Removal of the President's Remains.--Monument Fund
Committee.--Garfield Memorial in Boston.--Extracts from
Address by Hon. N. P. Banks.
On the 22d of October, Garfield's remains were removed from the public
vault in Lakeview Cemetery to a private vault on the grounds, there to
remain until the completion of the crypt, where they will permanently
repose.
A Garfield Monument Fund Committee was organized at Cleveland
immediately after the funeral, and contributions have been received by
it from all sections of the country.
Upon Thursday, the 20th day of October, Memorial services were held in
Boston at Tremont Temple. From the address delivered by Hon. N. P. Banks
we give the following extracts:--
"The history of the Plymouth colony of 1620, which preceded the
embarkation of the Massachusetts colony, was blistered with the results
of a bitter and apparently relentless destiny, against which it would
have been scarcely possible for any people but the Massachusetts
Puritans and Pilgrims to have secured a triumph like that which the
Deity they worshipped vouchsafed to them.
"Its founders were fugitives from England and exiles from Holland. They
gladly accepted the chances of suffering and death in the New World, to
gain liberty of conscience and freedom to worship God. For the first ten
years of its existence population increased slowly, and numbered but
three hundred souls in 1630.
"The Massachusetts colony, with which Plymouth was united, left the Old
World under happier auspices. It started with concessions and
congratulations from the Crown. The best men in England were ambitious
to share its fortunes. Winthrop, Saltonstall and Sir Harry Vane--'the
sad and starry Vane'--were among its leaders; and such men as John
Hampden, Pym, Oliver Cromwell, and many others of that heroic type, were
restrained from emigration at the moment of embarkation by the order of
the king. Four thousand families--twenty thousand souls--people of
culture, capacity and character, no decayed courtiers or adventurers,
but merchants, seamen, husbandmen and others devoted to the highest
interests of man, had landed in Boston in ten years from the foundation
of the city.
"Among them came, in 1630, Edward Garfield, the paternal ancestor of the
late President of the United States. He was a man of gentle blood, of
military instincts and training, possessing some property, and a
thoughtful and vigorous habit of mind and body. The earliest record of
his name in the annals of the colony indicated an origin from some one
of the great German families of Europe, and his alliance by marriage
with a lady of that blood and birth confirmed the original impression of
the people with whom he identified his fortunes. His emigration
suggested a purpose consistent with his capacity and character, and with
the higher aspirations of the colony. He coveted possession of land, and
for that reason probably, among others, settled in Watertown, where
territory was abundant, and boundary lines yet delicate and dim,
especially toward the west, where they were mainly defined by the
receding and vanishing forms of the aboriginal inhabitants of the
country. In the realm they had abandoned it was a maxim among men that
home was where the heart was. But in the New World the colonists had
discovered that both home and heart were where there were liberty and
land.
"He chose a residence near Charles River, a stream unsurpassed in beauty
by any water that flows, since honored by the residence and immortalized
by the verse of Longfellow, and the original and marvellous industries
that enrich its peaceful and prosperous people.
"Edward Garfield, the founder of this new American family, did not long
linger near the boundaries of Boston. His first share in the
distribution of land to the freemen, by the town, was a small lot or
homestall of six acres, on the line of territory afterwards incorporated
as the town of Waltham. Another general grant of land by the town, in
1636, 'to the freemen and all the townsmen then inhabiting,' one hundred
and twenty in number, called the Great Dividends, gave to Garfield a
tract of thirty acres, the whole of which was within the territory set
off to Waltham. In 1650 the land allotted to Mr. Phillips, the first
minister of Watertown (about forty acres, in the same locality), was
sold by his heirs to Garfield and his sons. A portion of this estate was
purchased from the heirs of Garfield by Governor Gore, who constructed
upon it, from imported plans and materials, on his return from England,
a country seat, still admired as one of the most elegant and stately
residences in America. The first distinctive title ever given to the
territory now embraced within the limits of Waltham was that of 'The
Precinct of Captain Garfield's Company.' It is said that, after the
incorporation of that town, this name rarely appears on the records of
Watertown.
"While citizens of Watertown, Garfield and his descendants were assigned
to responsible military commands by the governors of the colony, and
frequently chosen for the board of selectmen and other town offices.
Captain Benjamin Garfield held a captain's commission from the governor,
was nine times elected representative of the town, and appointed to many
other offices. Others were honored in a similar manner in Watertown, in
Waltham, and wherever they planted themselves.
