man a united delegation from the State of Ohio." In the convention all that was said about him was when Grier, the Pennsylvania delegate, on the second ballot, got up and said, "I nominate and vote for James A. Garfield," an announce ment perfectly in keeping with the character of the man for whom it was made. This was all until Wisconsin broke for him and the tide set in that landed him in the victor s seat. A day or two after the great event, an intimate friend of the nominee related how it happened. "It was mani fest from the start," said he, "that Garfield was a favorite with a large majority of them. It was also noticed that leading visitors at the convention were talking in that direction 2Q 488 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF "Four days previous to the great upheaval, Judge Hoar, one of the best informed men in the country, and who had large personal acquaintance among the delegates, remarked: If the delegates were walled up separately and allowed no commu nication with each other, following out the custom at the Vatican in electing a pope, voting a secret ballot, General Garfield would receive two-thirds of the votes of the delegates present. The friends of the several candidates, of which there properly were three, seemed to lead out each with the firm conviction that by a long trial there would occur a break among the others. It be came apparent that the contest would be one simply of endurance. The forces were under a remarkable discipline, a wave of a hand from Mr, Conkling or the other leaders being enough tc subside any one. Even Logan was in this wa) motioned clown by a wave of the hand of the Duke of New York. " As Grant was in the lead, it was apparent that his friends could not consistently break anc go to any other candidate. It was clear after the second day that Mr. Elaine and Mr. Sherman ^ chances were hopeless. The friends of both, how ever, you know, remained firm, hoping that eacl other would give way. " It was evident from confidential expression? by many delegates that Mr. Garfield was reall) the first choice of more than half of the delegates JAMES A. GARFIELD. including many Grant men. He had placed him self in the front squarely against the unit rule. Blaine, Washburne and other anti-Grant men came to Garfield s friends hourly and said, Why don t you Ohio men take up Garfield ? We will vote for him. In every instance they were met with the reply, * We have come to urge the claims of John Sherman for the nomination. We be lieve him a strong candidate. The Blaine men said : * Why ask us to turn to Sherman ? We are more than three times your number. You, who believing- with us that it would be unwise to nom- o inate General Grant, should unite with us and nominate Mr. Blaine. "The Sherman men counseled among them selves and concluded to hold out still longer. Fi nally, on the day preceding the final break, the Wis consin delegates came to the Ohio men in a state of excitement and determination, and said : If you Ohio delegates will not bring out General Gar- field, we shall ! Some of the Ohio people were anxious to do this, but, under the circumstances, simply replied: Garfield is a great favorite in Ohio, and nothing would please us more than to vote for him, but as we came here to urge the nomination of Mr. Sherman, we shall use all hon orable means to secure that end. " At one or two ballats on the following morn ing it became plain that something was about to occur, and the convention had reached the begin- A go LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF ning of the end. The Elaine forces felt that they had gone as far as the most ardent supporters of Mr. Elaine could ask. All parties were anxious to go home. Wisconsin s response, fourteen votes for James A. Garfield, caused a ripple of surprise and joy to sweep over the faces of the delegates, and the cheers from the gallery demonstrated Gar- field s popularity in that vast audience. When the roll of States was called, a sudden stillness settled over the audience, and as the State of Indiana was called, General Harrison stepped upon the bench and in a clear, ringing voice, said : Twenty-nine votes for James A. Garfield. Iowa was called, and another voice rang out : * Twenty-two votes for General Garfield. "The crowd then gathered around General Garfield and attempted to get him up to speak, but the general sat perfectly composed, and sim ply replied : No, no, gentlemen ; this is no theat rical performance, and their efforts were unavail ing. The scene that followed has already been described. "As the convention took a recess previous to nominating the Vice-President, a great crowd gathered at the outer door, and it was with the utmost difficulty that General Garfield gained a carriage. An incident occurring there is worthy of publication. As Garfield entered the carriage, in company with Governor Foster, the crowd surged around in a state of intense enthusiasm, JAMES A. GARFIELD. 49 I and shouted : Take off the horses ; we will pull the carriage. The driver, who at the time was not aware whom he was carrying, whipped up to get away from the men, who had already com menced to unfasten the harness. He cleared the space several feet, but was overhauled again, and the dazed driver, now thoroughly frightened, ap plied his whip with renewed energy, and clearing the crowd, pushed for the Palmer House. " General Garheld was unfeignedly surprised at the turn affairs had taken in the convention, and his countenance bore a grave and thoughtful ex pression. He made but few remarks relative to the causes leading to his nomination, and I know o positively that he would listen to no overtures from the delegates who so heartily placed him in nomination. He has not recovered from his sur prise yet." It was indeed a surprise, coming, as it did, so entirely unsought. During the first minutes after the result, and while yet the general was busy shaking hands with the hundreds around him, he turned to a correspondent of the Cleveland Herald, and said : " I wish you would say that this is no act of mine. I wish you would say that I have done everything and omitted nothing to secure Secretary Sherman s nomination. I want it plainly understood that I have not sought this nomination, and have protested against the use of my name. If Senator Hoar had permitted, I would have for- 492 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF bidden anybody to vote for me. But he took me off my feet before I had said what I intended. I am very sorry it has occurred, but if my position is fully explained, a nomination, coming unsought and unexpected like this, will be the crowning gratification of .my life." The news carried by wire from Chicago, sent a thrill of pleasure through the land. Everywhere the nomination was received with manifestations of great delight. Some forty telegrams reached the nominee before he left the convention hall, and before he slept that Tuesday night, more than a thousand more had winged their w r ay to him. This came from the White House: EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, June 8th. GENERAL JAMES A. GARFIELD : You will receive no heartier congratulation to-day than mine. This both for your own and your country s sake. R. B. HAYES. Ever}* member of the Cabinet, Senator Elaine and hosts of other distinguished characters in the councils of the nation, telegraphed most candid congratulations. The National House of Representatives, on the last day of the convention, was occupied with a discussion on the erection of a public building, and a motion to adjourn was made. During the calling of the roll there was a great deal of excite ment shown by the members over the convention JAMES A. GARFIELD. 493 news, and when Garfield s name was called it was greeted with applause on both the Republican and Democratic sides of the chamber. The an nouncement, which came in soon afterward, that Garfield had been nominated, was received with loud cheers and applause from the members, who had assembled in the lobby back of the Speaker s desk, and the confusion was so great that the roll- call was interrupted. Members gathered in groups and discussed the nomination of Garfield, which appeared to meet with almost universal ap proval from the Republicans and which was con ceded by the Democrats to be a strong one. The second call of Garfield s name was the signal for a burst of applause from the Republicans. The motion was finally carried and accordingly the House at half-past two adjourned. Cheers for Garfield were then given, while cries of "Speech from Hawley," and " Hawley for vice-president" went up, but that gentleman did not respond. Mr. Robeson. I move that General Hawley take the chair. Carried unanimously, amid loud cheers. When Hawley took the chair the House presented a curious sight. Every chair was occu pied, the seats of the absent members being filled by spectators, who, upon the adjournment, had crowded into the hall, while in the rear of the seats were groups of men evidently full of excite ment. 494 LIFE AyD PUBLIC C A REEK OF Mr. Hawley, on taking the chair, said: "I be leave to say that we occupy the floor with the kinc consent of our friends on the right, who will have their opportunity by and by." [Laughter; cries of "Speech! Speech!"] Mr. Hawley. I have no speech to make. The nomination made at Chicago is its own speech, for every Republican of this House, and our personal good-will goes with our old friend and associate, General Garfield. [Applause.] I have no doubt, from what I have seen and heard, that this event this consummation is in the very highest de gree satisfactory to every Republican here, what ever may have been his personal preference. [Applause.] We have been warmly divided in the past ; we will be much more warmly united in the future. [Loud applause.] I think one result will be I am supposing that there are no Demo crats here to compel an excellent nomination on the other side, so that the country we all love will be certain of a good President for the next four years, personally, whatever his political opinions may be. [Loud applause, in which the Democrats joined.] Mr. Robeson was then loudly called for, and that gentleman responding, said: "As members of the American Congress A Democrat. Both sides ? Mr. Robeson, continuing. Both sides I think we have a right to congratulate the whole country JAMES A. GARFIELD. 495 that a man we all know to be a man of character and capacity beyond impeachment has been nomi nated by one of the great political parties for the highest office in the gift of the people. [Ap plause.] Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I speak in acknowledgment on behalf of the House of Rep resentatives that one of our number, conspicuous before the people on account of his services on this floor, has been selected as the standard-bearer of the great political party to which I belong. That is a sentiment which affects neither the poli tics nor the feelings of anybody, and I ask every body within the reach of my voice to join me in giving three cheers for the candidate selected from our body as the candidate of a great party. [The Republicans rose and gave the three cheers with a will, but the Democrats, though joining in the cheering, retained their seats.] I move, Mr. Chairman, that a committee be appointed, and I suggest as its chairman the oldest member of the House Judge Kelley, of Pennsylvania to send by telegraph our congratulations to our fellow ^Congressman on his nomination. [Applause.] Cries then went up for "Kelley," and Chairman Hawley stated that Mr. Kelley would have occu pied the chair, but that he had not been present. Mr. Kelley. I have been in that chair but once, though I have been here nineteen years, and then I felt so like a fool that I never got into it again. [Laughter.] I thank the gentleman from New 496 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF Jersey (Robeson) and his associates on this floor for having delegated to me the chairmanship of the committee to which has been confided so grateful a duty. I beg leave to inform the chair man and the House that, taking advantage of cir cumstances, I slipped out when Garfield was at 338 and sent the following telegram: "Accept congratulations and pledge of earnest support." [Applause.] I rejoice most heartily in this nom ination. General Garfield is a man of rare force of character, of wide attainments, of great simpli city, and a man who adheres as firmly as a true party man ever did to his personal convictions, and our friends on the other side, in the dejection which now overcomes them, while a bad nomina tion for them is possible, will find satisfaction in knowing that they know the man to be one who will administer the government faithfully, fairly and patriotically after we shall have inaugurated him. [Applause.] The chair appointed Kelley, Robeson, Browne, Martin (N. C), Page, Richardson (N. Y.), and Henderson (Illinois) as the committee to send a congratulatory telegram to Garfield. The happiness of the people was everywhere echoed by the press. The New York Tribune said : " With its best judgment the Tribune approves, with its heartiest enthusiasm the Tribune applauds the work of the Chicago Convention. With JAMES A. GARFIELD. whatever power it possesses it will commend that work to the people, and labor unceasingly for a triumphant ratification at the polls." The staunch old Boston Advertiser, represent ing the best element of the Republican party in New England, thus spoke for its constituents : "The Republican party has a candidate for Presi dent of -whom it may be proud, a man of ability, experience and conscience. The nomination of General Garfield cannot be too heartily welcomed by all who have the good of the party and of the country at heart, not merely as the most satisfac tory solution of the situation that was much to be regretted, but as one thoroughly good in itself. The nomination that has been made gives no such triumph to either of the supposed factions, as will excuse the other for manifesting the least hesita tion in accepting the result. General Garfield is not a man to excite antagonism. He has not al lied himself with any factional party, except as the supporter of the distinguished gentleman who was presented by his State. His name may well be the symbol of union and harmony which his can didacy will secure. General Garfield is a politi cian of the best sort a man with conscience. He is under obligations to no corps of workers for his nomination . He is bound by no pledge of any sort. He is tied to no clique. He will be a candidate of the whole Republican party, and President of the United States." 49* LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF The New York Grant organ, the Times, took this position : "The Chicago Convention has followed sundry familiar precedents in failing to select the strong est of the candidates presented to it. But from the second rank of available Republicans it has made a very excellent choice and one which has the great merit of uniting all sections of the party for a harmonious, aggressive and probably suc cessful, campaign. James A. Garfield has been too long in public life to have escaped injurious allegations against his personal character and bit ter attacks upon his political course, but he is strong in his freedom from intrigue to gain the nomination and in being able to accept it abso lutely free from disreputable alliances or embar rassing pledges. There are no bolters, scratchers or independents who bear the Republican name who cannot earnestly work and honestly vote for General Garfield, and there is no thorough-going Republican who will not accept him as a fit repre sentative of party principles, a faithful depository of the party trust. Whatever wounds may have been left by the nomination of the candidate for President, in virtue of a combination between the elements opposed to General Grant, ought to be healed by the nomination for Vice-President of that stalwart and steadfast Grant supporter, Ches ter A. Arthur. The Times recognizes in him a man eminently worthy of a wider spnere for his ability." JAMES A. GARFIELD. The Cincinnati Gazette voiced Ohio : " This decision, although quickly executed, was the most rational and, in our view, the most suc cessful conclusion- of the situation. It was no blind impulse, no recourse of reckless disappoint ment, no effort of revenge, no blindfold saddling of a dark horse, no trifling with the fate of the party by hasty resentment, no leap in the dark, no straining of the allegiance of intelligent Repub licans by jerking into the nomination a man un known to fame ; it was the nomination of a man of national reputation, whose abilities have earned him the recognized place of leader of the House of Representatives ; of a man than whom no one could better harmonize all the contending factions in the convention ; a man who is the peer of any, who is himself a part of all that is good and glori ous in the history of the Republican party, who deserves all the honor that belongs to the patriotic and successful soldier, who was a statesman thor oughly identified with all civil institutions before he left a successful political career to serve his coun try in war, and who has in his character and pub lic services as much of those qualities which draw the intelligent enthusiasm of the people for the man they have chosen for leader as any man whom either of the several parties in the conven tion could have named. Therefore do we hail the nomination as a great deliverance and as a regen erating triumph for the Republican party/ 500 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF From the Chicago Times came this outburst: " In the language of the politicians, the nomina tion of Mr. Garfield is a strong one, an uncom monly strong one. It is one that brings together and unites all the lately hostile factions of the party and removes all the bitterness engendered by the fierce contest among rival aspirants that must have had