CHAPTER XI._The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, Twentieth President of the United States Embracing an Account of the Scenes and Incidents of His Boyhood; the Struggles of His Youth; the Might of His Early Manhood; His Valor As a Soldier; His Career As a Statesman; His Election to the Presidency; and the Tragic Story of His Death.

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.

To be thus made a mark conspicuous

For Envy’s shaft and brutal prejudice—

To hear above the loud huzzas the voice

Of some Satanic fool’s malignity

Roaring along the wind, like a wild ass

Braying th’ Assyrian desert, and to doubt

The applauding throng that gathers eagerly

To share the sunshine or perchance to weave

Some subtle scheme of selfishness,—all this

Is what the orators and poets call

The crowning honor!

A candidate for public office has a difficult part to play. There is

constant and imminent danger that he will commit some blunder, and

thereby put himself on the defensive. The fear of doing or saying

something which shall put a club into the hands of the enemy haunts both

himself and his friends. He is obliged to stand for some months on a

high platform in the market-place, saying to the whole world: “Now get

out your microscopes and your telescopes; with the one examine me, and

with the other examine the heavens of my past, and see if you can’t find

something that shall make me wince—some tender spot which you may prod

and make me cry out with pain.”

Notably does a candidate for the presidency suffer from exposure to this

fierce light and heat. All summer long he must be scrutinized and

assailed. All kinds of attack he must meet with equanimity. Every sort

of missile he must face, from the keenest-barbed arrows of analysis and

satire to the vulgarest discharges of mud. To be angered is a sign that

he is hurt; to bear it without flinching is a sign of indifferent

reprobacy; to do nothing at all is a sign of cowardice! Of a certainty

the American people will see their man. They will hear him, if he can be

tortured into opening his mouth. To all this we must add the diabolical

ingenuity of that inquisitor-general of the ages, the “interviewer” of

the public press—that wizen-faced mixture of gimlet, corkscrew, and

blood-sucker, who squeezes in, and bores, and pumps, and then goes away

with a bucket filled with the ichor of his own imagination. This he

retails to the public as the very wine of truth!

All the dangers of the case considered, the candidate generally adopts

the policy of mum. He becomes _pro tempore_ a universal know-nothing. He

has no ideas, no thoughts, no opinions. He has no political preferences.

He has not heard the news from Europe. He does not know whether the

Danubian provinces can compete with the American wheat-fields or not. He

has never heard that there is an English market for American beef. He

has never read a book. His family receive the newspapers; he does not

read them. The grave problem as to whether the Mississippi runs by St.

Louis he has not fully considered. The time of the year and the day of

the week are open questions which he has not investigated. Such matters

should be referred to the managers of the observatory and the bureau of

statistics. Only on two things does he plant himself firmly; to wit, the

Nicene Creed and the platform of his party!

How would General Garfield, now that he was nominated, bear himself

before the country? Could one who had so long been accustomed to

speaking out in meeting hold his peace, and assume the role of the

typical know-nothing? The General seems not to have taken counsel with

any body on this question, but simply to have made up his mind that the

mum policy was pusillanimous, and that for himself he would continue to

talk to his neighbors and friends and the general public just as usual.

This was, according to the judgment of the trimmers, an alarming

decision. Even thoughtful politicians were doubtful whether the

outspoken, talking policy could be trusted. But General Garfield soon

taught them and the country at large the useful lesson that a man can

talk without being a fool. He began at once to converse freely on all

proper occasions, to make little speeches to delegations of friends who

came from all directions to pay their respects, and to abandon, both

theoretically and practically, the monastic method of running for

office.

But let us resume the narrative. In the evening after his nomination the

General was called upon at the parlors of the Grand Pacific Hotel, and

in the presence of a great company of ladies and gentlemen was formally

notified of his nomination. Senator Hoar headed the committee appointed

to carry the news to the nominee, and to receive, in due season, his

response. The committee confronted General Garfield, and the

distinguished chairman said:

“_General Garfield_: The gentlemen present are appointed by the

National Republican Convention, representatives of every State in

the Union, and have been directed to convey to you the formal

ceremonial notice of your nomination as the Republican candidate for

the office of President of the United States. It is known to you

that the convention which has made this nomination assembled divided

in opinion and in council in regard to the candidate. It may not be

known to you with what unanimity of pleasure and of hopes the

convention has received the result which it has reached. You

represent not only the distinctive principles and opinion of the

Republican party, but you represent also its unity; and in the name

of every State in the Union represented on the committee, I convey

to you the assurance of the cordial support of the Republican party

of these States at the coming election.”

At the conclusion of Senator Hoar’s speech, General Garfield replied

with great gravity and composure:

“_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 expectation 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 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 indications to-night.”

As soon as the morning broke, General Garfield made preparations for

starting home. It seldom falls to the lot of man to return home under

such circumstances. He was followed by the eyes of millions. A special

car whirled him away in triumph. By his side were a multitude of

distinguished friends. A candidate for the presidency of the United

States is not likely to want for friends. Those who accompanied General

Garfield, however, were, for the most part, the genuine article. Many of

them were his old comrades in arms; others were prominent politicians,

some of them, no doubt, busy in constructing the fabric of a new

administration with themselves for possible corner-stones.

At La Porte, Indiana, the train made a halt. That great organ of

American noise, the brass band, came down the street with a

multitudinous citizenship at its heels. The huzzas called out the

General. He was introduced by Governor Foster, of Ohio. Then there were

more huzzas, and the train rolled away. The same happened at South Bend,

at Elkhart, at Goshen, and at all the other points, great and small,

between Chicago and Cleveland. At the latter city there was an immense

demonstration. The spacious depot was crowded with an enthusiastic

throng, that burst out with far-resounding cheers as the General’s train

came in. The city was all in a flutter, and it became evident that _the

people_ were up and stirring. The great Ohioan was driven to the hotel,

and, in response to a speech of welcome, said:

“_Fellow-citizens of my native county and of my State_: I thank you

for this remarkable demonstration of your good-will and enthusiasm

on this occasion. I can not at this time proceed upon any speech.

All that I have to say is, that I know that all this demonstration

means your gladness at the unity and harmony and good feeling of a

great political party, and in part your good feeling toward a

neighbor, an old friend. For all of these reasons I thank you, and

bid you good night.”