"They did not hive in the settled and safe centres of the colony, but
struck out boldly for the frontier, where danger was to be encountered
and duty performed. They adhered zealously to the principles of the
colony, and the controversies that arose from considerations of that
nature, at the very outset of its history, settled upon an unchangeable
basis the character of its government.
"An important and instructive illustration of this free spirit of the
people occurred in the second year of its settlement. Without previous
consultation of the several towns, the governor and assistants levied,
in 1632, an assessment of eight pounds sterling upon them for
construction of military defences in what is now Cambridge. This order
was declared to be subversive of their rights, and the people of
Watertown, the most populous and influential inland town, met in church,
with their pastor and elders, according to their custom, and after much
debate deliberately refused to pay the money, on the ground, they said,
'that it was not safe to pay monies after that sort, for fear of
bringing themselves and their posterity into bondage.'
"When summoned before the governor they were obliged to retract the
declaration and submit; but they set on foot such an agitation through
the colony as to secure, within three months of their original debate,
an order for the appointment of two persons from each town to advise
with the governor and assistants as to the best method of raising public
moneys. This order ripened, in 1634, into the creation of a
representative body of deputies elected by the people, having full power
to act for all freemen, except in elections. This was the origin of the
House of Representatives in Massachusetts. After ten years' contest the
body of assistants to the governor was separated from the body of
deputies, and, sitting as a Senate, left to the deputies chosen by the
towns an absolute negative upon the legislation of the colony. Thus was
established, substantially as it now exists, the Legislature of
Massachusetts.
"As the people began to be represented in the government of the colony,
so the direction of civil affairs in the towns came to be entrusted to a
municipal body of freemen, peculiar to New England, chosen for that
purpose, and known as the board of selectmen. It is a pleasure to know
that, during the violent contest for this right of representation in
State and local governments, Edward Garfield, the earliest American
ancestor of the martyr President whose loss we mourn, as a selectman of
Watertown, in the very crisis of that contest, did a freeman's duty with
a freeman's will, in securing to the people of Massachusetts the right
of representation they now enjoy.
"The Massachusetts family of Garfields, in the male line at least, were
churchmen, freemen, fighting men, thoughtful and thrifty men, and
working men. They were enterprising, active, and brave, fond of
adventure, distinguished for endurance and strength, athletic feats,
sallies of wit, cheerful dispositions, and, like their eminent successor
so recently passed away, noted always for a manly spirit and a
commanding person and presence. It was a prolific and long-lived race.
Marriages were at a premium, and families were large and numerous. Among
the people of the Massachusetts colony who made their way quickly to the
frontier when new towns were to be planted, the Garfields were well
represented. The foundation of a new municipality was then a solemn
affair, usually preceded by 'a day of humiliation, and a sermon by Mr.
Cotton.' When the territory of Massachusetts was overstocked, they
passed to other States in New England, and ultimately to the great West.
Wherever they were they asserted and defended the principles they
inherited from the founders of Massachusetts.
"Abram Garfield, of the fifth generation, a minute-man from Lincoln,
engaged in the fight with the British at Concord, and was one of the
signers of a certificate, with some of the principal citizens of that
town, declaring that the British began that fight. We should not feel so
much solicitude about that matter now.
"Abram Garfield, a nephew of the soldier at Concord, whose name he bore,
and who represented the seventh generation of the family, settled later
in Otsego County, N. Y., where he received the first fruits of toil as a
laborer on the Erie Canal. The construction of canals by the Government
of Ohio drew him, with other relatives, to that State, where his
previous experience gained for him a contract on the Ohio Canal. The
young men and women who left the earlier settlements for the frontier
States sometimes consecrated the friendships of their youth by a
contract of marriage when they met again in the great West. Abram
Garfield in this way met and married (Feb. 3, 1821) Eliza Ballou, a New
Hampshire maiden, whom he had known in earlier years. It was a long
wait, but a solid union. They were nearly twenty years of age when
married. A log cabin, with one room, was their home. His vocation was
that of an excavator of canals in the depths of the primeval forests of
Ohio. There was not much of hope or joy in the life before them; but
still it was all there was for them of hope or joy. They could not
expect the crown of life until they had paid its forfeit. They adhered
to the religious customs of childhood. Their labor prospered. Amid their
suffering and toil in the construction of the arteries of civilization
and the foundation of States and empires that will hereafter rule the
world, four children came to bless them. The last of the four was James
Abram Garfield (Nov. 19, 1831), destined, in the providence of God, to
be and to die President of the Republic.