effect on the result had the nomina tion fallen to any one of them. It preordains the electoral decision in Ohio and makes Indiana de batable ground, even with the strongest man the opposite party could present. It satisfies the hard-money sentiment at the East, for Mr. Gar- field is a supporter of an honest money system, no less positive and uncompromising than Gen eral Grant. Moreover, his election most probably would continue Mr. Sherman at the head of the Treasury, a consideration of much importance to commercial and business interests. Those who imagine that Mr. Garfield is a candidate to be o easily defeated will find that they are under a serious delusion. His nomination is a much stronger one than that of Grant, or Elaine, or Sherman would have been. It is doubtful, indeed, if the convention could have named a more avail able man." The Tribune, a strong Elaine paper, answered for the country in this way: "From one end of the nation to the other, from distant Oregon to Texas, from Maine to Arizona, JAMES A. GARFIELD. lightning has informed the country of the nomina tion yesterday of General James A. Garfield, as the Republican candidate for the Presidency. Never was a nomination made which has been received by friend and foe with such evidence of hearty re spect, admiration and confidence. The applause is universal. Even the Democratic House of Representatives suspended its business that it might congratulate the country upon the nomina tion of the distinguished leader of the Republi cans. James Abraham Garfield is, in the popular mind, one of the foremost statesmen of the na tion. He is comparatively a young man, but in his service he commands the confidence and ad miration of his countrymen of all parties. His ability, his thorough study and his long practical experience in political matters gives an assurance to the country that he will carry to the Presiden tial office a mind superior, because of its natural qualifications and training, to any that has pre ceded him for many years. He will be a Presi dent worthy in every sense to fill the office in a way that the country will like to see it filled with ability, learning, experience and integrity. That General Garfield will be elected we have no question. He is a candidate worthy of election, and will command not only every Republican vote in the country, but the support of tens of thou sands of non-partisans who want to see a Presi dent combining intellectual ability with learning, experience and ripe statesmanship." - 02 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF In the other centres of the political and social life of the land, the same flattering reception was accorded the ticket. Many distinguished men spoke of it heartily, commending the statesman at its head. We have not, unfortunately, space to print what was said. The nominee s old com mander, General Rosecrans, remarked on hearing the news: "I consider General Garfield head and shoulders above any of the men named before the convention, and far superior to any of the politi cal managers upon the floor. He is a man with broad views, has always been a consistent Repub lican, and has a clean record. I cannot believe that James A. Garfield was ever guilty of a dis honest act. As the campaign progresses, it will be found, if it is not now acknowledged, that Gar- field is a hard man to beat." Mr. W. D. Howells, the editor of the Atlantic Monthly, wrote us : " Among all the classes whom his nomination has gratified, I think the literary class is first. We feel that all the good things which the Hayes administration has done for humanity and civilization will find their continu ance and furtherance in his, and that he will per petuate the order of perfect honesty, intelligence and decency which Mr. Hayes has established in public life. I may tell you that Mr. Longfellow has repeatedly expressed his pleasure in Garfield s nomination. I had once the fortune to bring them together, and Mr. Longfellow was strongly im- JAMES A. GARFIELD. 503 pressed with the fine and generous qualities, men tal and moral, which every one recognizes in the candidate of our party." At Williams College the students went wild over the nomination, and within twenty-four hours after the result was announced, a Garfield club was organized, with a membership of three hun dred. A ratification meeting was held in the even ing, and the students sang, as a chorus to " March ing through Georgia," the following: tc Hurrah ! hurrah ! we ll shout for General G. ! Hurrah ! hurrah ! a Williams man was he, And so we ll sing the chorus from old Williams to the sea, t And we ll cast a vote for General Garfield." We have sampled the enthusiasm of the coun try for the nominee, as it appeared in various forms, and it will not seem mal a propos if we con clude this chapter with a song that Garfield s nomi nation called forth from Mr. W. O. Stoddard, in allusion to Garfield s remark at the battle of Mid dle Creek: " In one h9t fight that Garfield won, The loyal-souled commander Sent back a word among his men That stirred up all their dander. " He was not quite so fast to cuss And swear around as some be, And all he said was, Come on boys ! We ll give em Hail Columby ! " He led, they followed, spreading wide Among the rebels routed, From rank to rank, in liberal gift, The self-same thing he shouted. 30 504. LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER Of " Year after year, a leader still, In camp, and field, and forum, His feet beside his colors tread As when the bullets tore em. " Year after year upon his lips, Through every contest ringing, The men who follow hear, as when The shells were o er him singing. " The words that harsh to many an ear, But bugle-sweet to some be ; For peace or war a charging-cry, 1 Boys, give em Hail Columby 1 " JAMES A. GARPIELD. CHAPTER XXXIV. A TOUR. OF TRIUMPH. THE great result achieved, the nominee placed before the country, the nation began to demonstrate its satisfaction at the selection. From the hall of the convention the tide of congratulation followed General Gar- field to his hotel. It had been announced that he would leave Chicago for home at five o clock P. M., and General Butterworth was assigned the duty of providing a procession to accompany him to the station. Wisconsin, the first State to break for him, volunteered cheerfully, and the thousands of Ohioans in town were no less ready. A band was provided, and everything was prepared, when the general decided to stay until morning. In order to avoid the press of congratulations, he engaged parlors on another corridor, the knowl edge of which was confined to a few. The Wis consin delegates, however, became apprised of it, and soon a throng hundreds ^trong was marching through the rooms for the purpose of shaking hands with the distinguished man who was the centre of all interest. Among the callers was a tall, somewhat intoxi- 506 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF cated Ohioan, who, not content with a shake of the general s hand, threw himself upon the neck of the astonished candidate as though he had found his long-lost brother. "I do it, general, because I love you so. I can t help it," he re peated several times before he relinquished his close embrace. "The old Forty-second Ohio is having things her own. way. A int she?" he ex claimed enthusiastically, making a movement toward repeating the embrace. The general de clined with dignity. One of the Ohio men came up wearing the red badge, which had already been struck off, bearing the words : " For Presi dent, James A. Garfield." The wearer called the attention of the owner of the name. " That re minds me of a saying of Holmes," the general said. " He wrote that three things require age wine, meerschaum pipes and poetry. That badge might be added to the list. It s too new yet. I can t realize it." When asked if he would re spond to the demands that were already coming in for a speech, he said, " There is not power enough in Chicago to draw a speech out of me to-day." In the evening, after the second place on the ticket had been filled, in deference to the wishes of many delegates, the general held a reception. A magnificent stand of flowers was upon the table, and beside this the nominee stood for an hour. The stream of congratulations was inces- o JAMES A. GARFIELD. 507 sant many ladies in elaborate evening toilette adding brilliancy to the event, and vieing with the men in the fervor of their declarations of satis faction. In accepting the. congratulations, the general bore himself with quiet dignity, seldom extending his replies beyond the hope that the nomination might prove acceptable to the Repub lican party and the country. Later a serenade was tendered him, for which he merely bowed his thanks. Near midnight, Senator Hoar, at the head of the committee appointed to notify General Gar- field, appeared at the Grand Pacific, and notifying the general of his nomination, received the follow ing reply : " MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN : I assure you that the information you have officially given to me brings the sense of very grave responsibility, and especially so in view of the fact that I was a member of your body, a fact that could not have existed with propriety had I had the slightest ex pectation that my name would be connected with the nomination for the office. I have felt, with you, great solicitude concerning the situation of our party during the struggle ; but, believing that you are correct in assuring me that substantial unity has been reached in the conclusion, it gives me a gratification far greater than any personal pleasure your announcement can bring. " I accept the trust committed to my hands. As 5o8 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF to the work of our party, and as to the character of the campaign to be entered upon, I will take an early occasion to reply more fully than I can properly do to-night. " I thank you for the assurances of confidence and esteem you have presented to me, and hope we shall see our future as promising as are indi cations to-night." The next morning, General Garfield started for home. From the hotel to the station it was a con stant ovation. He left for Cleveland in a special car, accompanied by a number of intimate personal friends, among whom were Governor Charles Fos ter, of Ohio ; S. T. Everett, President of the Second National Bank of Cleveland ; General Joseph Bar rett, an old military friend of General Garfield, he having been chief of artillery in the armies of Rose- crans and Thomas ; Colonel D. G. Swain, Judge Advocate of the United States Army, formerly of the Forty-second Ohio Volunteers (Garfield s regiment) ; Lieutenant-Colonel L. A. Sheldon, Mayor W. H. Williams and Captain Charles T. Henry, all of whom were also officers of Garfield s regiment. At Laporte, Indiana, the first stopping place of any consequence, many hundreds of peo ple, with a brass band, had collected to salute him as he passed. Governor Foster introduced him, and he was received with deafening cheers. At South Bend, at Elkhart, at Goshen, at Kendal- ville, at Waterloo and at Butler, the scenes were . , JAMES A. GAR FIELD. c i i repeated, the themehonor to Garfield being ever the same. Crossing into Ohio, at Edgerton the greetings broke out afresh. When he reached Cleveland, an immense demonstration awaited his arrival, and the whole city was alive with a glad enthusiasm. Among the first of his callers there was the Hon. Henry W. Payne. Just before he left for Chicago he promised to deliver an address at the commencement exer cises of Hiram College. The morning after his arrival in Cleveland he journeyed quietly to the little village of Hiram, the modest little town where he had been a bell-ringer, and a student, and a college president. Here he met his wife, for the first time since the acquirement of his latest and greatest honor, and at the very house where their acquaintance began. It was a touching meeting ; his wife, his children, the students and old friends gathered about him. Baring his head, the great statesman said : "FELLOW-CITIZENS, OLD NEIGHBORS AND FRIENDS OF MANY YEARS : It has always given me pleasure to come back here and look upon these faces. It has always given me new courage and new friends, for it has brought back a large share of that rich ness which belongs to those things out of which come the joys of life. "While sitting here this afternoon, watching your faces and listening to the very interesting address which has just been delivered, it has oc- c j 9 LIPE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF curred to me that the least thing you have, that all men have enough of, is perhaps the thing that you care for the least, and that is your leisure the leisure you have to think ; the leisure you have to be let alone ; the leisure you have to throw the plummettinto your mind, and sound the depth and dive for things below; the leisure you have to walk about the towers yourself, and find how strong they are or how weak they are, to de termine what needs building up ; how to work, and how to know all that shall make you the final beings you are to be. Oh, these hours of building ! "If the Superior Being of the universe would look down upon the world to find the most inter esting object, it would be the unfinished, unformed character of the young man or young woman. Those behind me have probably in the main set tled this question. Those who have passed into middle manhood and middle womanhood are about what they shall always be, and there is but little left of interest, as their characters are all p developed. "But to your young and your yet unformed natures, no man knows the possibilities that lie before you in your hearts and intellects; and, while you are working out the possibilities with that splendid leisure that you need, you are to be most envied. I congratulate you on your leisure. I commend you to treat it as your gold, as your JAMES A. GARFIELD. r l r wealth, as your treasure, out of which you can draw all possible treasures that can be laid down when you have your natures unfolded and devel oped in the possibilities of the future. "This place is too full of memories for me to trust myself to speak upon, and I will not. But I draw again to-day, as I have for a quarter of a century, life, evidence of strength, confidence and affection from the people who gather in this place. I thank you for the permission to see you and meet yo.u and greet you as I have done to-day." After a few days of rest at his winter home, General Garfield journeyed on to Washington, and everywhere along the route he was received with enthusiasm. The night after he arrived he was serenaded at his hotel, and the response to the cheers which his presence evoked from the crowd, was in these words: " FELLOW-CITIZENS : While I have looked upon this great array, I believe I have gotten a new idea of the majesty of the American people When I reflect that wherever you find sovereign power every reverent heart on this earth bows before it, and when I remember that here for a hundred years we have denied the -sovereignty of any man, and in place of it we have asserted the sovereignty of all in place of one, I see before me so vast a concourse that it is easy for me to imagine that the rest of the American people are, gathered here to-night, and if they were all here. CJ6 LIFE AND 2*UBLIC C ./AV./.A OF every man would stand uncovered, all in unsan- daled feet in presence of the majesty of the only sovereign power in this Government under Al mighty God. [Cheers.] And, therefore, to this great audience I pay the respectful homage that in part belongs to the sovereignty of the people. I thank you for this great and glorious demonstra tion. I am not, for one moment, misled into be lieving that it refers to so poor a thing as any one of our number. I know it means your reverence for your Government, your reverence for its laws", your reverence for its institutions, and your com pliment to one who is placed for a moment in relations to you of peculiar importance. For all these reasons I thank you. I cannot at this time utter a word on the subject of general politics. I would not mar the cordiality of this welcome, to which to some extent all are gathered, by any reference except to the present moment and its significance ; but I wish to say that a large portion of this assemblage to-night are my comrades, late of the war for the Union. For them I can speak with entire propriety, and can say that these very streets heard the measured tread of your dis ciplined feet, years ago, when the imperiled Re public needed your hands and your hearts to save it, and you came back with your numbers deci mated ; but those you left behind were immortal and glorified heroes forever; and those you brought back came, carrying under tattered ban- JAMES A. GARFIELD. - j \J f ners and in bronze hands the ark of the covenant of your Republic in safety out of the bloody bap tism of the war [cheers], and you brought it in safety to be saved forever by your valor and the wisdom of your brethren who were at home, and by this you were again added to the great civil army of the Republic. I greet you, comrades and fellow-soldiers, and the great body of distinguished citizens who are gathered here to-night, who are the strong stay and support of the business, of the prosperity, of the peace, of the civic ardor and glory of the Republic, and I thank you for your welcome to-night. It was said in a welcome to one who came to England to be a -part of her glory and all the nation spoke when it was said : p " Normans and Saxons and Danes are we, But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee. "And we say to-night, of all nations, of all the people, soldiers and civilians, there is one name that welds us all into one. It is the name of American citizen, under the union and under the glory of the flag that led us to victory and to peace. [Applause.] For this magnificent wel come I thank you with all there is in