The following day, the 10th of June, was passed at Cleveland, and on the

morrow General Garfield visited his old school at Hiram. The

commencement exercises were set for that day, and the distinguished

nominee was under promise to speak. Here were gathered his old friends

and neighbors. Here he had first met his wife. She, with the boys, was

now a part of her husband’s audience. Here was the scene of his early

struggles for discipline and distinction. Here he had been a

bell-ringer, a student, a college professor, a president. Here he had

seen the horizon of his orphanage and boyhood sink behind him, and the

horizon of an auspicious future rise upon his vision. Before the vast

throng of visitors and students, at the appointed hour, he rose and

delivered his address as follows:

“_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 richness 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 occurred 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

plummet into 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 determine 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 interesting object, it would be the

unfinished, unformed character of the young man or young woman.

Those behind me have probably in the main settled 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 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

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 developed 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 you and greet you as I have done

to-day.”

After this reunion with his old friends at Hiram, General Garfield was,

on the morning of the 12th of June, driven to Mentor and Painesville. At

both places he was received with great enthusiasm, and at the latter

place, in response to the speech of welcome, made the following

characteristic address:

“_Fellow-citizens and neighbors of Lake County_: I am exceedingly

glad to know that you care enough to come out on a hot day like

this, in the midst of your busy work, to congratulate me. I know it

comes from the hearts of as noble a people as lives on the earth.

[Cheers.] In my somewhat long public services there never has been a

time, in however great difficulties I may have been placed, that I

could not feel the strength that came from resting back upon the

people of the Nineteenth District. To know that they were behind me

with their intelligence, their critical judgment, their confidence

and their support was to make me strong in every thing I undertook

that was right. I have always felt your sharp, severe, and just

criticism, and my worthy, noble, supporting friends always did what

they believed was right. I know you have come here to-day not

altogether, indeed not nearly, for my sake, but for the sake of the

relations I am placed in to the larger constituency of the people of

the United States. It is not becoming in me to speak, nor shall I

speak, one word touching politics. I know you are here to-day

without regard to politics. I know you are all here as my neighbors

and my friends, and, as such, I greet you and thank you for this

candid and gracious welcome. [Cheers.] Thus far in my life I have

sought to do what I could according to my light. More than that I

could never hope to do. All of that I shall try to do, and if I can

continue to have the good opinion of my neighbors of this district,

it will be one of my greatest satisfactions. I thank you again,

fellow-citizens, for this cordial and generous welcome.” [Applause

and cheers.]

After some days of rest at his home, General Garfield repaired to

Washington City, where he arrived on the 15th day of June. Everywhere

along the route the railway stations and towns were crowded with people,

anxious to catch a glimpse and hear a word from the probable President.

Arriving at the Capital, he was, on the evening of the 16th, serenaded

at his hotel, and, responding to the cheers of the crowd, appeared on

the balcony and made the following happy speech:

“_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, every man would stand

uncovered, all in unsandaled feet in presence of the majesty of the

only sovereign power in this Government under Almighty 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 demonstration. I am

not, for one moment, misled into believing 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 compliment to one who is placed for a moment

in relations to you of peculiar importance. For all these reasons I

thank you.

“I can not 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

disciplined feet, years ago, when the imperiled Republic needed your

hands and your hearts to save it, and you came back with your

numbers decimated; but those you left behind were immortal and

glorified heroes forever; and those you brought back came, carrying

under tattered banners and in bronze hands the ark of the covenant

of your Republic in safety out of the bloody baptism 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:

“‘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 welcome I thank you with all there is in my heart.”

[Illustration: VIEW OF MENTOR.]

On the next evening after this address, General Garfield was given a

reception and banquet, at which were present many of the most

distinguished men of the nation. Then, after a brief stay at Washington,

he returned to Mentor, hoping to enjoy a respite from the excitements of

the hour. But there was little hope of rest for one who by the will of

the millions had thus been whirled into the blazing focus of

expectation.

On the 3d of July the Soldiers’ Monument at Painesville, Ohio, was

formally dedicated. General Garfield was present on the occasion, and

after the principal oration, was called upon to speak. His address

created great enthusiasm, especially among the veterans, who were

gathered in great numbers to hear their old leader. General Garfield

said:

“_Fellow-citizens_: I can not 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 sweeping 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 monument 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, thousands know, what it is to offer up your 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 awfully 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 millions 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

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 hopeless 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 thousand 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 all these horrors and all these sufferings in preference to

going back upon the flag of their country and the glory of its

truth. [Applause.] Great God! was ever such measure of patriotism

reached by any men 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 conquerors of Greece, who, when he had

traveled in his boyhood over the battle-fields where Miltiades had

won victories and set up trophies, returning said: ‘These trophies

of Miltiades will never let me sleep.’ Why? 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 from the bugler on the field, from

his dead lips will go out a call that the children of Lake County

will hear after the grave has covered us and our immediate children.

That is the teaching of your 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 can not 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 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 harmony under the union of our flag of the

Stars and Stripes.”

The next public utterance of General Garfield had been anxiously

awaited. Until now he had not found time to return a formal answer to

the committee, whose chairman had, on the evening of the 8th of June,

informed him of his nomination for the Presidency. On the 12th of July,

the General, from his home at Mentor, issued his letter of acceptance.

It was a document of considerable length, touching upon most of the

political questions of the day, and gave great satisfaction to his party

throughout the Union. The letter was as follows:

“MENTOR, OHIO, July 10th, 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 official 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 indorse

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 Congress. 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 recognize 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 the laws

made in pursuance thereof are the supreme law of the land; that the

right of the nation to determine the method by which its own

legislature shall be created can not be surrendered without

abdicating one of the fundamental powers of the Government; that the

national laws relating to the election of representatives 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 people should be directed to those great questions of

national well-being in which we all have a common 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 can not be completely

healed and the spirit of brotherhood can not 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 prosperity. The National Government

should exercise 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 member can suffer without injury to all.