* * * * *
"Garfield had pre-eminent skill in directing and applying the labor and
attainments of others to the success of his own work. This is a somewhat
rare, but a most invaluable capacity. No one man can do everything. In
labor, as in war, to divide is to conquer. There have been men who knew
everything, and could do everything,--whose incomparable capacities
would have been sufficient, under wise direction, to have given the
highest rank among the few men that have changed the destiny of the
world; but who could not succeed in government, because they never saw
men until they ran against them.
"Such admirable qualities, united to such strength and love for active
service, gave him reputation and rank, and opened the way to the
campaigns in Kentucky against Marshall, at Prestonburg and Middle
Creek,--the last a cause of other victories elsewhere,--and at Tullahoma
and Chickamauga.
"His knowledge of law opened a new field of activity and service, of
great benefit to him and to the Government. But little attention had
been given by professors of legal science, at the opening of the war, to
the study of military law. In the field where it was to be administered,
great difficulties were encountered in determining what the law was and
who was to execute it. A distinguished jurist, Dr. Francis Lieber, was
appointed by the Government to codify and digest the principles and
precedents of this abstruse department of the science of law. But it
opened to Garfield, long before the digest was completed, a peculiar
field for tireless research and labor in new fields of inquiry. Once
installed as an officer of courts-martial, his services were found to be
indispensable. From the West he was called to Washington, was in
confidential communication with President Lincoln in regard to the
military situation in the West, was a member of the most important
military tribunals, became a favorite and protege of the Secretary of
War, and, upon the express wish of the President and Secretary,
accepted his seat in the House of Representatives, to which he had been
chosen in 1862.
"His career in Congress is the important record of his life. For that he
was best fitted; with it he was best satisfied; in it he continued
longest, and from it rose to the great destiny which has given him a
deathless name and page in the annals of the world.
"The House of Representatives in the age of Clay, Calhoun and Webster
was an institution quite unlike that of our own time. Its numbers then
were small; its leading men comparatively few; but few subjects were
debated, and members of the House rarely or never introduced bills for
legislative action. Its work was prepared by committees, upon official
information, and gentlemen prepared to speak upon its business could
always find an opportunity. Now its numbers have been doubled. More than
ten thousand bills for legislative consideration are introduced in every
Congress. The increase of appropriations, patronage and legislation is
enormous, and the pressure for action often disorderly and violent.
Little courtesy is wasted on such occasions, when one or two hundred
members are shouting for the floor, and when one is named by the Speaker
it must be a strong man, ready, able, eloquent, to gain or hold the ear
of the House. Garfield never failed in this. His look drew audience and
attention. He was never unprepared, never tedious; always began with
his subject, and took his seat when he had finished. He had few
controversies, and was never called 'to order' for any cause. He was a
debater rather than an orator; always courteous, intelligent,
intelligible, and honorable. The House listened to him with rapt
attention, and he spoke with decisive effect upon its judgment. He liked
it to be understood that he was abreast of the best thought of the time,
had a great regard for the authority of scientific leaders, and walked
with reverential respect in the tracks of the best thinkers of the age.
It is a pleasant thing, this method of settling all problems by
demonstration of exact science. Hudibras must have been in error when he
spoke so lightly of these scholastic methods, saying, or rather
singing,--
'That all a rhetorician's rules
Teach him but to name his tools.'
"The people watched with great interest his long and terrible struggle
for life, and their hearts trembled with alternations of hope and fear,
as they studied with close attention the morning and the evening
bulletins giving the ebb and flow of life's dark tide with the precision
of exact science; but they read with infinite relief, if not always with
satisfaction, the telegrams of the Secretary of State to the American
minister at London, stating, in the language of common life, the
changes that had occurred in the condition of the President from day to
day.
"As chairman or prominent member of the principal business committees of
the House, Garfield had always access to the floor, and an eager
assembly as his audience. His topics were generally of a national
character, connected with the organization and maintenance of the
government; but there is scarcely any subject brought before Congress to
which he has not, at some time, given a thorough and able exposition of
his views. The best known and most influential of his speeches have been
in relation to the war, financial affairs, the currency, and the tariff.
These all involved national interests, and exhibit on his part a
profound study of every subject necessary to their support. He was from
the first, and constantly, a hard-money man, a leader in discussion, and
a supporter by his votes of every proposition necessary to maintain a
sound currency. On the subject of the tariff, while he did not deny
that, as an abstract question, the doctrine of free trade presented an
aspect of truth, yet he always declared that under a government like
ours protection of national industries was indispensable. He advocated
duties high enough to enable the home manufacturer to make a wholesome
competition with foreigners, but not so high as to subject consumers to
a monopoly of product or supply. A moderate and permanent protection was
the doctrine he always ably sustained. It would be instructive to recall
the expression of his views embodied in his speeches upon these
subjects, which he photographed upon the minds of those to whom they
were addressed, but it is inappropriate on the present occasion. Few men
in the history of the House of Representatives have acquired a higher
reputation, and none will be more kindly and permanently remembered.