my heart." On the night following he was tendered a grand banquet, and the day after he returned to Mentor for rest. Not for long, however, as on July 3d he was present at the dedication of the Soldiers Monu- LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF ment at Painesville, where he. delivered the follow ing magnificent address : " FELLOW-CITIZENS : I cannot fail to respond on such an occasion in sight of such a monument to such a cause, sustained by such men. [Applause and cheers.] While I have listened to what my friend has said, two questions have been sweep ing through my heart. One was, What does the monument mean ? and the other, What will the monument teach ? Let me try and ask you for a moment, to help me answer what does the monu ment mean. Oh ! the monument means a world of memories, a world of deeds, and a world of tears, and a world of glories. You know, thous ands know, what it is to offer up yyour life to the country, and that is no small thing, as every soldier knows. Let me put the question to you : For a moment suppose your country in the aw fully embodied form of majestic law, should stand above you and say : I want your life. Come up here on the platform and offer it. How many would walk up before that majestic presence and say, Here I am, take this life and use it for your great needs. [Applause.] And yet almost two mil lions of men made that answer [applause], and a monument stands yonder to commemorate their answer. That is one of its meanings. But, my friends, let me try you a little further. To give up life is much, for it is to give up wife, and home, and child, and ambition. But let me test you this JAMES A. GARFIELD. c j g way further. Suppose this awfully majestic form should call out to you, and say, I ask you to give up health and drag yourself, not dead, but half alive, through a miserable existence for long years, until you perish and die in your crippled and hopeless condition. I ask you to volunteer to do that, and it calls for a higher reach of patriotism and self-sacrifice, but hundreds of thousands of you soldiers did that. That is what the monument means also. But let me ask you to go one step further. Suppose your country should say, Come here, on this platform, and in my name, and for my sake, consent to be idiots. [Voice Hear hear. ] Consent that your very brain and intellect shall be broken down into hope less idiocy for my sake/ How many could be found to make that venture ? And yet there are thousands, and that with their eyes wide open to the horrible consequences, obeyed that call. "And let me tell how one hundred thou sand of our soldiers were prisoners of war, and to many of them when death was stalking near, when famine was climbing up into their hearts, and idiocy was threatening all that was left of their intellects, the gates of their prison stood open every day, if they would quit, desert their flag and enlist under the flag of the enemy, and out of one hundred and eighty thousand not two per cent, ever received the liberation from death, starvation and all that might come to them; but they took 5-2O LIFE AND PUBLJC CAREER OF all these horrors and all these sufferings in pre ference to going back upon the flag of their coun try and the glory of its truth. [Applause.] Great God ! was ever such measure of patriotism reached by any man on this earth before? [Applause.] That is what your monument means. By the subtle chemistry that no man knows, all the blood that was shed by our brethren, all the lives that were devoted, all the grief that was felt, at last crystallized itself into granite rendered immortal, the great truth for which they died [applause], and it stands there to-day, and that is what your monument means. "Now, what does it teach? What will it teach? Why, I remember the story of one of the old con querors of Greece, who, when he had traveled in his boyhood over the battle-fields where Miltiades had won victories and set up trophies, returning he said: These trophies of Miltiades will never let me sleep. \Vhy, something had taught him from the chiseled stone a lesson that he could never forget, and, fellow-citizens, that silent sentinel, that crowned granite column will look down upon the boys that will walk these streets for generations to come, and will not let them sleep when their country calls them. [Applause.] More than the bugler on the field from his dead lips will go out a call that the children of Lake County will hear alter the grave has covered us all and our imme diate children. That is the teaching of your JAMES A. GARFIELD. 521 monument. That is its lesson, and it is the lesson of endurance for what we believe, and it is the lesson of sacrifices for what we think the lesson of heroism for what we mean to sustain and that lesson cannot be lost to a people like this. It is not a lesson of revenge, it is not a lesson of wrath, it is the grand, sweet, broad lesson of the immortality of the truth that we hope will soon cover as with the grand Shekinah of light and glory all parts of this Republic, from the lakes to the gulf. [Applause.] I once entered a house in old Massachusetts where, over its doors, were two crossed swords. One was the sword carried by the grandfather of its owner on the field of Bunker Hill and the other was the sword carried by the English grandsire of the wife, on the same field and on- the other side of the conflict. Under those crossed swords, in the restored harmony of domestic peace, lived a happy, and contented, and free family, under the light of our republican liberties. [Applause] I trust the time is not far distant when, under the crossed swords and the locked shields of Americans North and South, our people shall sleep in peace and rise in liberty, love and har mony under the union of our flag of the Stars and Stripes." Once more he comes before the country, his latest words, in the following sterling pronuncia- miento of Republican doctrines and belief, his r 22 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF letter of acceptance, which was given to the public July i 2th. MENTOR, Ohio, July loth, 1880. Dear Sir: On the evening of the 8th of June last I had the honor to receive from you, in the presence of the committee of which you were chairman, the offi cial announcement that the Republican National Convention at Chicago had that day nominated me for their candidate for President of the United States. I accept the nomination with gratitude for the confidence it implies and with a deep sense of the responsibilities it imposes. I cordially in dorse the principles set forth in the platform adopted by the convention. On nearly all the subjects of which it treats my opinions are on record among the published proceedings of Con gress. I venture, however, to make special mention of some of the principal topics which are likely to become subjects of discussion, without reviewing the controversies which have been settled during the last twenty years, and with no purpose or wish to revive the passions of the late war. It should be said that while Republicans fully recog nize and will strenuously defend all the rights retained by the people and all the rights reserved to the States, they reject the pernicious doctrine of State supremacy which so long crippled the functions of the National Government and at one time brought the Union very near to destruction. They insist that the United States is a nation, with ample power of self-preservation ; that its Constitution and laws made in pursuance thereof are the supreme law of the land ; that the right of the nation to determine the method by which JAMES A. GARFIELD. r o -> ~ v) its own legislature shall be created cannot be sur rendered without abdicating one of the funda mental powers of the Government ; that the national laws relating to the election of represent atives in Congress shall neither be violated nor evaded; that every elector shall be permitted freely and without intimidation to cast his lawful ballot at such election and have it honestly counted, and that the potency of his vote shall not be destroyed by the fraudulent vote of any other person. The best thoughts and energies of our peo ple should be directed to those great questions of national well-being in which we all have a com mon interest. Such efforts will soonest restore perfect peace to those who were lately in arms against each other, for justice and good-will will outlast passion ; but it is certain that the wounds cannot be completely healed and the spirit of brotherhood cannot fully pervade the whole country until every one of our citizens, rich or poor, white or black, is secure in the free and equal enjoyment of every civil and political right guaranteed by the Constitution and the laws. Wherever the enjoyment of this right is not assured discontent will prevail, immigration will cease, and the social and industrial forces will continue to be disturbed by the migration of laborers and the consequent diminution of pros perity. The National Government should exer cise all* its constitutional authority to put an end to these evils, for all the people and all the States are members of one body ; and no mem ber can suffer without injury to all. The most serious evils which now afflict the South arise from the fact that there is not such 524 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF freedom and toleration of political opinion and ac tion that the minority party can exercise an effec tive and wholesome restraint upon the party in power. Without such restraint party rule be comes tyrannical and corrupt. The prosperity which is made possible in the South, by its great advantages of soil and climate, will never be real ized until every voter can freely and safely support any party he pleases. Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither justice nor freedom can be perma nently maintained. Its interests are intrusted to the States and the voluntary action of the people. Whatever help the nation can justly afford should be generously given to aid the States in support ing common schools ; but it would be unjust to our people and dangerous to our institutions to apply any portion of the -revenues of the nation or of the States to the support of sectarian schools. The separation of the Church and the State in everything relating to taxation should be absolute. On the subject of national finances my views have been so frequently and fully expressed that little is needed in the way of additional statement. The public debt is now so well secured, and the rate of annual interest has been so reduced by refunding, that rigid economy in expenditures and the faithful application of our surplus revenues to the payment of the principal of the debt, will gradually, but cer tainly free the people from its burdens, and close with honor the financial chapter of the war. At the same time the Government can provide for all its ordinary expenditures, and discharge its sacred obligations to the soldiers of the Union and to the \\idows and orphans of those who fdl in its de- JAMES A. GARFIELD 525 fense. The resumption of specie payments, which the Republican party so courageously and suc cessfully accomplished, has removed from the field of controversy many questions that long and se riously disturbed the credit of the Government and the business of the country. Our paper cur rency is now as national as the flag, and resump tion has not only made it everywhere equal to coin, but has brought into use our store of gold and silver. The circulating medium is more abun dant than ever before, and we need only to main tain the equality of all our dollars to insure to labor and capital a measure of value from the use of which no one can suffer loss. The great pros perity which the country is now enjoying should not be endangered by any violent change or doubtful financial experiments. In reference to our custom laws, a policy should be pursued which will bring revenues to the Trea sury, and will enable the labor and capital em ployed in our great industries to compete fairly in our own markets with the labor and capital of foreign producers. We legislate for the people of the United States, not for the whole world ; and it is our glory that the American laborer is more intelligent and better paid than his foreign competitor. Our country cannot be independent unless its people, with their abundant natural re sources, possess the requisite skill at any time to clothe, arm and equip themselves for war, and in time of peace to produce all the necessary imple ments of labor. It was the manifest intention of the founders of the Government to provide for the common defense, not by standing armies alone, but by raising among the people a greater 526 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF army of artisans, whose intelligence and skill should powerfully contribute to the safety and glory of the nation. Fortunately for the interests of commerce there is no longer any formidable opposition to appropriations for the improvement of our harbors and great navigable rivers, pro vided that the expenditures for that purpose are strictly limited to works of national importance. The Mississippi River, with its great tributaries, is of such vital importance to so many millions of people that the safety of its navigation requires exceptional consideration. In order to secure to the nation the control of all its waters, Presi dent Jefferson negotiated the purchase of a vast territory, extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. The wisdom of Congress should be invoked to devise some plan by which that great river shall cease to be a terror to those who dwell upon its banks, and by which its ship ping may safely carry the industrial products of twenty-five millions of people. The interests of agriculture, which is the basis of all our material prosperity, and in which seven- twelfths of our population are engaged, as well as the interests of manufactures and commerce, de mand that the facilities for cheap transportation shall be increased by the use of all our great water courses. The material interests of this country, the traditions of its settlement and the sentiment of our people have led the Government to offer the widest hospitality to immigrants who seek our shores for new and happier homes, willing to share the burdens as well as the benefits of our society, and intending that their posterity shall become an andistinguishable part of our population. The JAMES A. GARFIELD. 527 recent movement of the Chinese to our Pacific coast partakes but little of the qualities of such an immigration, either in its purposes or its result. It is too much like an importation to be welcomed without restriction ; too much like an invasion to be looked upon without solicitude. We cannot consent to allow any form of servile labor to be introduced among us under the guise of immigra tion. Recognizing the gravity of this subject, the present administration, supported by Congress, has sent to China a commission of distinguished citizens for the purpose of securing such a modifi cation of the existing treaty as will prevent the evils likely to arise from the present situation. It is confidently believed that these diplomatic nego tiations will be successful without the loss of that commercial intercouse between the two great powers which promises a great increase of recip rocal trade and the enlargement of our markets. Should these efforts fail, it will be the duty of Con gress to mitigate the evils already felt, and pre vent their increase by such restrictions as, without violence or injustice, will place upon a sure foun dation the peace of our communities and the free dom and dignity of labor. The appointment of citizens to the various exe cutive and judicial offices of the Government is, perhaps, the most difficult of all duties which the Constitution has imposed upon the Executive. The convention wisely demands that Congress shall co-operate with the Executive Department, in placing the civil service on a better basis. Expe rience has proved that, with our frequent changes of administration, no system of reform can be made effective and permanent without the aid of 528 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF legislation. Appointments to the military and naval service are so regulated by law and custom, as to leave but little ground of complaint. It may not be wise to make similar regulations by law for the civil service, but, without invading the authority or necessary discretion of the Executive, Congress should devise a method that will deter mine the tenure of office, and greatly reduce the uncertainty which makes that service so uncertain and unsatisfactory. Without depriving any officer of his rights as a citizen, the Government should require him to discharge all his official duties with intelligence, efficiency and faithfulness. To select wisely from our vast population those who are best fitted for the many offices to be filled, requires an acquaintance far beyond the range of any one man. The Executive should, therefore, seek and receive the information and assistance of those whose knowledge of the communities in which the duties are to be performed, best qualifies them to aid in making the wisest choice. The doctrines announced by the Chicago Convention are not the temporary devices of a party to attract votes and carry an election. They are deliberate convic tions, resulting from a careful study of the spirit of our institutions, the events of our history and the best impulses of our people. In my judgment, these principles should control the legislation and administration of the Government. In any event, they will guide my conduct until experience points out a better way. If elected, it will be my purpose to enforce strict obedience to the Constitution and the laws, and "o promote as best I may the interest and honor of the whole country, relying for sup port upon the wisdom of Congress, the intelli- JAMES A. GARFIELD. r 2 g gence and patriotism of the