“The most serious evils which now afflict the South arise from the

fact that there is not such freedom and toleration of political

opinion and action that the minority party can exercise an effective

and wholesome restraint upon the party in power. Without such

restraint party rule becomes tyrannical and corrupt. The prosperity

which is made possible in the South, by its great advantages of soil

and climate, will never be realized 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 permanently 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 supporting 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 every thing

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 certainly 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 widows and orphans of those who fell in its defense. The

resumption of specie payments, which the Republican party so

courageously and successfully accomplished, has removed from the

field of controversy many questions that long and seriously

disturbed the credit of the Government and the business of the

country. Our paper currency is now as national as the flag, and

resumption 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 abundant than ever before, and we need only to

maintain 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 prosperity 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 Treasury, and will enable the labor and

capital employed 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

can not be independent unless its people, with their abundant

natural resources, 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 implements 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 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, provided 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, President

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 shipping 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,

demand 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

undistinguishable part of our population. The 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 can

not consent to allow any form of servile labor to be introduced

among us under the guise of immigration. 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 modification of the existing treaty as will

prevent the evils likely to arise from the present situation. It is

confidently believed that these diplomatic negotiations will be

successful without the loss of that commercial intercourse between

the two great powers which promises a great increase of reciprocal

trade and the enlargement of our markets. Should these efforts fail,

it will be the duty of Congress to mitigate the evils already felt,

and prevent their increase by such restrictions as, without violence

or injustice, will place upon a sure foundation the peace of our

communities and the freedom and dignity of labor.

“The appointment of citizens to the various executive 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 coöperate with the

Executive Department in placing the civil service on a better basis.

Experience has proved that, with our frequent changes of

administration, no system of reform can be made effective and

permanent without the aid 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 determine 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 convictions, 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 to promote as best I may the interest and honor of the

whole country, relying for support upon the wisdom of Congress, the

intelligence and patriotism of the people, and the favor of God.

“With great respect, I am very truly yours,

“J. A. GARFIELD.

“To Hon. GEO. F. HOAR, Chairman of the Committee.”

The battle was now fairly on. The Democracy had, on the 23d day of June,

in convention at Cincinnati, nominated as their standard-bearer the

distinguished and popular soldier, Major-General Winfield S. Hancock.

This nomination was received by the General’s party with as much

satisfaction and enthusiasm as that of General Garfield had been by the

Republicans. Meanwhile, General James B. Weaver, of Iowa, had been

chosen to make the race by the National party, in a convention held in

Chicago, on the 9th of June. So that there were presented for the

suffrages of the people three eminent soldiers—all men of large

abilities, undoubted patriotism, and thorough soundness of character. It

was evident, however, from the opening of the campaign, that the contest

was narrowed to Generals Garfield and Hancock, with the chances in favor

of the former; and as the public mind became warmed up to the pitch of

battle, the chances of Garfield were augmented by almost every incident

of the fight. The platforms of the two parties had both been made with a

view to political advantage rather than to uphold any distinctive

principles. So the fight raged backwards along the line of the history

and traditions of the two parties rather than forward along the line of

the living political issues of the present and the future. In a modified

form the old questions of the war were revived and paraded. A delegate

in the Cincinnati Convention, allowing his zeal to run away with his

sense, had pledged a “Solid South” to the support of General Hancock.

This sectional utterance was a spark dropped among the old war memories

of the Union soldiers; and the politicians were quick to fan the flame

by suggesting that “a Solid South” ought to be confronted by “a Solid

North.” This line of argument, of course, meant ruin to the Democracy.

The Republican leaders virtually abandoned the Southern States, and

concentrated all their efforts upon the doubtful States of the Northern

border. Indiana became a critical battle-field; and here the political

fight was waged with the greatest spirit. Having a gubernatorial

election in October, it was foreseen that to carry this doubtful State

would be well nigh decisive of the contest, and to this end the best

talent of both parties was hurried into her borders. While these great

movements were taking place, General Garfield remained, for the most

part, at his quiet home at Mentor. On the 3d of August he attended the

dedication ceremonies of a soldiers’ monument at Geneva, Ohio. More than

ten thousand people were in attendance. After the principal address of

the day had been delivered, General Garfield was introduced, and spoke

as follows:

[Illustration: LAWNFIELD.—THE HOME OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD AT MENTOR.]

“_Fellow-citizens, Ladies and Gentlemen_: These gentlemen had no

right to print on a paper here that I was to make a speech, for the

types should always tell the truth. [A voice—They did it this time.]

They have not done it in this case; but I can not look out upon an

audience in Ashtabula County, recognizing so many old faces and old

friends, without at least making my bow to them, and saying

‘good-bye’ before I go. I can not either hear such a speech as that

to which I have just listened without thanking the man who made it

[applause] and the people who enabled him to make it [applause], for

after all no man can make a speech alone. It is the great human

power that strikes up from a thousand hearts that acts upon him and

makes the speech. [Applause.] It originates with those outside of

him, if he makes one at all, and every man that has stood on this

platform to-day has had a speech made out of him by you and by what

is yonder on your square. That’s the way speeches are made, and if I

had time to stay long enough, these forces with you might make one

out of me. [Applause.] Ideas are the only things in the universe

really immortal. Some people think that soldiers are chiefly

renowned for courage. That is one of the cheapest and commonest

qualities; we share it with the brutes. I can find you dogs and

bears and lions that will fight, and fight to the death, and will

tear each other. Do you call that warfare? Let me tell you the

difference. They are as courageous as any of these soldiers, if mere

brute courage is what you are after. The difference between them and

us is this: Tigers never hold reunions [laughter] to celebrate their

victories. When they have eaten the creature they have killed, that

is the only reunion they have ever held. [Laughter.] Wild beasts

never build monuments over their slain comrades. Why? Because there

are no ideas behind their warfares. Our race has ideas, and because

ideas are immortal, if they be true, we build monuments to them. We

hold reunions not for the dead, for there is nothing on all the

earth that you and I can do for the dead. They are past our help and

past our praise. We can not add more glory, and we can give them no

immortality. They do not need us, but forever and forever more we

need them. [Applause.] The glory that trails in the clouds behind

them after their sun has set, falls with its benediction upon us who

are left [applause], and it is to commemorate the immortality of the

ideas for which they fought, that you assemble to-day and dedicate

your monument, that points up toward God who leads them in the glory

of the great world beyond. Around these ideas, under the leadership

of these ideas, we assemble to-day, reverently to follow, reverently

to acknowledge the glory they achieved and the benediction they left

behind them. That is the meaning of an assembly like this, and to

join in it, to meet you, my old neighbors and constituents, to share

with you the memories that we have heard rehearsed and the

inspiration that this day points to, that this monument celebrates,

is to me a joy, and for it I am grateful to you.”