* * * * *
"There was much force in a declaration made by the Pastor of the
Disciples' Church, at the funeral of President Garfield, in the rotunda
of the Capitol at Washington. The gigantic proportions of this apartment
excite a strange sensation in every visitor. One familiar with the
scene, recalls at his entrance an ancient tradition, often repeated
before the war, that this majestic central apartment of the Capitol
would, some day, witness the coronation of a king. Apart from the
unusual solemnity of this occasion, the scene was of an extraordinary
character. The light that fell from the dome above gave a solemn aspect
to the apartment. Distinguished personages moved silently and slowly to
the positions assigned them. Two ex-Presidents, immediate predecessors
of the deceased, the only occupants of the presidential office that
have attended at such a time, sat in front of the eastern entrance of
the rotunda. The diplomatic corps, in full court costume, were placed in
rear of the ex-Presidents. Senators, judicial officers in their robes,
officers of the army and navy, in brilliant uniforms, were on the right.
Members and ex-members of the House, in large numbers, attended by the
Speaker, were massed upon the left, and the space around them was
crowded by citizens from every part of the country. The vast assembly
rose as the President, with the Cabinet officers and the stricken family
of mourners, passed to their seats near the casket of the deceased Chief
Magistrate,--which lay upon the same bier that bore the body of
President Lincoln, just beneath the centre of the canopy that from the
dome overhangs the rotunda,--guarded by veterans of the Army of the
Cumberland. The walls were hung with representations of important events
in American history;--the Landing of Columbus, De Soto's Discovery of
the Mississippi, the Baptism of Pocahontas, the Embarkation of the
Pilgrims, the Declaration of Independence, the Surrender of Cornwallis
at Yorktown, and the Resignation of Washington. On the belt of the
rotunda above were seen Cortez entering the Temple of the Sun in Mexico,
the Battle of Lexington, and other studies of varied and memorable
scenes in the history of the Republic.
"Simple, brief, and impressive ceremonies heightened the deep and
general interest of the occasion. The funeral discourse was of a purely
religious character, with scarcely more than a brief allusion to the
career of the deceased President, and no mention, I think, of his title
or his name. But these omissions intensified the general interest in his
brief personal allusions. 'I do believe,' he said, 'that the strength
and beauty of this man's character will be found in his discipleship of
Christ.'
"It is not my province to speak of the spiritual character of this
connection, but in another relation I believe it is true.
"The Church of the Disciples, to which he belonged, is one of the most
primitive of Christian communions, excluding every thought of distrust,
competition, or advantage. It gave him a position and mission unique and
generic, like and unlike that of other men. While he rarely or never
referred to it himself, and wished at times, perhaps, to forget it, he
was strengthened and protected by it. It was buckler and spear to him.
It brought him into an immediate communion--a relation made sacred by a
common faith, barren of engagements and responsibilities--with
multitudes of other organizations and congregations, adherents and
opponents, able and willing to assist and strengthen him, present or
absent, at home or abroad, who dismissed aspersions upon his conduct
and character as accusations of Pharisees against a son of faith, and
gave him at all times a friendly greeting and welcome, whenever and
wherever he felt inspired to give the world his thought and word. All
great migrations and revolutions of men and nations are born of this
spirit and power.
"In another direction he possessed extraordinary capacities. He was
animated by an intense and sleepless spirit of acquisition. It was not,
apparently, a common thirst for wealth, precedence, or power which
stimulates many men in our time. His ambition was for the acquisition of
knowledge. From early youth to the day of his last illness it was a
consuming passion. He gave to it days and nights, the strength of youth
and the vigor of middle age. When in the forests of New York, he made
the rocks and trees to personate the heroes of his early reading. When
engaged in the duties of his professorship, he found time for other
studies than those prescribed by the faculty, and for lectures,
addresses, and many other intellectual pursuits. He studied law while at
college without the knowledge of his intimate friends, until he was
admitted to the bar. When in Congress, he would occupy a whole night in
examination of questions to be considered the next day, and debate them
as if nothing unusual had occurred.