people and the favor of God. With great respect, I am very truly yours, J. A. GARFIELD. To Hon. George F. Hoar, Chairman of the Com mittee. - , o LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF CHAPTER XXXV. THE FUTURE. WITH our readers we have gone over General Garfield s career from its hum blest beginnings to its present signally distinguished h6nors. No one can follow the in cidental steps in that career without being struck with the intrinsic greatness of the man who so won his way to the front. In all the long years that stand behind him, his has been one continu ous service to the country. Teaching, fighting, legislating, he has had only the one aim, the good of his fellow-men. Does not such a career de serve reward ? If it does not, what meed of ser vice, what tale of labor in behalf of the Republic does? What course of training for the White House is more exactly American than his has been ? A poor boy fights his way inch by inch, taking no fresh step forward until he has qualified himself for the new position, until conspicuous merit places him at the head of the column. A brilliant soldier, a patriot, a statesman of great constructive capacity and almost unequaled power of expression; distinguished from the common run of party men by broader views, a more liberal mind, and a more intelligent statesmanship, is JAMES A. GARFIELD: what James A. Garfield is to-day. And with a record rarely equaled in its unique earnestness of purpose, and unparalleled among 1 his immediate contemporaries, he comes before the country for its suffrages. If General Garfield is elected President, he will be in some respects a notable executive. He will be the youngest man who has ever ruled in the White House, except James K. Polk. He has served more consecutive terms in Congress than any man of his age that ever entered the House of Representatives. He will be the first man ever elected President who was a member-elect of the Senate, and transferred to the White House be fore he took his seat in the Senate. He is the first man ever nominated for the presidency by a convention wherein he was laboring to secure the selection of another. He is the first man ever nominated for that office who regularly appeared in the pulpit of any church. He is the first man ever nominated for that high office who once pre sided over an institution of learning as its presi dent. He is one of the finest scholars ever desig nated by a party as a candidate for presidential honors. He was as poor in his youth as Abraham Lincoln, and his success in life is as much of an encouragement to the young men of the nation as that of any man who has come to the front in this free land. And what is more to his credit, he was nominated without being under obligations to any- r-2 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF body for his nomination. He is not in debt for his candidacy to the politicians he can enter upon the discharge of his duties in the great office with more freedom than any man who has held it, with the exception of the Vice-Presidents who have succeeded to the presidency. The Chicago Convention could not have nomi nated another man who touches the American mind and heart at so many points. His early life of labor, his sympathy with the working-classes, endear him to the toiling millions. There is a pathos in his history that touches the heart of the humble worker. His masterly grasp of states manship and his steady fealty to sound doctrine during all the financial treachery of the last ten years gain him the support of merchants, manu facturers and bankers. The school-teachers of the land count him as one of their number. He is more acceptable to the religious element than another could be. Enter the chill atmosphere of the college and university lecture-rooms, where men are not stirred by campaign stories, but who respect character, thoroughness and scholarship, and you find he is a favorite. He is a favorite everywhere, even with his enemies. And the Re publican party, reunited again, will press its army of voters, with its proudest banners, its greatest enthusiasm, straight on to the fight, for Garfield and glory. And the second of November will decide what JAMES A. GARFIELD. 533 value the American nation places upon a man who served it all his life with unflinching generosity and patriotism. Shall it be written, reader, that merit was recognized in the crown of success, or must future historians record that once again a republic was ungrateful ? LIFE OF HON. CHESTER A. ARTHUR. "If I misappropriated a cent, and in walking down town, saw two men talking on the corner together, I would imagine that they were talking of my dishonesty, and the very thought would drive me mad." Letter from Chester A. Arthur to a friend, written while holding the position of Quartermaster- General. GENERAL CHESTER A. ARTHUR. CHAPTER I. ARTHUR S EARLY LIFE. HE exodus from foreign lands to this country has, at all times, since the early years of the present century, been re markable for its steadiness though varying dur ing the decades. A home in freedom and a chance for a fortune in climes where centuries have not bound with iron every man s position, is always an incentive to brave spirits. Among those who took the tide in its flow, at the beginning of the twenties, was a young Pro testant Irishman, from Ballymena, County Antrim, who bore the name of William Arthur. He was eighteen years of age, a graduate of Belfast Col lege, arid thoroughly imbued with the intention of becoming a Baptist clergyman, and advocating the cause of Christ. In this he persevered, was ad mitted to the ministry, took a degree of D. D. and began a career of great usefulness, which did not terminate until he died, at Newtonville, near Al bany, October 27th, 1875. He was, in many re spects, a remarkable man. He acquired a wide fame in his chosen career, and entered success fully the great competition of authors. He pub lished a work on "Family Names" that is to-day regarded as one of the curiosities of English 533 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF erudite literature. From 1855 to ^63, he was pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church, in New York City, and he, at other times, filled pulpits at Bennington, Hinesburg, Fairfield and Williston, in Vermont, and York, Perry, Greenwich and Schnectady, Lansingburg, Hoosic, West Troy and Newtonville, in the State of New York. He married, not long after entering the minis try, an American, Malvina Stone, who bore him a family of two sons and five daughters. Of these, Chester Allan, the subject of this sketch and, to-day, nominee for Vice-President of the United States on the Republican ticket, is the oldest. He was born at Fairfield, Franklin County, Vermont, October 5th, 1830. After the troubles of infancy were over he encountered those of school-life, the early days of which were passed under the tutelage of his father. From his home studies he went to a wider field of instruction in the institutions of Schenectady, in the gram mar school of which place he was prepared for entering Union College. This he did at the age of fifteen (1845), an< ^ took successfully the regular course, excelling in all his studies and graduating very high in the class of 1848. He was a member and took a deep interest in the Psi Upsilon Society. During this time, like many an other boy who graduated with honors from an American college, he eked out his funds by teach- CUES TER A. AR TIIUR. ing a country school. A letter, written about this period, presents a truthful picture of what it meant to teach school and "board round" with the parents of those taught: "The committee-man soon arrived, to transfer me to the scene of my future labors. The committee was a puny man, and, as afterward appeared, everything had been spared in his mechanism, ethically as well as corporeally. His principal features were his boots, which, like all Yankee s, were blacked only on the frontispiece, he not wishing to invest anything where he could not see the benefit. They had tremendous lurid soles, probably to keep up the equilibrium between his moral and physical system. Just imagine a young man, with hope and expectation beaming on his countenance, with an unruffled mem, in a yellow wagon, striped with green, like all down East vehicles. Before me and attached to the con cern was a vertebrated quadruped, an amalgamated specimen of comparative anatomy and animal manikinism. From its size it seemed to have been bought by weight, and from its condition its present owner must have had charge of it be fore the sale, with an eye to its purchase. It seemed to have lived in carnivorous times, for all its flesh had departed and each moment, as it passed, had taken a hair as a memento. But now these mementos were gone, and the wind could only moan a peace to its mane. However, under all these circumstances, we at last arrived at an old fabrication on one side of the road, called a house, the only claim to the title being the presence of an immense chimney. The animal portion of our establishment had come to a standstill, and it seemed to be conclusive that this was our destination. " We entered the domicile. Everything was fixed up, and the old trunk being placed in the best room, the process of getting acquainted commenced. This is very simple. For two little quids climb up on your knee, ask for your knife and offer to swop at once on terms very disadvantageous to 32 c 40 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF you, as they think you are green. To convince you that there is no gammon, they test the temper of their blades upon all that connects your buttons with your garments. The head of the family talking at the same time, I was con vinced that there were some words in the English language that they did not know, and many out of it that I did not understand. At tea the character of the family was reviewed and the biographies of individuals were related in the most plain and unequivocal terms. The materfamilias had a tongue as glib as a great ant-eater, and it was used to the particular detriment of her neighbors and to the praise of her own do mestic arrangements, which certainly needed all. " I am not an epicure, and if I had been, the peculiar ar rangements of the college clubs would have eliminated all such superfluous proclivities. The daily mode of living at the committee s was the antipodes of epicureanism. In my opinion, the diet of the Grahamites was as much superior to it, as the feasts of the gods were to the daily meals of the lazarone, Lazarus. It caused me to think how the frugal fare of Zeno, the stoic, would have appeared under the domestic arrangements of the harpies. For their distinct dietetical system was founded more in accordance with the price of corn and the requirements of the law in respect to a peck of dirt than the physical condition of the partakers. My ex amination for a teacher s certificate took place on the night of my arrival, and it was highly interesting to witness the feats of erudition before unheard of since the dark ages. For they, being untrammeled by most of the customary forms of language, were in a good situation to excite the wonder ment of one so unsophisticated. " On the morrow the hour for commencing the literary in struction came, and with it the scholars. The school-house was an old red fabric, situated at the cross-roads. Just behind could be seen a few birches a grove in which the shrine of education is often placed and the numberless broken boughs showed that the worship depended very much upon the nature CHESTER A. ARTHUR. c , j of the surrounding scenery. It was an old building, and had occupied the same position in the community for many years. It had sent forth many enterprising young men, as vendors of the multifarious modifications of time, and as itinerent physi cians for the vagaries of lunatic time-pieces. It had given a turn to many a youngster s life that had gone with him to the end. Spelling-schools numberless had taken place within its walls; hearts had been lost and won; innumerable swop- pings had been transacted ; the aromatic bark of birches had wasted its sweetness on the obdurate back of the inveter ate rogue. In the plastering above were the remains of the blank leaves of many books having been reduced to a pulpy state, by a process well-known to idle urchins, and then pro jected with unerring aim to their destined location. Here the weary pedagogue had spent his energies, and counted the dragging hours in pouring knowledge through youthful heads, wondering why the alphabet was not innate as a matter of con venience. " However, my school commenced. It was composed of motley races of brats. There were nearly all the goddesses, all the saints, and many of the wise-men of antiquity nomin ally present. There was an African damsel, a score of as pirants for alphabetical mastery, and many a specimen of the Yankee swop -jack-knives. The most prominent object was the oldest boy in school descanting upon the merits of some wooden combs, and endeavoring to negotiate a sale with some small boys. I should be happy to give the experience in the school-room if time and space would permit. There was but one battle a strong farmer s boy endeavored to overthrow your humble servant, and his authority at the same time, but, thanks to agility and gymnastic practice, there was a triumph for the teacher. Beware of trusting to the statistical calcula tions of committee-men in respect to the number of the scholars, for they are as fallacious as the idea of getting your pay. And, when you have over forty youngsters learning the rudiments of an education, do not delude yourself by com plying with the directions to hear them four times a day." LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF CHAPTER II. ARTHUR AS A LAWYER. ON graduating, the predilection young Ar thur had shown during his college course was allowed its opportunity, and he en tered the law school at Ballston Springs. Two years of study here, and he gravitated back to a former occupation, teaching, accepting the place of principal at the North Pownal Academy, Ben- nington County, Vermont. This was in 1851. By rigid economy and hard work he had managed to save five hundred dollars, and with this in his pocket he went to New York, and entered the law office of Erastus D. Culver, afterward minister to one of the South American States, and a judge of the Civil Court of Brooklyn. Soon after enter ing Judge Culver s office, he was in 1852 ad mitted to the bar, and formed the firm of Culver, Partsen & Arthur, which was dissolved in 1837. No sooner had he won his title to appear in the courts, than he formed a partnership with an old friend, Henry D. Gardner, with an in tention of practicing in the West, and for three months these young gentlemen roamed through the Western States in search of a place to lo cate. In the end, not satisfied, they returned to New York, and began a practice, successful al- CHESTER A. ARTHUR. ~ . ~ most from the start, and which lasted ten years, till 1865, when Mr. Arthur continued on alone. Mr. Arthur, soon after being called to the bar, married a daughter of Lieutenant Herndon, who died last January, leaving two children, a son of fourteen, and a daughter of eight. The law career of Mr. Arthur includes some notable cases. One of his first cases was the cele brated Lemmon suit. In 1852 Jonathan and Juliet Lemmon, Virginia slaveholders, intending to emi grate to Texas, went to New York to await the sailing of a steamer, bringing eight slaves with them. A writ of habeas corpus was obtained from Judge Paine to test the question whether the pro visions of the Fugitive Slave law were in force in o that State. Judge Paine rendered a decision, holding that they were not, and ordering the Lem mon slaves to be liberated. Henry L. Clinton was one of the counsel for the slaveholders. A howl of rage went up from the South, and the Virginia Legislature authorized the Attorney-Gen eral of that State to assist in taking an appeal. William M. Evarts and Chester A. Arthur were employed to represent the people, and they won their case, which then \vent to the Supreme Court of the United States. Charles O Connor here espoused the cause of the slaveholders, but he, too, was beaten by Messrs. Evarts and Arthur, and a long step was thus taken toward the eman cipation of the black race. CAA LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF Even as late as 1856 colored people were not permitted to ride on the Fourth Avenue street cars. Lizzie Jennings, a colored woman of excel lent character, superintendent of a Sunday-school, was roughly expelled from a Fourth Avenue car because she was black. She brought a suit against the railroad company, and applied to Mr. Arthur for advice. He accepted charge of the case, and managed it before Judge Rockwell, in a Brooklyn court. The jury gave a verdict of five hundred dollars damages in favor of the colored woman. The five hundred dollars was paid by the railroad company, and the next day the company issued an order to permit colored persons to ride on their cars, and the other car companies quickly followed their example. Before that the Sixth Avenue Company ran a few special cars for colored per sons, and the other lines refused to let them ride at all. At the outbreak of the war E. D. Morgan was elected Governor of New York, and in making up his staff he appointed Mr. Arthur engineer-in- chief. He had just before this held the position of Judge Advocate of the Second Brigade, State Militia. He was a little later appointed inspector- general, and soon after, January 2/th, 1862, was advanced to the very important post of quarter master-general, which he held until the expiration of Morgan s term of office. In these offices he did yeoman s service for the Government in the CHESTER A. ARTHUR. r , r 545 equipment of volunteers. Of his services then a friend wrote : "No higher encomium can be passed upon him than the mention of the fact that, although the