Immediately after this address at Geneva, General Garfield took his

departure for New York, where it had been determined to hold a

conference of the principal Republican leaders, relative to the conduct

of the pending campaign. The standard-bearer participated in the council

of his friends, adding not a little by his presence and unflagging

spirits to the zeal and enthusiasm of those upon whose efforts so much

depended. On the 7th he left the city for Lake Chautauqua, where he had

decided to spend a day at the great Sunday-school encampment and other

lakeside resorts. He was received with the greatest good-will by the

thousands assembled at Jamestown and Chautauqua; and on the eve of his

departure was induced, in response to salutations and cheers, to make

the following brief address:

“_Fellow-citizens_: You have done so much to me since I arrived on

this shore, that I am quite unable to tell what sort of man I am

this morning. [Laughter.] I had never been here, and really did not

know what you were doing. Last evening I asked Mr. Vincent, rather

brusquely, to tell me what Chautauqua means—what your work here

means—and he filled me so full of your ideas that I have not yet

assimilated it so as to be quite sure what manner of man I am since

I got hold of it. But this I see, you are struggling with one of the

two great problems of civilization. The first one is a very old

question—‘How shall we get leisure?’ That is the object of every

hammer stroke, of every blow that labor has struck since the

foundation of the world. [Applause.] The fight for bread is a great

primal fight, and it is so absorbing a struggle that until one

conquers to some extent he can have no leisure. We may divide the

struggles of the human race into two chapters: First, the fight to

get leisure, and, second, what to do with our leisure when we have

won it. It looks to me that Chautauqua has solved the second

problem. [Applause.] Like all blessings, leisure is a very bad thing

unless it is well used. The man with a fortune ready made, and with

leisure on his hands, is likely to get sick of the world, sick of

himself, tired of life, and to become a useless, wasted man. What

shall you do with your leisure? I understand Chautauqua is trying to

develop new energies, largeness of mind and culture in a better

sense, ‘with the varnish scratched off,’ as our friend, Dr.

Kirkwood, says. [Applause.] We are getting over the fashion of

painting and varnishing our native woods. We are getting down to the

real grain, and finding whatever is best and most beautiful in it,

and if Chautauqua is helping to develop in our people the native

stuff that is in them rather than to give them varnish and gewgaws

of culture, it is doing well. Chautauqua, therefore, has filled me

with thought, and, in addition to that, you have filled me with

gratitude for your kindness and for this great spontaneous greeting

in early morning, earlier than men of leisure get up. [Laughter.]

Some of these gentlemen of the press around me looked distressed at

the early rising by which you have compelled our whole party to look

at the early sun. [Laughter.] This greeting on the lake slope toward

the sun is very precious to me, and I thank you all. This is a mixed

audience of citizens, and I will not offend the proprieties of the

occasion by discussing controverted questions or entering upon any

political discussion. I look in the faces of men of all shades of

opinion, but whatever our party affiliation, I trust there is in all

this audience that love of our beneficent institutions which makes

it possible for free labor to earn leisure, and for our institutions

to make that leisure worth something [applause]—our Union and our

institutions, under the blessing of equal laws, equal to all colors

and all conditions, an open career for every man, however humble, to

rise to whatever place the power of a strong arm, the strength of a

clear head, and the aspirations of a pure heart can do to lift him.

That prospect ought to inspire every young man in this vast

audience. [Applause.] I heard yesterday and last night the songs of

those who were lately redeemed from slavery, and I felt that there,

too, was one of the great triumphs of the Republic. [Applause.] I

believe in the efficiency of the forces that come down from the ages

behind us, and I wondered if the tropical sun had not distilled its

sweetness, and if the sorrow of centuries of slavery had not

distilled its sadness into verses, which were touching, sweet

verses, to sing the songs of liberty as they sing them wherever they

go. [Applause.]

“I thank that choir for the lesson they have taught me here, and

now, fellow-citizens, thanking you all, good-bye.” [Applause.]

On the 9th of the month General Garfield returned to his home, where he

again sought a respite from the uproar and tumult of publicity which

followed him everywhere. On the 25th of August, a reunion of his old

regiment, the Forty-second Ohio, was held at Ashland, and the General

could but accept an invitation to share the occasion with his former

comrades in arms. The old soldiers passed a resolution, declaring it an

honor that their former Colonel had become the conspicuous man of the

nation, and commending him to the world as a model of all soldierly

virtues. He was elected President of the Regimental Association for the

ensuing year, and was thereupon called out for an address. The General

spoke as follows:

“_Fellow-citizens_: This is a family gathering, a military family,

for in war a regiment is to the army what a family is to the whole

civilized community. [Here a portion of the platform fell.] A

military reunion without some excitement and some accident would be

altogether too monotonous and tame to be interesting, and in this

good-natured audience we can have a good many accidents like that

and still keep quiet and be happy.

“I said this is a family reunion, an assembly of the Forty-second

military family, and it is well for us to meet here. Nineteen years

ago I met a crowd of earnest citizens in that court-room above

stairs. Your bell was rung, your people came out. The teacher of

your schools was among them. The boys of the school were there, and

after we had talked together a little while, about our country and

its imperiled flag, the teacher of the schools offered himself to

his country, and twenty of his boys with him. They never went back

into the school-house again; but in the dark days of November, 1861,

they and enough Ashland County boys to make one hundred went down

with me to Columbus to join another one hundred that had gone before

them from Ashland County, and these two hundred of your children

stood in the center of our military family and bore these old

banners that you see tattered before you to-day. One of them was

given to our family by the ladies of Ashland, and Company C, from

Ashland, carried it well. It was riddled by bullets and torn by

underbrush. Flapped by the winds of rebellion, it came back

tattered, as you see, but with never a stain upon its folds, and

never a touch of dishonor upon it anywhere; and the other of these

banners was given us by the special friends of Company A, in my old

town of Hiram, the student company from the heart of the Western

Reserve, and it also shared like its fellows, the fate, and came

home covered with the glory of the conflict.

“We were a family, I say again, and we did not let partisan politics

disturb us then, and we do not let partisanship enter our circle

here to-day.

“We did not quarrel about controversies outside of our great work.