* * * * *
"It was said by one of the wisest of the ancient Greeks that it was
'impossible to penetrate the secret thoughts, quality and judgment of
man till he is put to proof by high office and administration of the
laws.' Whatever we may think of the splendid record of the late
President in every walk of life he followed, it does not enable us to
anticipate the character and success of the Administration upon which he
so happily entered. In other positions of public life, the concurrence
of so many different influences is required to accomplish even slight
results, that individual credit or responsibility therefor is but slight
and intangible. In the administration of government, the highest secular
duty to which men are ever called, responsibility is indivisible and
unchangeable; and the final results, whether for good or evil, are
indelibly stamped on the woof and warp of the web of time, and will so
remain forever. Good intentions are of no account, and a plea of
confession and avoidance,--admitting failure and disclaiming error,--so
advantageous in other cases, never governs the world in judging men who
fail rightly to administer government. We are happy in being absolved
from the responsibility of judgment where decision is impossible.
"Undoubtedly, the open assertion in some parts of the world of the right
of assassination as a method of reform in administration and government
may have intensified the general interest in this calamitous event. But
the courage and composure with which the presidential martyr bore his
affliction; the firmness and constancy of his aged mother; the serenity
and saint-like resignation of the heroic wife, administering consolation
and courage to the husband and father, in a voice sweet as the zephyrs
of the south, with a spirit as gentle as love, and a soul as dauntless
as the hearts of the women of Israel,--were not unobserved or unhonored.
It melted hearts in the four quarters of the globe, and drew from the
sons of men, in every land and clime, such an attestation and confession
of the faith that all created beings are the children of one Father, as
never before fell from human lips. We should be dead to sensibility and
honor did we not feel such unwonted tests of the universal scope and
sweep of human sympathy vouchsafed to us by the appointed leaders of
churches, empires and democracies, and by that august lady the Queen of
England and Empress of India, who presides over the councils of the
empire whence we derive our ideas of Christian faith, language, liberty
and law, who gave to the afflicted children of revolted and republican
America the emblems of mourning, reserved by the customs of her court to
the best beloved and bravest of her realm, and sent, over her own hand,
to the wife, mother and orphans, swift and touching evidence of the
strength of her sympathy and the depths of her sorrow--the grandest of
sovereigns and noblest of women!
"We turn from this record of active and honorable service to a brief
consideration, such as the occasion permits, of the elements of
character which distinguished President Garfield. After all, character
is the only enduring form of wealth. It is the power by which the world
is ruled, and the only legacy of true value that can be transmitted to
posterity.
"We cannot forget what occurred during the administration of Mr.
Lincoln, or of his successor, Mr. Johnson. We have witnessed no such
political convulsions in our day. No one ever justified the
assassination of Mr. Lincoln on such grounds, or would now counsel such
violence against the chiefs of earlier administrations. Neither can it
now be done with truth or justice. Those who enlisted in the opposition
to past administrations were men whose intellectual and moral natures
restrained them from the execution of purposes dictated by passion. To
those whose feeble intellects deprive them of moral restraint we should
give support, and never justify, by thought or act, conduct that, under
other circumstances, might have endangered the lives of every President
of the Republic! There is no cause or incitement to crime in the
political controversies of this year, that might not have occurred under
any other administration; and no cause or justification, of any kind
whatever, for such an ineffable and inexpiable crime as the murder of
the mild, generous, warm-hearted, forgiving, and Christian Chief
Magistrate whose loss we mourn.
"Political assassination is not insanity. It proceeds from infection and
distemper of the mind. It is not necessarily limited to the reform
administrations and governments, nor to any special form of government.
It can as well be applied to the settlement of a grocery bill, if an
excitation be created, as to the overthrow of a dynasty.
"It is another form of the doctrine of annihilation, and the remedy for
its evil is to avoid convulsions, private and public, restrain passion,
avoid injustice, practise moderation in all things, and do no evil that
good may come.
"The year 1881 is the complement of the full half-century since the
first open movement was organized for the control or destruction of our
government. The lesson of this half-century, with all its trials,
sacrifices and triumphs, is that it is good to maintain and defend the
government of our country and its lawfully constituted authorities,
whether or not we created them or like them. In the contemplation of
this half-century, can we find cause to wish the government had been
destroyed? Or can we now wish it destroyed?
"The lesson of Garfield's life is an admonition to protect and defend
the government. His birth marks the period when it was first assailed by
enemies domestic; and at the close of his life he gave his last hours of
health and strength to improve and protect it. His last friend should
give his last sigh to maintain it, not for his honor, which is
untarnished, nor his glory, which is immaculate, but for his country,
which still has perils to encounter, and liberties to defend, for the
benefit of mankind."