war account of the State of New York was at least ten times larger than that of any other State, yet it was the first audited and allowed in Washington, and without the deduction of a single dollar, while the quartermasters accounts from other States were re duced from one to ten millions of dollars. During his in cumbency every present sent to him was immediately returned. Among others, a prominent clothing-house offered him a mag nificent uniform, and a printing-house proffered a costly saddle and trappings. Both gifts were indignantly rejected. When he became quartermaster he was poor. When his term expired he was poorer still. He had opportunities to make millions unquestioned. Contracts larger than the world had ever seen were at his disposal. He had to provide for the clothing, arming and transportation of hundreds of thou sands of men. So zealous was he of his integrity, that I have known instances where he could have made thousands of dollars legitimately and yet he refused to do it, on the ground that he was a public officer and meant to be like Caesar s wife above suspicion. His own words in regard to this amply illustrate his character: If I misappropriated a cent, and in walking down town saw two men talking on the corner together, I would imagine that they w6re talking of my dis honesty, and the very thought would drive me mad. In July, 1862, he was invited to be present at a secret meeting of the loyal governors, held in New York, for discussing measures to provide troops to carry on the war. He was the only person pres ent who was not a governor. In the same year he was on duty on the staff of Major-General 546 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF Hunt, in the Army of the Potomac, as inspector of New York troops in the field. At the expira tion of Governor Morgan s term, he returned to his la w practice, and business of the most lucra tive character poured in. Much of this work con sisted in the collection of war claims and the draft ing of important bills for speedy legislation. In consequence, a great deal of his time was spent in Albany and Washington, where his uniform suc cess won him a national reputation. For a short time he held the position of counsel to the Board of Tax Commissioners, at a salary of ten thousand dollars per annum. In 1871, he formed a partner ship with Mr. Ransom, and later with Mr. Phelps, the present district attorney of New York City, and he is now the senior member of the firm of Arthur, Phelps, Knevals & Ransom. Like his predecessor, he is an ardent disciple of Walton, and a member of the Restigouche Salmon Fishing Club. He is a man of great culture and wide experience, with manners of the utmost geniality. He and his home are thus described : "In person he is over six feet high, but he does not resemble overmuch the pictures that the papers have published of him. In these, as in his lithographic likenesses, he is given an Arthur Sullivan chin, that double fold, English, beefy and unpleasant. General Arthur has not this actually. His face is full, fat and fair. It is clean shaven except for the thin gray whiskers. - No one feature is more marked than another, and yet to look at his placid eyes, it is most natural and easy to believe that a greater intellectual CHESTER A. ARTHUR. force exists behind their somewhat listless gaze than is at first apparent. Being a lawyer he has that sense of judicial fairness, that poise of manner and judgment that always com bines to make a good presiding officer of any legislative body. There is nothing about him of the politician, as so many might suppose from the career he has led. He does not talk in offensive accents, his voice is low and gentlemanly. He dresses in perfect good taste ; at present, entirely in black. He is fairly corpulent as his pictures very well suggest. His hair is dark, his eyes are brown. "There is little in Lexington Avenue to distinguish one block from another. No. 123 is just one of the dozen in its own particular block near Sixteenth Street. Here Chester A. Arthur lives. Inside the house is exactly what was. to be ex pected. It is a house in which gold and white was selected for the drawing-room. At present all the beauties of furnishing are beneath the homely ban of furniture covers. The gilt gasoliers are swathed in musquito-net, so are the pictures. Enough of these can, however, be seen to testify that the dweller here is a man of correct taste. The cattle pieces are all better than Verbockhoven ever drew; the quaint bit of still life beside the mantle, looks to be, from where you sit, a gen uine Teneirs. Its companion is, perhaps, an Ostade. Upon the low book-cases, that contain some handsome volumes, are some excellent bronzes, one a spirited group just over your host s shoulder looks to be Russian handiwork. It certainly is a Cossack horse. General Arthur undoubtedly has been a traveler in his fancies, and yet, he is a man who cares for cushions and comfort. His parlor has no stiff furniture. The tete-a-tete is a very easy one, the arm-chairs are generous in in proportion, and generous in stuffing. Near the fire-place a handsome silk screen shows a monogram in rainbow-colored silk, the work of deft fingers. But it is impossible to take a mental inventory and participate in your host s conversation. Turn your attention to him rather than his." 548 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF CHAPTER III. ARTHUR IN POLITICS. MR. ARTHUR always took an interest in politics and the political surroundings of his day. His political life began at the age of fourteen, as a champion of the Whig party. He shared, too, in the turbulence of political life at that period, and it is related of him during the Polk-Clay canvass that, while he and some of his companions were raising an ash pole in honor of Henry Clay, some Democratic boys attacked the party of Whigs, and young Arthur, who was the recognized leader of the party, or dered a charge, and, taking the front ranks him self, drove the young Democrats from the field with broken heads and subdued spirits. He was a delegate to the Saratoga Convention that founded the Republican party in New York State. He was active in local politics, and he gradually became one of the leaders. He nominated, and by his efforts elected the Hon. Thomas Murphy a State Senator. When the latter resigned the Collectorship of the Port, in November, 1871, he was nominated by President Grant to the vacancy. The nomination came to him as a great sur prise. The post was offered to ex-Congressman CHESTER A. ARTHUR. John A. Griswold, of Troy, and, on his declining, to William Orton, who also declined. They both joined in recommending General Arthur. He was appointed November 2Oth. Upon the expi ration of his four years term, he had so accepta bly filled the post, that he was reappointed and unanimously confirmed by the Senate without the usual reference to a committee, a compliment usually reserved for ex-Senators. He was re moved by President Hayes on July I2th, 1878, despite the fact that two special committees made searching investigation into his administration, and both reported themselves unable to find any thing upon which to base a charge against him. In their pronunciamentos announcing the change, both President Hayes and Secretary Sherman bore official witness to the purity of his acts while in office. A petition for his retention was signed by every Judge of every court in the city, by all the prominent members of the bar, and by nearly every important merchant in the collection dis trict, but this General Arthur himself suppressed. In a letter to Secretary Sherman, reviewing the work of one of the investigating committees, General Arthur produced statistics to show that during his term of over six years in office the per centage of removals was only two and three-quar ters, against an annual average of about twenty- eight per cent, under his three immediate prede cessors, and an annual average of about twenty- LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF four per cent, since 1857. Of the nine hundred and twenty-three persons in office prior to his ap pointment, five hundred and thirty-one were still retained on May ist, 1877. All appointments except two to the one hundred positions com manding salaries of two thousand dollars per year were made on the plan of advancing men from the lower to the higher grades on the re commendation of heads of bureaus. The reforms which General Arthur instituted in the methods of doing business in the custom-house were as numerous as they were grateful to the mercantile community. Since his removal he has been en gaged in the practice of the law, and in the direc tion of Republican politics in the State, being Chairman of the Republican State Committee, and has always contributed greatly, by successful management, to the success of the Republican ticket. He was nominated at Chicago for Vice-Presi- dent, at the evening session of the convention, on Tuesday, June loth. The convention met with out plan in regard to completing the ticket. No body cared for delay and the roll was promptly called for nominations for Vice-President. California presented E. B. Washburne ; Con necticut brought out ex-Governor Jewell; Florida handed in the name of Judge Settle ; Tennessee urged Horace Maynard. But these attracted little attention. Then ex-Lieutenant-Governor CHESTER A. ARTHUR. ,- rr i Woodford rose in the New York delegation, and standing upon his seat, and after a brief reference to the loyal support which New York had given to General Grant, said that New York could not be behind any in support of the candidate nomi nated to-day, and he presented the name of Gen eral C. A. Arthur for the second place on the ticket. The nomination was received with a good deal of applause in the New York dele gation. It was seconded by Governor Dennison, of Ohio, and immediately supported by a speech from Storrs, of Illinois, in behalf of Arthur and a sug gestion from Filley, of Missouri, that the nomina tion be made by acclamation, it was apparent to every one what had been going on during the re cess Arthur had become Garfield s choice for Vice-President, and the Ohio men, with the help of the old guard of the Grant hosts, had arranged to put him through. As a general thing, the crowd had very little interest for another candi date. They were impatient for a ballot, and hooted at succeeding speakers. Hicks, of Florida, finally withdrew Settle s name, and was followed by Cessna, of Pennsylvania, who said that the great Keystone State seconded Arthur s nomina tion. A ballot was finally reached. Its result was so generally foreseen that no particular con cern was manifested over it. There was some cheering, but the enthusiasm of this extraordinary LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF convention had about worn out. The ballot stood: Arthur, 468; Washburne, 19; Maynard, 30; Jewell, 44; Bruce, 8; Woodford, i; Davis, 2. The nomination of Arthur was made unanimous, on motion of California, and then a committee of one from each State, with Senator Hoar for chairman, was appointed to notify the candidates of their nomination. Filley, of Missouri, then got in a motion to adjourn sine die, which was carried. General Arthur, in returning to his home, ar rived in New York on Wednesday evening, at seven o clock, and met with a highly-flattering re ception from his friends and fellow-citizens. A multitude filled the sidewalks and the doors of the Forty-second Street front of the depot at half-past six, a more influential assemblage probably than ever before gathered at that place ; for, instead of the curiosity-seekers that have followed in the wake of Presidents of the United States who have entered the city or departed from it through the Grand Central Depot, the men who waited on that sidewalk and in the corridors were of New York s best, assembled to attest their grateful sense of the honor that a national convention had bestowed upon one of their neighbors. There were thirty-five members of the Ninth Ward Re publican Association, and the associations in all the Assembly districts were well represented. The moment General Arthur stepped from the train, CHESTER A. ARTHUR. " Three cheers for the next Vice-President of the United States !" was shouted. They were given with a will, and with them a tiger. Three more. Then three cheers and a tiger for General Chester A. Arthur, and the cheering was continued. The general greeted a relative, and then shook hands with Mr. Thomas A. Acton, Superintendent of the Assay Office ; then with Colonel Charles Rikel, of the Army and Navy Club, and then with Mr. George Bliss, Justice Morgan, Mr. Benjamin K. Phelps and Assistant District Attorney Daniel G. Rollins. Then turning to the multitude, who had ceased their huzzas and were waiting for a speech, he said : " I thank you for this kind reception, and am glad to see your familiar faces again." Cheer upon cheer followed, and the general, supported by Mr. Thomas C. Acton and Mr. Sheridan Shook, walked out and drove home. At night the Re publicans of New York serenaded him, the ren dezvous being made at the plaza, in Union Square, at nine o clock. There was an immense turnout, and the line marched in procession to his resi dence, in Lexington Avenue, with music and fire works. General Arthur s acceptance of the nomination is as follows : YORK, July i5th, 1880. DEAR SIR: I accept the position assigned me by the great party whose action you announce. This acceptance " CCA LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF implies approval of the principles declared by the convention, but recent usage permits me to add some expression of my own views. The right and duty to secure honesty and order in popular elections is a matter so vital that it must stand in front. The authority of the National Government to preserve from fraud and force elections at which its officers are chosen is a chief point on which the two parties are plainly and in tensely opposed. Acts of Congress for ten years have, in New York and elsewhere, done much to curb the violence and wrong to which the ballot and the count have been again and again subjected sometimes despoiling great cities, sometimes stifling the voice of a whole State ; often seating, not only in Congress, but on the bench, and in legislatures, numbers of men never chosen by the people. The Democratic party, since gaining possession of the two houses of Congress, has made these just laws the object of bitter, ceaseless assault, and, despite all resistance, has hedged them with restrictions cunningly contrived to baffle and paralyze them. This ag gressive majority boldly attempted to extort from the Execu tive his approval of various enactments destructive of these election laws, by revolutionary threats that a constitutional exercise of the veto power would be punished by withholding the appropriations necessary to carry on the Government. And these threats were actually carried out by refusing the needed appropriations, and by forcing an extra session of Congress, lasting for months, and resulting in concessions to this usurping demand, which are likely, in many States, to subject the majority to the lawless will of a minority. Omi nous signs of public disapproval alone subdued this arrogant power into a sullen surrender, for the time being, of a part of its demands. The Republican party has strongly approved the stern refusal of its representatives to suffer the overthrow of statutes believed to be salutary and just. It has always in sisted, and now insists, that the Government of the United States of America is empowered, and in duty bound to effec tually protect the elections denoted by fhe Constitution as national. CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 555 "More than this, the Republican party holds, as a cardinal point in its creed, that the Government should, by every means known to the Constitution, protect all American citizens everywhere in the full enjoyment of their civil and political rights. As a great part of its work of reconstruc tion, the Republican party gave the ballot to the emanci pated slave as his right and defense. A large increase in the number of members of Congress, and of the Electoral Col lege, from the former slave-holding States, was the imme diate result. The history of recent years abounds in evi dence that in many ways and in many places especially where their number has been great enough to endanger Demo cratic control the very men by whose elevation to citizen ship this increase of representation was effected have been debarred and robbed of their voice and their vote. It is true that no State statute or Constitution in so many words denies or abridges the exercise of their political rights; but the modes employed to bar their way are no less effectual. It is a suggestive and startling thought that the increased power derived from the enfranchisement of a race now de nied its share in governing the country wielded by those who lately sought the overthrow of the Government is now the sole reliance to defeat the party which represented the sovereignty and nationality of the American people in the greatest crisis of our history. Republicans cherish none of the resentments which may have animated them during the actual conflict of arms. They long for a full and real recon ciliation between the sections which were needlessly and la mentably at strife ; they .sincerely offer the hand of good will, but they ask in return a pledge of good faith. They deeply feel that the party, whose career is so illustrious in great and patriotic achievement, will not fulfill its destiny until peace and prosperity are established in all the land, nor until liberty of thought, conscience and action, and equality of opportunity shall be not merely cold formalities of statute, but living birthrights, which the humble may confidently claim and the powerful dare not deny. 33 556 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF "The resolution referring to