We agreed to be brethren for the Union, under the flag, against all

its enemies everywhere, and brothers to all men who stood with us

under the flag to fight for the Union, whatever their color of skin,

whatever their previous politics, whatever their religion. In that

spirit we went out; in that spirit we returned; and we are glad to

be in Ashland to-day, for it is one of the homes of our regiment,

where we were welcomed in the beginning and have always been welcome

since. We are grateful for the welcome tendered us to-day by this

great assembly of our old neighbors and friends of Ashland County.

“Now, fellow-citizens, a regiment like a family has the right to be

a little clannish and exclusive. It does not deny the right of any

other family to the same privileges, but it holds the members of its

own family a little nearer and a little dearer than any other family

in the world. And so the Forty-second Regiment has always been a

band of brothers. I do not this day know a Forty-second man in the

world who hates another Forty-second man. There never was a serious

quarrel inside the regiment. There was never a serious disagreement

between its officers. The worst thing I have ever heard said against

it is that all its three field officers came home alive. And they

are all here on this stand to-day. It was, perhaps, a little against

us that no one of us had the honor to get killed or seriously

crippled; but we hold that it was not altogether our fault, and we

trust that some day or other you will have forgiven us, if you have

not to-day, for being alive and all here together.

“I want to say another thing about the soldiers’ work. I know of

nothing in all the circle of human duty that so unites men as the

common suffering and danger and struggle that war brings upon a

regiment. You can not know a man so thoroughly and so soon as by the

tremendous tests to which war subjects him. These men knew each

other by sight long before they knew each other by heart; but before

they got back home they knew each other, as you sometimes say you

know a son, ‘by heart;’ for they had been tested by fire; they had

been tested by starvation; they had been tested by the grim presence

of death, and each knew that those who remained were union men; men

that in all the hard, close chances of life, had the stuff in them

that enabled them to stand up in the very extremes they did; and

stand up ready to die. And such men, so tried and so acquainted,

never got over it; and the rest of the world must permit them to be

just a little clannish towards each other; the rest of the world

will not think we are narrow when they consider this particular

fault of ours; a little closer to us than any of the rest of the

world in a military way.

“Now, fellow-citizens, we are here to look into your faces, to enjoy

your hospitality, to revive our old memories of the place, but, for

more than any thing else, to look into each other’s faces, and

revive old memories of a great many places less pleasing and

home-like than Ashland. We have been meeting together in this way

for nearly fifteen years, and we have made a pledge to each other

that as long as there are two of us left to shake hands, we will

meet and greet the survivor. Some of us felt a little hurt about ten

years ago when the papers spoke of us as the survivors of the

Forty-second Regiment. We were survivors it was true, but we thought

we were so surviving that it need not be put at us, as though we

were about to die. Now, I don’t know how it is with the rest of you.

Most of mankind grow old, and you can see it in their faces. I see

here and there a bald head, like my own, or a white one, like

Captain Gardner’s, but to me these men will be boys till they die.

We call them boys; we meet and greet them as boys, even though they

become very old boys, and in that spirit of young, hopeful, daring

manhood we expect to meet them so long as we live. Nothing can get

us a great way from each other while we live. I am glad to meet

these men here to-day. [Here another portion of the platform broke

down, precipitating General Garfield and two or three of the

reporters to the ground.] Continuing, he said: I was glad also that

there was not any body hurt when that broke, and nobody made

unhappy, and I will conclude all I wanted to say, more than I

intended to say, by adding this: These men went out without one

single touch of revenge in their hearts. They went out to maintain

this Union and make it immortal; to put their own immortal lives

into it, and to make it possible that the people of Ashland should

make the monogram of the United States, as you see it up there

(pointing to the monogram on the building), a wreath of Union inside

of a very large N, a capital N, that stands for Nation, a Nation so

large that it includes the ‘U. S. A.’ all the people of the

Republic, and will include it for evermore; that is what we meant

then and is what we mean now.

“And now, fellow-citizens and soldiers of the Forty-second

Regiment—for I have been talking mainly to you, and if any of this

crowd have overheard I am not particularly to blame for it—I say,

fellow-citizens and comrades, I greet you to-day with great

satisfaction and bid you a cordial good-bye.”

Two days later General Garfield was present at a reunion of an artillery

company, held at Mentor, and since they had composed a part of the force

with which Thomas stayed at last the furious onset at Chickamauga, their

old chief of staff was all the more willing to say a few words for their

edification. This he did as follows:—

“_Comrades_: This is really the first time I have met this battery

as an organization since the Sunday evening of the terrible battle

of Chickamauga, nearly seventeen years ago. I last saw you there in

the most exposed angle of that unfortunate line, broken by the

combined forces of Bragg and Longstreet. I then saw you gallantly

fighting under the immediate direction of General Thomas, to reform

that broken line, and hold the exultant rebel host in check until

the gallant Steedman with reinforcements swept them back into the

dark valley of the Chickamauga. I am now able to distinguish among

your numbers faces which I saw there in that terrible hour. But how

changed! I now see you here with your wives, children, and friends,

peaceably enjoying this grand reception of your friends and

neighbors here assembled to honor and entertain you.

“But nothing so attracts my attention as your young and active

appearance. It is more than eighteen years since you left for the

war, and yet you are not old. Indeed, many of you appear almost like

boys. This I am pleased to observe; for if there be any men upon the

face of the earth who deserve an extension of time, it is you who,

in early manhood, so freely gave your services to your country, that

it might live. Nothing can be more proper than these annual

reunions. I am aware of the reputation which this organization, as

well as my own regiment, always enjoyed of unity and good fellowship

among its officers and men. May you, therefore, continue to enjoy

and perpetuate that friendship to the very latest hour of your

lives.”

General Garfield had now to learn that the people in their eagerness,

and especially the politicians in their unselfish devotion, had decreed

him no further rest, even at Lawnfield. Pilgrimages to Mentor became the

order of the day. For meanwhile the October elections had been held, and

all had gone triumphantly for the Republicans. Indiana, chief of the

so-called “doubtful States,” had whirled into line with an unequivocal

majority. Ohio had put a quietus on all hopes of the Democracy to carry

her electoral votes for Hancock. The high-blown anticipations of the

friends of “the superb soldier” were shockingly shattered. And so all

the paths of political preferment led to Mentor; and all the paths were

trodden by way-worn pilgrims, who, with sandal-shoon and scallop-shell

urged their course thither to see him who was now their hope. On the

19th of October a train of these pilgrims, rather more notable than the

rest, came in from Indiana. It was the Lincoln Club of Indianapolis,

four hundred strong. They were uniformed, and wore grotesque cockades

extemporized out of straw hats into a sort of three-cornered

conspicuity. The General was, none the less, greatly pleased with his

visitors, and spared no pains to make their brief stay at Mentor a

pleasure, if not a profit. The club was formally introduced by Captain

M. G. McLean, and in response General Garfield said:—

“_Gentlemen_: You come as bearers of dispatches, so your chairman

tells me. I am glad to hear the news you bring, and exceedingly glad

to see the bringers of the news. Your uniform, the name of your

club, the place from which you come, are all full of suggestions.