the public service seems to me deserving of approval. Surely, no man should be the encum- bent of an office the duties of which he is, for any cause, un fit to perform, who is lacking in the ability, fidelity, or integrity which a proper administration of such office demands. This sentiment would doubtless meet with general acquiescence, but opinion has been widely divided upon the wisdom and practicability of the various reformatory schemes which have been suggested, and of certain proposed regula tions governing appointments to public office. The efficiency of such regulations have been distrusted, mainly because they have seemed to exalt mere educational and abstract tests above general business capacity, and even special fitness for the particular work in hand. It seems to me that the rules which should be applied to the management of the public ser vice may properly conform, in the main, to such as regulate the conduct of successful private business. Original appoint ments should be based upon ascertained fitness. The tenure of office should be stable. Positions of responsibility should, so far as practicable, be filled by the promotion of worthy and efficient officers. The investigation of all complaints, and the punishment of all official misconduct, should be prompt and thorough. These views, which I have long held, repeatedly declared and uniformly applied when called upon to act, I find embodied in the resolution, which, of course, I approve. I will add that, by the acceptance of public office, whether high or low, one does not, in my judgment, escape any of his responsibilities as a citizen, or lose or impair any of his rights as a citizen, and that he should enjoy absolute liberty to think and speak and act in political matters ac cording to his own will and conscience, provided only that he honorably, faithfully and fully discharges all his official duties. "The resumption of specie payments one of the fruits of Republican policy has brought the return of abundant pros perity, and the settlement of many distracting questions. CHESTER A. ARTHUR. The restoration of sound money, the large reduction of our public debt and of the burden of interest, the high advancement of the public credit, all attest the ability and courage of the Republican party to deal with such financial problems as may hereafter demand solution. Our paper currency is now as good as gold, and silver is performing its legitimate function for the purpose of change. The principles which should govern the relations of these elements of the currency are simple and clear. There must be no deteriorated coin, no depreciated paper. And every dollar, whether of metal or paper, should stand the test of the world s fixed standard. " The value of popular education can hardly be overstated. Although its interests must of necessity be chiefly confided to voluntary effort and the individual action of the several States, they should be encouraged, so far as the Constitution permits, by the generous co-operation of the National Government. The interests of the whole country demand that the advan tages of our common school system should be brought within the reach of every citizen, and that no revenues of the nation or of the State should be devoted to the support of sectarian schools. " Such changes should be made in the present tariff and system of taxation, as will relieve any over-burdened industry or class, and enable our manufacturers and artisans to com pete successfully with those of other lands. "The Government should aid works of internal improve ment national in their character, and should promote the de velopment of our water-courses and harbors wherever the general interests of commerce require. " Four years ago, as now, the nation stood at the threshold of a presidential election, and the Republican party, in so liciting a continuance of its ascendency, founded its hopes of success, not upon its promises, but upon its history. Its sub sequent course has been such as to strengthen the claims which it then made to the confidence and support of the country. On the other hand, considerations more urgent 558 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF than have ever before existed forbid the accession of its op ponents to power. Their success, if success attends them, must chiefly come from the united support of that section which sought the forcible disruption of the Union, and which, ac cording to all the teachings of our past history, will demand ascendency in the councils of the party to whose triumph it will have made by far the largest contribution. "There is the gravest reason for apprehension that ex orbitant claims upon the public treasury, by no means limited to the hundreds of millions already covered by bills intro duced in Gongress within the past four years, would be suc cessfully urged if the Democratic party should succeed in supplementing its present control of the National Legislature by electing the Executive also. " There is danger in intrusting the control of the whole law-making power of the Government to a party which has in almost every Southern State repudiated obligations quite as sacred as those to which the faith of the nation now stands pledged. " I do not doubt that success awaits the Republican party, and that its triumph will assure a just, economical and pa triotic administration. I am respectfully, your obedient servant, "C. A. ARTHUR." To the HON. GEORGE F. HOAR, President of the Republican National Convention. APPENDIX. It is as much the duty of all good men to protect and de fend the reputation of worthy public servants as to detect and punish public rascals. "A Century in Congress," by J. A. Garfield, in the Atlantic Monthly for August, 1877. APPENDIX. 561 CHAPTER I. A VICTIM TO SUCCESS. PARTISAN malignity knows no rest, it is active as the breeze and as omnipresent. No opponent is ever allowed to live unmolested by its storm of abuse. If nothing can be said against him with truth, some slender thread of innocent fact is taken and twisted and woven into a cloth of most damning color, from which allegations and slanders illimitable are cut with wholesale recklessness. No innocence of motive, no purity of action is ever allowed. No matter, a long life of daily demonstrated honesty before the action so frantically condemned ; no matter, a purity of existence afterward, that is but a later link in the chain of a perfect life, and a proof of the victim s integrity. He belongs to a different party, and so belonging, must suffer. The ac ceptance of office is the signal for the attack. Henceforth, there is no peace, the word of the accused counts for nothing, the defense of his friends is equally valueless, and should there be those among his enemies who, believing, have the courage to affirm his innocence, their testimony is jeered at by their. own friends as being prompted by motives of personal feeling rather than justice. Nothing is allowed to be true, honest or decent. Everything on the opposite side is black, black, black. Public virtue is a thing of the past, public vice the only merit of the present. You are a pure, high-minded statesman, if you are of my party ; if you are my enemy, you are a thief, a liar and a perjurer ! No man of abiMty ever passes through a term at the na tional capital without knowing what partisan malignity means. The little men of government may escape it, but not the great. The very humanity of a great man leads him, now 562 APPENDIX. and then, into errors, the innocent commission of which will prove the text for more personal abuse than he, in his opti mism ever imagined to exist. He shoots his arrow in all confi dence that he is doing no more than his ever-constant probity directs as his duty ; he has not selected the arrow with suffi ciently careful eye, it returns and wounds him. Because it was a skillfully-arranged trick of his enemies. For trusting too much to the honesty of others, for thinking that the great men around him are men of character, for believing that this world is good, rather than bad, he is tried at the bar of par tisan public opinion, condemned with lightning-like parti ality and execrated as a moral criminal for that he did not hold his associates to be criminals, and consort with them accordingly. This was the experience of James A. Garfield at the na tional capital. And we introduce here the subject of his con nection with the Credit Mobilier affair, the De Golyer Pave ment Contract and the Salary Grab, not because there is any necessity for restating his innocence sufficiently established over and over again but because, if we did not, there are those so mentally lopsided as to hasten to affirm that we believed in the charges, because we made no mention of them. Rather than permit a misconception, we give the space necessary to effectually lay the matters forever at rest. The three matters to be examined are the Credit Mobilier scandal, the De Golyer Contract and the Salary Grab. We will take them in their order. For the benefit of the reader, an explanation of what the Credit Mobilier was, is necessary: The Credit Mobilier Company was a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Pennsylvania, and authorized by its charter to pur chase and sell various kinds of securities and to make ad vances of money and credit to railroad and other improve ment companies. The class of business described in its charter, was such as, if honestly conducted, the most upright citizen might properly engage in. On the i6th of August, APPENDIX. 563 1867, Oakcs Ames made a contract with the Union Pacific Railroad Company to build six hundred and sixty-seven miles of road, from the one hundredth meridian westward, for an amount aggregating forty-seven million nine hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in cash, or in the securities of the company. On the i5th of October, 1867, a triple con tract was made between Mr. Ames of the first part, seven per sons as trustees of the second part, and the Credit Mobilier Company of the third part, by the terms of which the Credit Mobilier Company was to advance money to build the road and to receive thereon seven per cent, interest and two and a half per cent, commission ; the seven trustees were to exe cute the Ames contract and the profits were to be divided among them and such other stockholders of the Credit Mo bilier Company as should deliver to them an irrevocable proxy to vote the stock of the Union Pacific held by them. The principal stockholders of the Credit Mobilier Company were also holders of a majority of the stock of the Union Pacific Railroad. On the face of this agreement, the part to be performed by the Credit Mobilier as a corporation was simple and unobjectionable, being simply to advance money to the contractors and to receive therefor about ten per cent, as interest and commissions. But the facts were that a ring in side the Credit Mobilier obtained the control both of that corporation and of the profits of the Ames contract. The day after the triple contract was signed, by a private agree ment made in writing, the seven trustees pledged themselves to each other, so as to vote all the Pacific Railroad stock which they held in their own right or by proxy, as to keep in power all the members of the then existing Board of Directors of the railroad company not appointed by the President of the United States. By this agreement, a majority of the direc tors were within the power of the seven trustees. The result was that the Ames contract and the triple agreement, amounted in fact to a contract made by seven leading stockholders of the Pacific Railroad with themselves, APPENDIX. so that the men who fixed the price at which the road would be built, were the same men who would receive the profits of the contract. Thus the guardians of a great public trust were enabled to contract with themselves at an exorbitant price, which virtually brought into their possession, as private indi viduals, almost all the property of the railroad company. The six hundred and sixty-seven miles covered by the con tract included one hundred and thirty-eight miles already completed the profits on which inured to the benefit of the contractors. Before the connection with the Ames contract the Credit Mobilier Company had already been engaged in several non-remunerative enterprises, and its stock was below par. The triple contract of October, 1867, gave it at once considerable additional value. It should be borne in mind, however, that the relations of the Credit Mobilier Company to the seven trustees to the Oakes Ames contract, and to the Pacific Railroad Company were known to but few persons, and they kept them secret until long afterward. Nothing was known of it to the general public until the facts were brought out in the investigations. In view of the facts as above stated, it is evident that a purchaser of such shares of Credit Mobilier stock as were brought under the operation of the triple contract, would be a sharer in the profits derived by that arrangement from the assets of the Pacific Railroad, a large part of which consisted of bonds and lands granted to the road by the United States. The holding of such stock by a member of Congress would depend for its moral qualities wholly upon the fact whether he did or did not know of the arrangement out of which the profits, would come. If he knew of the fraudulent arrange ment by which the lands and bonds of t>he United States de livered to the Union Pacific Railroad Company, for the pur pose of constructing its road, were to be paid out at enorm ously extravagant rates, and the proceeds to be paid out as dividends to a ring of stockholders made the Credit Mobilier Company, he could not with any propriety hold such stock or APPENDIX. 565 agree to hold it or any of its proceeds. If it was morally wrong to purchase it, it was morally wrong to hesitate whether to purchase it or not. That was the company and its operations, and we have drawn the offense on its highest ethical ground. Now, the charges against General Garfield, in connection with the company, are as follows : (i.) That Mr. Garfield, soon after the beginning of the session of 1867-68, agreed to take ten shares of the stock of the said company, at par and accrued interest. (2.) That Oakes Ames paid to Mr. Garfield three hundred and twenty- nine dollars, as a balance of dividends on stock in this dis reputable transaction. (3.) That he was convicted of this by the (Poland) committee that sat to investigate the Credit Mobilier. (4.) That the committee, inferentially, in their report accused Mr. Garfield of having lied in regard to the affair. In refuting these, let us take them up separately, as num bered. First. On this point we have Mr. Garfield s testi mony before the Poland committee (pp. 128, 129) : "The first I ever heard of the Credit Mobilier was some time in 1866 or 1867 I cannot fix the date when George Francis Train called on me, and said he was organizing a company to be known as the Credit Mobilier of America, to be formed on the model of the Credit Mobilier of France; that the object of the company was to purchase lands and build houses along the line of the Pacific Railroad, at points where cities and villages were likely to spring up ; that he had no doubt the money thus invested would double or treble itself each year ; that subscriptions were limited to one thou sand dollars each, and he wished me to subscribe. He showed me a long list of subscribers, among them Mr. Oakes Ames, to whom he referred me for further information con cerning the enterprise. I answered that I had not the money to spare, and if I had, I would not subscribe without knowing more about the proposed organization. Mr. Train left me, saying he would hold a place open for me, and hoped I would yet conclude to subscribe. The same day I asked Mr. Ames what he thought of the enterprise. He expressed the opinion 5 66 APPENDIX. that the investment would be safe and profitable. I heard nothing further on the subject for a year or more, and it was almost forgotten, when some time during the long session of 1868 Mr. Ames spoke of it again, said the company had or ganized, was doing well, and he thought would soon pay large dividends. " He said that some of the stock had been left, or was to be left in his hands to sell, and I could take the amount which Mr. Train had offered me by paying the one thousand dollars and the accrued interest. He said if I was not able to pay for it then, he would hold it for me till I could pay, or until some of the dividends were payable. I told him I would consider the matter; but would not agree to take any stock until I knew, from the examination of the charter and the conditions of the subscription, the extent to which I should become pecuniarily liable. He said he was not sure, but thought a stockholder would become liable only for the par value of his stock ; that he had not the stock and papers with him, but would have them after awhile. "From the case, as presented, I probably should have taken the stock, if I had been satisfied in regard to the extent of pecuniary liability. Thus the matter rested for some time, I think until the following year. During that interval I un derstood that there were dividends due amounting to nearly three times the par value of the stock. But, in the meantime I had heard that the company was involved in some contro versy with the Pacific Railroad, and that Mr. Ames right to sell the stock was denied. When I next saw Mr. Ames, I told him I had concluded not to take the stock. There the matter ended, so far as I was concerned, and I had no further knowledge of the company s operations until the subject began to be discussed in the newspapers last fall. " Nothing, was ever said to me by Mr. Train or Mr. Ames, to indicate or imply that the Credit Mobilier was or could be in any way connected with the legislation of Congress for the Pacific Railroad, or for any other purposes. Mr. Ames never gave, or offered to give, me any stock or other valuable thing as a gift. I once asked and obtained from him, and after ward repaid to him, a loan of three hundred dollars ; that amount is the only valuable thing I ever received from or de livered to him. " I never owned, received, or agreed to receive any stock of the Credit Mobilier, or of the Union Pacific Railroad, or any dividend or profits arising from either of them." , APPENDIX. 