You recollect the verses that were often quoted about the old

Continental soldiers: “The old three-cornered hat and breeches, and

all that were so queer.” Your costume brings back to our memory the

days of the Continentals of 1776, whose principles I hope you

represent. You are called the Lincoln Club, and Lincoln was himself

a revival, a restoration of the days of ’76 and their doctrines. The

great Proclamation of Emancipation, which he penned, was a second

Declaration of Independence—broader, fuller, the New Testament of

human liberty; and then you come from Indiana, supposed to be a

Western State, but yet in its traditions older than Ohio. More than

one hundred years ago a gallant Virginian went far up into your

wilderness, captured two or three forts, took down the British flag,

and reared the Stars and Stripes. Vincennes and Cahokia, and a post

in Illinois, were a part of the capture. Your native State was one

of the first fruits of that splendid fighting power which gave the

whole West to the United States, and now these representatives of

Indiana come representing the Revolution in your hats, representing

Abraham Lincoln in your badges, and representing the victory both of

the Revolution and of Lincoln in the news you bring. I could not be

an American and fail to welcome your costumes, your badges, your

news and yourselves. Many Indiana men were my comrades in the days

of the war. I remember a regiment of them that was under my command

near Corinth, when it seemed necessary for the defense of our forces

to cut down a little piece of timber—seventy-five acres. We unboxed

for my brigade about four thousand new axes, and the Fifty-first

Regiment of Indiana Volunteers chopped down more trees in half a day

than I supposed it was possible could fall in any forest in a week.

It appears that in the great political forest from which you have

just come, your axes have been busy again. I especially welcome the

axmen of the Fifty-first Regiment, who may happen to be here, and

thank you all, gentlemen, for the compliment of your visit, and for

the good news you bring. I do not prize that news half so much for

its personal relations to you and to me, as I do because it is a

revival of the spirit of 1776, the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, the

spirit of universal liberty, and the spirit of just and equal law

all over this land. That gives your news its greatest significance.

Gentlemen, I thank you again, and shall be glad to take you by the

hand.”

After the speeches, the members of the Lincoln Club all had the pleasure

of shaking the hand of General Garfield, and of hearing an individual

welcome from his lips.

Two days afterwards, the Cuyahoga Veteran Corps came on a similar

pilgrimage to Lawnfield, and were similarly well received. General M. D.

Leggett, commander of the corps, made the introductory address; and, in

answer, General Garfield said:

“_Comrades_: Any man that can see twelve hundred comrades in his

front-door yard has as much reason to be proud as for any thing that

can well happen to him in this world. After that has happened, he

need not much care what else happens, or what else don’t happen. To

see twelve hundred men, from almost every regiment of the State, and

from regiments and brigades and divisions of almost every other

State—to see the consolidated field report of the survivors of the

war, sixteen years after it is over—is a great sight for any man to

look on. I greet you all with gratitude for this visit. Its personal

compliment is great.

“But there is another thought in it far greater than that to me and

greater to you. Just over yonder about ten miles, when I was a mere

lad, I heard the first political speech of my life. It was a speech

that Joshua R. Giddings was making. He had come home to appeal to

his constituents. A Southern man drew a pistol on him while he was

speaking in favor of human liberty, and marched over toward him to

shoot him down, to stop his speech and quench the voice of liberty.

I remember but one thing that the old hero said in the course of

that speech so long ago, and it was this: ‘I knew I was speaking for

liberty, and I felt that if the assassin had shot me down, my speech

would still go on and triumph.’ Well, now, gentlemen, there are

twelve hundred, and the hundred times twelve hundred—the million of

men that went out into the field of battle to fight for our

Union—felt just as that speaker felt—that if they should all be shot

down the cause of liberty would still go on. You and all the Union

felt that around you, and above you, and behind you, were a force

and a cause and an immortal truth that would outlive your bodies and

mine, and survive all our brigades and all our armies and all our

battles. Here you are to-day in the same belief. We shall all die,

and yet we believe that after us the immortal truths for which we

fought will live in a united Nation, a united people against all

factions, against all section, against all division, so long as

there shall be a continent of rivers and mountains and lakes. It was

that great belief that lifted you all up into the heroic height of

great soldiers in the war, and it is that belief that you cherish

to-day, and carry with you in all your pilgrimages and in all your

reunions. In that great belief, and in that inspiring faith, I meet

you and greet you to-day, and with it we will go on to whatever fate

has in store for us all.

“I thank you, comrades, for this demonstration of your faith and

confidence and regard for me. Why, gentlemen, this home of mine will

never be the same place again. I am disposed to think that a man

does not take every thing away from a place when he takes his body

away. It was said that long after the death of the first Napoleon,

his soldiers believed that on certain anniversary days he came out

and reviewed all his dead troops, he himself being dead; that he had

a midnight review of those that had fought and fallen under his

leadership. That, doubtless, was a fiction of the imagination; but I

shall have to believe in all time hereafter the character and spirit

and impressions of my comrades live on this turf, and under these

trees, and in this portal; and it will be a part of my comradeship

in all days to come.”

On the 28th of the month a delegation of Portage County citizens, two

hundred strong, headed by Judge Luther Day, of Ravenna, visited Mentor,

and paid the customary respects to him who was now regarded as well nigh

certain to carry away the greatest honor known to the American people.

After the company was formally introduced by Judge Day, the General, in

response, said:

“_Judge Day, Ladies and Gentlemen_: I once read of a man who tried

to wear the armor and wield the sword of some ancient ancestor, but

found them too large for his stature and strength. If I should try

at this moment to wear and sway the memories which your presence

awakens, I should be overwhelmed, and wholly unable to marshal and

master the quick-coming throng of memories which this semicircle of

old friends and neighbors has brought to me. Here are school-fellows

of twenty-eight years ago. Here are men and women who were my pupils

a quarter of a century ago. Here are venerable men who, twenty one

years ago, in the town of Kent, launched me upon the stormy sea of

political life. I see others who were soldiers in the old regiment

which I had the honor to command, and could I listen to the teaching

and thoughtful words of my friend, the venerable late Chief Justice

of Ohio, who has just spoken, without remembering that evening in

1861, of which he spoke too modestly, when he and I stood together

in the old church at Hiram, and called upon the young men to go

forth to battle for the Union, and be enlisted before they slept,

and thus laid the foundation of the Forty-second Regiment? How can I

forget all these things, and all that has followed? How can I forget

that twenty-five years of my life were so braided and intertwined

with the lives of the people of Portage County, when I see men and

women from all its townships standing at my door? I can not forget

these things while life and consciousness remain. No other period of

my life can be like this. The freshness of youth, the very

springtide of life, the brightening on toward noonday—all were with

you and of you, my neighbors, my friends, my cherished comrades, in

all the relations of social, student, military and political life

and friendship. You are here, so close to my heart that I can not

trust myself to an attempt to marshal these memories with any thing

like coherence. To know that my neighbors and friends in Portage

County, since the first day of my Congressional life, have never

sent to any convention a delegate who was hostile to me; that

through all the storm of detraction that roared around me, the

members of the old guard of Portage County have never wavered in

their faith and friendship, but have stood an unbroken phalanx with

their locked shields above my head, and have given me their hearts

in every contest. If a man can carry in his memory a jewel more

precious than this, I am sure Judge Day has never heard what it is.

“Well, gentlemen, on the eve of great events, closing a great

campaign, I look into your faces and draw from you such consolation

as even you can not understand. Whatever the event may be, our post

is secure, and whatever may befall me hereafter, if I can succeed in

keeping the hearts of Portage County near to me I shall know that I

do not go far wrong in any thing, for they are men who love the

truth for truth’s sake, far more than they love any man.

“Ladies and gentlemen, all the doors of my house are open to you.

The hand of every member of my family is outstretched to you. Our

hearts greet you, and we ask you to come in.”

In the meantime there had occurred the most remarkable episode of the

campaign. On the 21st of October appeared in the columns of a New York

newspaper called _Truth_, a letter purporting to have been written on

the 23d of January, 1880, to one H. L. Morey, of Lynn, Massachusetts.

The communication was ostensibly a reply to a letter written to General

Garfield with the purpose of obtaining his views on the great question

of the Chinese in the United States, and more particularly to extract

his ideas on the subject of Chinese cheap labor. This previous

supposititious letter of Morey was never produced, but only the alleged

answer of General Garfield, which was as follows:

“HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, }

WASHINGTON, D. C., January 23, 1880. }

“_Dear Sir_: Yours in relation to the Chinese problem came duly to

hand. I take it that the question of employes is only a question of

private and corporate economy. Individuals or companies have the

right to buy labor where they can get it the cheapest. We have a

treaty with the Chinese Government, which should be religiously kept

until its provisions are abrogated by the action of the General

Government, and I am not prepared to say that it should be abrogated

until our great manufacturing interests are conserved in the matter

of labor.

Very truly yours,

“J. A. GARFIELD.

“To H. L. MOREY, Employers’ Union, Lynn, Mass.”

[Illustration: FAC-SIMILE OF THE MOREY LETTER.]

[Illustration: FAC-SIMILE OF GARFIELD’S LETTER OF DENIAL.]

It was instantly manifested, on the appearance of this letter, that its

almost certain effect would be to lose General Garfield the electoral

votes of the Pacific States; for the settled sentiment of those States

against Chinese immigration and the consequent competition of that

people with American free labor, was known to be so pronounced as to

make it sure that no party discipline could hold them in allegiance to a

candidate who squinted at favoring the Celestials. There was instant

alarm among the General’s friends, but their fears were quickly quieted

by the prompt action of Garfield himself, who immediately sent to Hon.

Marshall Jewell, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, the

following dispatch:

“MENTOR, O., October 22, 1880.

“_To Hon. M. Jewell and Hon. S. W. Dorsey_:

“I will not break the rule I have adopted by making a public reply

to campaign lies, but I authorize you to denounce the so-called

Morey letter as a bold forgery, both in its language and sentiment.

Until its publication I never heard of the existence of the

Employers’ Union of Lynn, Massachusetts, nor of such a person as H.

L. Morey.

“J. A. GARFIELD.”

The mails of the same day brought to General Garfield a copy of the

_Truth_ newspaper, containing a lithographic fac-simile of his alleged

letter, and to this he made immediate answer as follows:

MENTOR, O., October 23, 1880.

“_To Hon. Marshall Jewell_:

“Your telegram of this afternoon is received. Publish my dispatch of

last evening, if you think best. Within the last hour the mail has

brought me a lithographic copy of the forged letter. It is the work

of some clumsy villain who can not spell nor write English, nor

imitate my handwriting. Every honest and manly Democrat in America,

who is familiar with my handwriting, will denounce the forgery at

sight. Put the case in the hands of the ablest detectives at once,

and hunt the rascal down.

“J. A. GARFIELD.”

The question of veracity was thus broadly opened between General

Garfield and the mythical Morey and his backers. It did not take the

American people long to decide between them. Except in the columns of

extreme and reckless partisan newspapers and in the months of

irresponsible demagogues, the matter was laid forever to rest. To

convince the people that James A. Garfield was a liar was an up-hill

work. The Republicans simply said that the Morey letter was an

outrageous fraud, a forged expedient, a last resort to stay a lost

cause.

In the investigation the following facts clearly appeared:

1. That no such person as H. L. Morey lived at or near Lynn,

Massachusetts, at the time when the alleged Garfield letter was written.

2. That no such association as the supposed Morey pretended to

represent, ever existed in Lynn.

3. The fac-simile of the letter printed in the columns of _Truth_

showed, on close examination, all the internal evidences of forgery. It

was a coarse and easily detected counterfeit of the General’s

handwriting and signature, and contained, among other palpable

absurdities, the word “companies,” spelled _companys_—a blunder utterly

at variance with General Garfield’s scholarship and careful literary

habit.

4. The fact that the sentiments of the letter were in broad and palpable

contradiction of Garfield’s letter of acceptance and other public

utterances on the Chinese question.