567 Mr. Ames, on whose testimony all the charges against Mr. Garfield are based, and about whose testimony we shall have later to say a word, swore before the committee, four weeks before Mr. Garfield gave his testimony: " I agreed to get ten shares of stock for him, and hold it until he could pay for it. He never did pay for it or receive it" (p. 21). Upon this point, that the stock never was paid for or received, Ames was always positive. On the first charge, therefore, that Mr. Garfield agreed to take ten shares of stock, all there is to it is, that he said he would consider the matter, and after consider ing, told Mr. Ames that he concluded not to take the stock. The second point enumerated against Mr. Garfield was that Mr. Ames, in pursuance of his plan to continue the legislation of Congress in favor of the schemes of the Credit Mobilier, paid Mr. Garfield three hundred and twenty-nine dollars. He is said to have done this because he desired Mr. Garfield s influence. To do it, he considered the ten shares offered to and refused by Mr. Garfield, as still stand ing in his (Garfield s) name. The dividends on these, by this time, amounted to the original purchase and three hun dred and twenty-nine dollars additional. This three hun dred and twenty-nine dollars additional, Mr. Ames then says he paid to Mr. Garfield, telling him, of course, that his stock was now all paid for. We have above, Mr. Garfield s own sworn statement, that he "never received any dividend or profits arising from the Credit Mobilier or the Union Pacific Railroad." The tes timony implicating the contrary is entirely from Mr. Ames, and is as follows: Page 28 Committee s Report: Q. In reference to Mr. Garfield, you say that you agreed to get the ten shares for him, and to hold them until he could pay for them, and that he never did pay for them nor receive them? A. Yes, sir. Q. He never paid any money on that stock nor received any money from it ? A, Not on account of it, 568 APPENDIX. Q. He received no dividends? A. No, sir; I think not. He says he did not. My own recollection is not very clear. Q. So that, as you understand, Mr. Garfield never parted with any money, nor received any money on that trans action? A. No, sir; he had some money from me once some three or four hundred dollars and called it a loan. He says that is all he ever received from me, and that he considered it a loan. He never took his stock, and never paid for it. Q. Did you understand it so ? A. Yes ; I am willing so to understand it. I do not recollect paying him any divi dend, and have forgotten that I paid him any money. Page 40 : Q. Who received the dividends ? A. Messrs. Kelley and Garfield never paid for their stock, and never received their dividends. Subsequently Mr. Ames, alleging that Mr. Garfield had received three hundred and twenty-nine dollars from him as dividend on his stock, attempted to prove it. He presented to the committee a statement of an alleged acccount with General Garfield, as follows : J. A. G. Dr. 1868. To 10 shares stock Credit Mobilier of A., $1,000 Interest 47 June 10. To cash 329 Total $i>3?6 Cr. 1868. By dividend bonds Union Pacific Railroad $1,000 at 80 per cent., less 3 per cent... $776 June 17. By dividend collected for your account, 600 Total i,37 6 This account he claimed to have made up from his memo randum book, but when the memorandum book was subse quently presented, it was found that the account here quoted was not copied from it, but was partly made up from memory. By comparing this account with the entry made in diary, as APPENDIX. 569 first quoted, it will be seen that they are not duplicates, either in substance or form ; and that in this account a new element is added, namely, an alleged payment of three hundred and twenty-nine dollars in cash June ipth. This is the very ele ment in dispute. The pretended proof that this sum was paid General Garfield, is found in the production of a check drawn by Mr. Ames on the sergeant-at-arms. The following is the language of the check, as reported in the testimony : "June 22d, 1868. " Pay O. A. or bearer three hundred and twenty-nine dol lars, and charge to my account. " OAKES AMES." This check bears no indorsement or other marks than the words and figures given above. It was drawn on the 226. of June, and, as shown by the books of the sergeant-at-arms, was paid the same day. But if this check was paid to Gen eral Garfield on the account just quoted, it must have been delivered to him three days before it was drawn for the ac count says that he received payment on the i9th of June. Furthermore as to the check. There is absolutely nothing but the testimony of Mr. Ames to connect Mr. Garfield with it. Let us look at Mr. Ames testimony. After he had testi fied that he paid Mr. Garfield the three hundred and twenty- nine dollars as dividends on stock, he (Ames) was asked : Page 295 : Q. How was this paid ? A. Paid in money, I believe. Page 297: Q. You say that three hundred and twenty-nine dollars was paid to him. How was that paid ? A. I presume by a check on the sergeant-at-arms. I find there are checks filed without indicating who they were for. Page 353 : Q. This check seems to have been paid by somebody, and taken up by the sergeant-at-arms. Those initials are your own ? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you know who had the benefit of this check? A. I cannot tell you. APPENDIX. Q. Do you think you received the money on it yourself? A. I have no idea. I may have drawn the money and handed it to another person. It was paid in that transaction. It may have been paid to Mr. Garfield. There were several sums of that amount. Q. Have you any memory in regard to this check ? A. I have no memory as to that particular check. Page 35 4: Q. In regard to Mr. Garfield, do you know whether you gave him a check or paid him the money ? A. I think I did not pay him the money. He got it from the sergeant-at-arms. Page 355 : Q. You think the check on which you wrote nothing to indicate the payee, must have been Mr. Garfield s? A. Yes, sir. That is my judgment. Page 460 : A. I am not sure how I paid Mr. Garfield. Page 471 : Q. In testifying in Mr. Garfield s case, you say you may have drawn the money on the check and paid it him. Is not your answer equally applicable to the case of Mr. Col- fax? A. No, sir. Q. Why not? A. I put Mr. Colfax s initials on the check, while I put no initials on Mr. Garfield s and I may have drawn the money myself. Q. Did not Mr. Garfield s check belong to him? A. Mr. Garfield had not paid for his stock. He was entitled to three hundred and twenty-nine dollars balance. But Mr. Colfax paid for his and I had no business with his twelve hundred dollars. Q. Is your recollection in regard to this payment to Mr. Colfax any more clear than your recollection as to the pay ment to Mr. Garfield ? A. Yes, sir. I think it is. Finally, Mr. Dillon, cashier to the sergeant-at-arms, testi fied. Page 479": Q. There is a check payable to Oakes Ames or bearer. Have you any recollection of that? A. That was paid to himself. I have no doubt, myself, that I paid that to Mr. Ames. Now we ask the reader to remember that there is not one jot or tittle of corroborative evidence. Everything injurious to Mr. GurfK-ld is given above, and all of Mr. Ames s testi- APPENDIX. mony concerning Mr. Garfield is quoted. Consequently, we are asked to believe that he was guilty of bribery and corrup tion because Mr. Ames says in one of seven paragraphs quoted that he paid Mr. Garfield money; in another that he may have paid Mr. Garfield the money ; and in three of them he thinks or presumes that he paid Mr. Garfield a check ; and in the other two he says he doesn t know. Is this any kind of evidence to any fair thinking man ? On the contrary, Mr. Garfield " affirms with perfect dis tinctness of memory" that he "received no check from Mr. Ames." The only money he ever received from him was in cur rency, a loan of three hundred dollars, which he repaid him, and which Mr. Ames acknowledged in a note to Mr. Garfield on January i5th, 1873. Now, as to the third and fourth accusations that he was con victed of this by the committee, and that that committee infer- entially charged him with lying. The report, on pages viii and ix, says of Representatives Elaine, Dawes, Scofield, Bingham, Kelley and Garfield, that " the committee do not find " that " they were aware of the object of Mr. Ames, or that they had any other purpose in taking this stock," so far as any of them did take it, "than to make a profitable investment;" that "the committee have not been able to find that any of these mem bers of Congress have been affected in their official action in consequence of their interest in the Credit Mobilier stock," so far as they had any interest ; that " the committee do not find" that any of them, "in contracting with Mr. Ames," so far as they did contract, "had any corrupt motive or purpose," or were " aware that Mr. Ames had any." That is to say, the committee holds all the members named, with the two excep tions specified, guiltless of bribery and corruption. But, say the accusers, the committee, while it reports Garfield to be innocent in this respect, inferentially declares him to be guilty of lying. Here is the passage referring particularly to Gar- field (p. vii) : 34 APPENDIX. "He (Garfield) agreed with Mr. Ames to take ten shares of Credit Mobilier stock, but did not pay for the same. Mr. Ames received the eighty per centum dividend in bonds, and sold them for ninety-seven per centum, and also received the sixty per centum cash dividend, which, together with the price of the stock and interest, left a balance of $329. This sum was paid over to Mr. Garfield by a check on the ser- gant-at-arms, and Garfield then understood this sum was the balance of dividends after paying for the stock. Mr. Ames received all the dividends, and the committee do not find that, since the payment of the 329, there has been any com munication between Mr. Ames and Garfield on the subject until this investigation began." This is all that there is in the report reflecting injuriously, even by inference, upon Garfield. The committee, as we have already seen, specifically acquits him of all wrong-doing in the matter. So far as the report reflects upon him at all, it does so by adopting the view of Oakes Ames rather than the view of Garfield of the negotiation of contract between them a vague negotiation and a skeleton contract even upon Ames own showing. Our readers can judge for themselves which view to take ; Mr. Garfield s direct denial or the hazy, everyway contradic tory presumptions of Mr. Ames. It was but natural that Mr. Garfield should defend him self from the accusations. He did so vigorously and thoroughly, leaving his record as unstained as it was before he entered Congress. He said : "That I neither purchased nor agreed to purchase the Credit Mobilier stock which Mr. Ames offered to sell me, nor did I receive any dividend arising from it. This appears not only from my own testimony, but from that first given by Mr. Ames, which is not overthrown by his subsequent statements, and is strongly confirmed by the fact that in the case of each of those who did purchase the stock there was produced as evidence of the sale either a certificate of stock, receipt of payment, a check drawn in the name of the payee or entries in Mr. Ames diary of a stock account marked adjusted and < luscd, but that no one of these evidences existed in reference APPENDIX. to me. This position is further confirmed by the subsequent testimony of Mr. Ames, who, though he claimed that I did receive three hundred and twenty-nine dollars from him on account of stock, yet he repeatedly testified that beyond that amount, I never received or demanded any dividend, that none was ever offered to me, nor was the subject alluded to in conversation. Mr. Ames admitted in his testimony that after December, 1867, the various stock and bond dividends amounted to an aggregate of more than eight hundred per cent., and that between January, 1868, and May, 1871, all these dividends were paid to several of those who purchased stock. My conduct was wholly inconsistent with the suppo sition of such ownership, for during the year 1869 I was bor rowing money to build a house in Washington, and securing my creditors by mortgages on my property ; and all this time it was admitted that I received no dividends and claimed none. The attempt to prove a sale of the stock to me is wholly inconclusive, for it rests, first, on a check payable to Mr. Ames himself, concerning which, he said several times in his testimony he did not know to whom it was paid ; and, second, upon loose undated entries in his diary, which neither prove a sale of the stock nor any payment on it. The only fact from which it is possible for Mr. Ames to have inferred an agreement to buy the stock was the loan to me of three hun dred dollars. But that loan was made months before the check of June 22d, 1868, and was repaid in the winter of 1869, and after that date there were no transactions of any sort be tween us, and before the investigation was ended Mr. Ames admitted that on the chief point of difference between us he might be mistaken. " That the offer which Mr. Ames made to me, as I under stood it, was one which involved no wrong or impropriety. I had no means of knowing and had no reason for supposing that behind this offer to sell me a small amount of stock lay hidden a scheme to defraud the Pacific Railroad and imperil the interest of the United States, and on the first intimation of the real nature of the case, I declined any further consid eration of the subject. That whatever may have been the facts in the case, I stated them in my testimony as I have al ways understood them ; and there has been no contradiction, prevarication or evasion on my part." In winding up his review of the whole matter. General Garfield uses the following language : APPENDIX. "If there be a citizen of the United States who is willing to believe that for three hundred and twenty-nine dollars I have bartered away my good name and to falsehood have added perjury, these words are not addressed to him. If there be one who thinks that any part of my public life has been gauged on so low a level as these charges would place it, I do not address him. I address those who are willing to believe that it is pos sible for a man to serve the public without personal dishonor. I have endeavored in this review to point out the means by which the managers of a corporation, wearing a garb of honorable industry have robbed and defrauded a great na tional enterprise, and attempted by cunning and deception, for selfish ends, to enlist in its interests those who would have been the first to crush the attempt had their objects been known. "If any of scheming corporations or corrupt rings that have done so much to disgrace the country by their attempts to control its legislation, have ever found in me a conscious supporter or ally in any dishonorable scneme, they are at full liberty to disclose it. In the discussion of the many grave and difficult questions of public policy which have occupied the thoughts of the nation during the last twelve years, I have borne some part, and I confidently appeal to the public records for a vindication of my conduct." All minor charges growing out of the above principal ones, it is not necessary to discuss, as they naturally fall to the ground with the collapse of the main accusations. Perhaps the reader may say to himself here, that the au thor s admiration for the subject of his sketch has colored his views in regard to this transaction. To meet this we oppose, first, the absolute faith and confidence in General Garfield held by all Republicans, notably so those of Ohio, who investigated their representative, only to reaffirm their belief in his positive consistent integrity. Judge Poland, chairman of the investigating committee, expressed himself the other day thus : "At the time of the investigation the public mind was greatly excited on the subject, and it involved the character and reputation of so many prominent men, that probably no APPENDIX. mere personal matter ever was so thoroughly canvassed and discussed by the reading and intelligent people of this coun try. After the most exhaustive discussion and reflection, the judgment of the people of this country was made up as to each man who was named as connected with it. Saying nothing in regard to any other man, I think I may most truthfully say that this public and popular judgment fully and absolutely acquitted General Garfield of all wrong, either in act or in tent, in relation to the matter. No man could have been continued in public life, and constantly risen in public stand ing and in the public estimation, by the consent and approval of the best men of both parties, as General Garfield has, if there existed a suspicion of wrong-doing against him. I re gard this popular and continued verdict of the people as con clusive." Second, we oppose the opinions of some of the more prominent Democrats. The Hon. Henry B. Payne, of Cleve. land; the Hon. Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio; Henry Watter- son, of Kentucky, and others equally prominent, have all declared their belief in General Garfield s absolute incor ruptibility, and his entire integrity, during his long public career. That they are in good company in so believing and testifying, the following letter will prove : " PHILADELPHIA, Februrary i5th, 1873. "Mv DEAR SIR: From the beginning of the investigation concerning Mr. Ames use of the Credit Mobiiier, I believed that General Garfield was free from all guilty connection with that business. This opinion is founded not merely on my confidence in his integrity, but on some special knowledge of his case. I may have told you all about it in conversation, but I desire now to repeat it by way of a reminder. "I assert unhesitatingly that, whatever General Garfield may have done or forborne to do, he acted in profound igno rance of the nature and character of the thing which Mr. Ames was proposing to sell. He had not the slightest suspi cion that he was to be taken into a ring organized for the pur pose of defrauding the public, nor did he know that the stock was in any manner connected with anything which came, or could come, within the legislative jurisdiction of Congress. 576 APPENDIX. The case against him lacks the scientcr which alone constitutes guilt. " In the winter of 1869- 70, I told General Garfield of the fact that his name was on Ames list ; that Ames charged him with being one of his distributees ; explained to him the char acter, origin and objects of the Credit Mobilier; pointed out the connection it had with Congressional legislation, and showed him how impossible it was for a member of Congress to hold stock in it without bringing his private interests in conflict with his public duty. That all this was to him a per fectly new revelation I am as sure as I can be of such a fact, or of any fact which is capable of being proved only by moral cir cumstances. He told me then the whole story of Train s offer to him and Ames subsequent solicitation, and his own action in the premises, much as he details it to the committee. I do not undertake to reproduce the conversation, but the effect of it all was to convince me thoroughly that when he listened to Ames he was perfectly unconscious of anything evil. I watched carefully every word that fell from him on this point, and did not regard his narrative of the transaction in other respects with much interest, because in my view everything else was insignificant. I did not care whether he had made a bargain technically binding or not; his integrity depended upon the question whether he acted with his eyes open. If he had known the true character of the proposition made to him he would not have endured it, much less embraced it. "Now, couple this with Mr. Ames admission that he gave no explanation whatever of the matter to General Garfield, then reflect that not a particle of proof exists to show that he learned anything about it previous to his conversation with me, and I think you will say that it is altogether unjust to put him on the list of those who knowingly and willfully joined the fraudulent association in question. " J. S. BLACK. " HON. J. G. ELAINE, Speaker of the House of Representatives." And one further word, from Bonn Piatt, who went into this matter thoroughly : "General Garfield, personally considered, is singularly pure and upright. He is one of the few men in public life who can look his beautiful little wife and lovely children in the face without shame. We say this advisedly, for we have APPENDIX. known General Garfield intimately all his public life, and we can advise the mud machine, called partisan papers, that at tempts at blackmailing Garfield s character will be signal failures, and will be met by protests from such eminent Demo crats as the Hons. Jeremiah Black, Allen G. Thurman and Justice Field, who have already put themselves to record in his behalf. Garfield s purity is so thorough that it gives him a perilous confidence in men, and has gotten him into trouble, precisely as a confiding boy gets into scrapes. In that Credit Mobilier affair, for example, we know, and have so testified, that at the very time it was claimed he was scheming to en rich himself through Ames rascality, he was shinning about Washington, striving to borrow $300 to pay house rent, and so ignorant of the commonest financial process that he did not know how to negotiate an ordinary note of hand. He has not only lived in the open air, but has occupied positions where, like other leaders, he could have winked himself into millions. He holds to-day the honored position of being the only poor man among the political leaders." Republican papers have naturally acquitted him, openly, frankly, fully. Such of the independent papers as are entitled to that name, and have not adopted it as a cover to obtain a wider publicity for doctrines that do not thrive when printed in an openly Democratic organ, have also acquitted him. One of the best of the honestly independent papers is the Boston Herald. It said of Garfield, and its words may be taken as representing that class: "Nobody but an idiot, moved by partisan rage or the necessity for bread and butter, would dare accuse Garfield of dishonesty. 5/3 APPENDIX. CHAPTER II. WE will now consider the rest of the charges. The second set relate to the De Golyer Contract for wood pavement in the city of Washington. The charges are: (i.) That in the year 1872 General Garfield received a counsel fee of five thousand dollars from De Golyer and McClelland, the owners of a patent for wood pavement which was laid down at a great cost in the streets of the city of Washington, under a contract with the Gov ernment of the District of Columbia. (2.) That he did no counsel work in the case. (3.) That the money was paid for no other purpose than to influence his conduct as a member of the Congress by which an appropriation for this wood pavement was made, and especially as Chairman of the Com mittee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives. In regard to them, General Garfield testified before the In vestigating Committee : "The whole story is plainly and briefly told. A day or two before the adjournment of the Congress which adjourned in the latter part of May or the first part of June, 1872, Richard C. Parsons, who was a practicing lawyer in Cleve land, but was then the Marshal of the Supreme Court, and an old acquaintance of mine, came to my house and said that he was called away summarily by important business; that he was retained in a case on which he had spent a great deal of time, and that there was but one thing remaining to be done, to make a brief of the relative merits of a large number of wooden pavements ; that the board of public works had agreed that they would put down a certain amount of wooden pavement in the city, a certain amount of concrete, and a certain amount of other kinds of pavement ; that they had fixed the price at which they would put down each of the dif ferent kinds, and that the only thing remaining was to deter- APPENDIX. mine which was the best pavement of each of these several kinds. He said he should lose his fee unless the brief on the merits of these pavements was made, and that he was sud denly and necessarily called away home ; and he asked me to prepare the brief. He brought his papers to my house, and models of the pavement. I told him I could not look at the case until the end of the session. When Congress adjourned I sat down to the case in the most open manner, as I would prepare a brief for the Supreme Court, and worked upon this matter. There were, perhaps, forty kinds of wood pavement, and several chemical analyses of the ingredients of the differ ent pavements. I went over the whole ground carefully and thoroughly, and prepared a brief on the relative claims of these pavements for the consideratipn of the board. That was all I did. I had nothing to do with the terms of the con tract ; I knew nothing of its conditions, and I never had a word to say about the price of the pavement. I knew noth ing about it. I simply made a brief upon the relative merits of the various patent pavements; and it no more occurred to me that the thing I was doing had relation to a ring, or to a body of men connected with a scheme, or in any way con nected with Congress, or related in any way to any of my. duties in connection with the Committee on Appropriations, than it occurred to me that it was interfering with your per sonal rights as a citizen. I prepared the brief and went home. Mr. Parsons subsequently sent me a portion of his own fee. "A year later, when the affairs of the District of Columbia came to be overhauled, Congress became satisfied that the government of the District had better be abolished, and this whole matter was very thoroughly investigated by a commit tee of the two Houses. They went into the question of the merits of this pavement, some claiming that it was bad, and some claiming that the Government had paid too much for it. Mr. Chittenden was called as a witness. I ought to say here that I never saw Mr. Chittenden until about the time I made the brief; I did not and do not know De Golyer and McClel land ; I would not know them on the street; I am not aware that I ever saw Mr. Nickerson before; and if anybody in this business had any scheme relating to me, it was never men tioned to me in the remotest way. It never was suggested to me that this matter could relate to my duties as a member of Congress in any way whatever. All that I did was done APPENDIX. openly. Everybody who railed upon me could see what I was doing, and, if there was any intention or purpose on the part of anybody to connect me in any way with any ring or any dishonorable scheme, it was seduously concealed from me. As I have said, three years ago a joint committee of the two Houses investigated this matter thoroughly. Mr. Parsons was summoned, was examined and cross-examined ; Mr. Chitten- den was examined ; Mr. Nickerson was examined. When I heard that my name was being used in the matter, I went to the chairmen on both sides for it was a joint committee. Senator Thurman, of my own State, was on the committee; Mr. Jewett, now president of the Erie Railway, was on the committee. I said to the chairman that, if there was any thing in connection with the case which reflected upon me, and that they thought I ought to answer, I would be obliged to them if they would inform me. The chairman, on the part of the House, Mr. Wilson, said that he had looked the matter all over, and that what I had done was perfectly proper; but if anything should occur to make any explana tion necessary, I should appear before the committee, he would send me word. He never did send for me. "In the course of the campaign of 1874, a gentleman from my district wrote in regard to it to Mr. Wilson, the chairman of the joint committee on the part of the House, and received a letter in reply, which I read : " CONNERSVILLE, Ind., Aug. ist, 1874. Hon. Geo. W. Steele. Dear Sir: To the request for information as to whether or not the action of General Garfield, in connection with the affairs of the District of Columbia, was the subject of condemnation by the committee that recently had those affairs under consideration, I answer that it was not ; nor was there, in my opinion, any evidence that would have warranted any unfavorable criticism upon his conduct. " The facts disclosed by the evidence, so far as he is con cerned, are briefly these: " The Board of Public Works was considering the question as to the kind of pavements that should be laid. There was a contest as to the respective merits of various wooden pave ments. Mr. Parsons represented, as attorney, the De Golye-r & McClelland patent, and being called away from Washing ton about the time the hearing was to be had before the Board of Public Works on this subject, procured General Gar- APPENDIX, 581 field to appear before the board in his stead and argue the merits of this patent. This he did, and this was the whole of his connection in the matter. It was not a question as to the kind of contract that should be made, but as to whether this particular kind of pavement should be laid. The criticism of the committee was not upon the pavement in favor of which General Garfield argued, but was upon the contract made with reference to it ; and there was no evidence which would war rant the conclusion that he had anything to do with the latter. Very respectfully, etc., J. M. WILSON. "I want to say this, further. That if anybody in the world holds that my fee in connection with this pavement, even by suggestion or implication, had any relation whatever to any appropriation by Congress for anything connected with this District, or anything else, it is due to me, it is due to this committee, and it is due to Congress, that that person be summoned. If there be a man on this earth who makes such a charge, that man is the most infamous perjurer that lives, and I shall be glad to confront him anywhere in this world. I am quite sure this committee will not allow hearsay and con tradictory testimony to raise a presumption against me. Now, I will say very frankly to the committee that, if I had known or imagined that there was an intent such as this witness in sinuates, on the part of anybody, that my employment by a brother lawyer to prepare a brief on a perfectly legitimate question a question of the relative merits of certain lawful patents had any connection whatever, or any supposed con nection in the mind of any man, with my public duties, I certainly would have taken no such engagement. I would have been a weak and a very foolish man to have done so, and I trust that gentlemen who know me will believe that I would at least have had too much respect for my own ambi tion to have done such a thing." Garfield further showed and this is the only important fact in the whole case that Congress did not make any ap propriation to pay for the pavement and was not asked to make any, and that therefore the official conduct of Garfield could not be affected by the fee because he could have no official relations to the matter. The contract for the pave ment was made by the Board of Public Works and was paid eg,, APPENDIX. lor by a general local loan already authorized by law and by a tax or assessment levied by the Government of the District of Columbia just as local improvements in other cities are paid for by the property which they are supposed to benefit Congress might be called upon to meet general deficiencies in the revenues of the District, but this contingency was remote and did not form a condition of the De Golyer and McClel land contract. With this only the Board of Public Works was concerned. Garfield *s story was supported by the testi mony of Commissioner Shepherd before the committee. He says that Congress was not in session when the contract was awarded ; and further: "We had ample appropriations for all the work we had awarded, including that, without regard to any appropriation from Congress. All these contracts were awarded on the basis of the four million loan, and the assess ments by the city which were authorized by that law. They were not at all contingent upon Congressional appropriation." One further point. This was not an exceptional thing with General Garfield the brief before the Supreme Court as he had argued on an average during his Congressional career about seven cases a year. THERE is but one more matter to be taken up that has been misconstrued against General Garfield. Happily it can be as effectually disposed of as the other two, and in fewer words. We refer to the " Salary Grab :" General Garfield is called a "salary-grabber," and it is charged that he was mainly influential in the passage of the retro-active law of March 3d, 1873, by which the pay of mem bers of Congress was largely increased. This charge is easily refuted. The bill first made its appearance, together with a report submitted by Mr. B. F. Butler, from the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, on the yth of February. On the loth of February, Mr. Butler moved to suspend the rules and adopt a resolution directing the incor- APPENDIX. 583 poration of this bill with the Miscellaneous Appropriation bill. The motion was lost, Garfield voting in the negative. (See McPherson s "Hand-Book of Politics," for 1874, p. 9). It came up again in various forms on the 28th of February, and Garfield voted against it five times. (See pp. 14 and 15.) Finally the measure came before a conference commit tee of the Senate and House. Of that committee Garfield was a member. He opposed in the conference that part of the appropriation bill which related to salaries of members of Congress, but signed the report for reasons which he gave in a speech in the House, on the 3d of March. " I was op posed," he said, " to the increase in the conference, as I have been opposed to it in the discussion and in my votes here ; but my associate conferees were in favor of the Senate amend ment, and I was compelled to choose between signing the report and running the risk of bringing on an extra session of Congress." In answer to questions, he said that it would in volve "an additional expenditure of about one and a quarter millions" for that Congress, and that he thought "the House ought to know all the facts." This showed that he was still unfriendly to the measure, and only agreed to it under stress of circumstances. For the same reason he voted in the af firmative on the final passage of the bill. In the list of rep resentatives who redeposited their back pay, or "covered it into the Treasury," according to the technical description of the process, Garfield s name stands fourth, opposite the date April 2d, 1873. Garfield also voted for the bill to repeal the Salary act. (See McPherson, pp. 20-23.) Comment upon these facts is unnecessary. In a letter upon this subject, written by General Garfield to a friend, in 1873, ne tnus re f ers to th* 5 measure: " When I went into the army I did so expecting to follow the path of duty, whether it led me to life or death. In en tering Congress I undertook to follow the path of duty there, whether it led to political life or political death. I have cast many thousands of votes during my ten years of service, and 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books a^e subject to immediate recall. / V\ AUli 1 8 iy/8 fff-. era. LD 21A-60m-10, 65 (F7763slO)476B General Library University of California Berkeley