5. General Garfield’s positive and unreserved denial of authorship.

This put the abettors of the Morey business on the defensive, and they

squirmed not a little. They said that Morey was dead; which was a

necessary thing to say. They declared themselves innocent of all

complicity. The letter had come into their hands in the regular way.

They _believed_ it to be true, etc. But all these allegations combined

would not suffice to stay the inevitable reaction; for say what you

will, do not the American people believe in fair play?

According to General Garfield’s expressed desire, the Morey case was

carried to the courts. A certain Kenward Philp, a contributor to

_Truth_, was charged with the forgery and arrested.

The grand jury in General Sessions presented an indictment against

Joseph Hart, Louis A. Post, Kenward Philp and Charles A. Bryne for

publishing in the newspaper _Truth_ a criminal libel on General

Garfield.

A long trial followed in the court of Oyer and Terminer, of New York.

The suit was at first directed against the editors of _Truth_, and Philp

was thus unearthed. As the trial progressed, although the evidence was

inconclusive as to Philp’s authorship of the letter, yet every

circumstance tended to show unmistakably that the whole affair had been

a cunning conspiracy of some prodigious scoundrel to injure General

Garfield’s chances for the Presidency.

The production of the letter and its envelope in Court betrayed at once

the tampering to which the latter had been subjected, and settled the

character of the disgraceful political maneuver which had given it

birth. The alleged forger proved to be an English Bohemian, who

contributed to the “story papers,” and who confessedly wrote the

editorial articles defending the genuineness of the letter in the

underground journal which first published it. The register of the

Kirtland House, at Lynn, Massachusetts, was produced by the defense, and

the name “H. L. Morey” was shown there in October, 1879, and again in

February of 1880. But there was the most circumstantial evidence that

the name had been recently written on each page of the register. The

name had, undoubtedly, been added to the hotel register in each instance

by some one who was anxious to bolster up the fraud.

The discovery was made that the envelope containing the forged letter

had originally been addressed to some one else than H. L. Morey; and an

enlarged photographic copy of the envelope revealed the fact that the

original name was Edward or Edwin Fox or Cox, in care of some company in

the city of New York. And in the next place it was shown that Edward Fox

was employed upon the _Truth_!

The prosecution failed to convict the publishers of the _Truth_ of

criminal libel; but the country rendered again the old Scotch verdict of

“Guilty—but not proven.” The Presidential election, however, was

imminent, and it is not improbable that General Garfield’s vote on the

Pacific Slope was injured by the base machinations of the Morey

conspirators.

On the 2d of November was held the Presidential election. The result had

been foreseen. The Democracy could not stem the tide. The “Solid South,”

the unfortunate plank in their platform declaring in favor of “a tariff

for revenue only,” and the Morey forgery which had been charged up to

their account, wrought their ruin. Garfield was overwhelmingly elected.

The morning of the 3d revealed the general outline of the result. For a

few days it was claimed by the Republicans that they had carried two or

three of the Southern States, but this idea was soon dispelled. In a

like unprofitable way the Democrats set up certain and sundry claims for

some of the Northern States. One day they had carried New York; another

day they had authentic information that California and Oregon were safe

for Hancock. It was all in vain. The South all went Democratic, and all

of the Northern States, except Nevada and one electoral vote from

California, had been secured by the Republicans. The victory was

unequivocal. The humble boy of Mother Garfield was elected President of

the United States by 214 electoral votes against 155 for his antagonist,

General Hancock. Thus, under the benign institutions of our country, was

conferred upon one who began his life in a log cabin the highest civic

honor known among the nations of the earth.

General Garfield spent election day at home without manifest excitement.

In the evening, and later in the night, news began to arrive indicative

of the result. Still no agitation. To some friends he said: “I have been

busying myself with a calculation to determine the rate of voting

to-day. During the hours in which the election has been in progress

about 2000 ballots have dropped for every tick of the pendulum.” With

the morning light there was no longer doubt. The title of General, won

on the bloody field of Chickamauga, had given place to that of

President-elect, won before the grandest bar of public opinion under the

circle of the sun.

On the day succeeding the election, the first delegation bearing

congratulations visited Mentor. It was composed of the Oberlin College

faculty and students, headed by President Fairchild, and the occasion

was one of more than usual interest. In reply to the speech of

introduction, General Garfield said:

“_Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen_: This spontaneous visit is so

much more agreeable than a prepared one. It comes more directly from

the heart of the people who participate, and I receive it as a

greater compliment for that reason. I do not wish to be unduly

impressible or superstitious, but, though we have outlived the days

of the augurs, I think we have a right to think of some events as

omens; and I greet this as a happy and auspicious omen, that the

first general greeting since the event of yesterday is tendered to

me by a venerable institution of learning. The thought has been

abroad in the world a good deal, and with reason, that there is a

divorce between scholarship and politics. Oberlin, I believe, has

never advocated that divorce. But there has been a sort of

cloistered scholarship in the United States that has stood aloof

from active participation in public affairs, and I am glad to be

greeted here to-day by the active, live scholarship of Ohio; and I

know of no place where scholarship has touched upon the nerve center

of the public so effectually as Oberlin. For this reason I am

specially grateful for this greeting from the Faculty and students

of Oberlin College and its venerable and venerated President. I

thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for this visit. Whatever the

significance of yesterday’s event may be, it will be all the more

significant for being immediately indorsed by the scholarship and

culture of my State. I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and thank

your President for coming with you. You are cordially welcome.”

On the 6th of November the Republican Central Committee of Indiana

repaired to Mentor and paid their respects to the coming Chief

Magistrate; and on the 12th of the month the President, soon-to-be, was

visited by the Republican Central Committee of Cuyahoga County. In

answer to their salutation he said:

“_Gentlemen_: I have been saying a good many things during the past

few weeks, and think I should be nearly through talking by this

time. I should be the listener. But I can not refrain from saying

that I am exceedingly glad to meet with you, a company of

Republicans from my native county, and congratulate you upon what

you have done. You have shown your strength and character in your

work. You have shown that you are men of high convictions and

observe them in all that you do. I have always taken pride in this

county and in the city of Cleveland. The Forest City is well worthy

to be the capital of the Western Reserve. It has the credit of our

country at heart, never losing sight of it in the heat of political

warfare. In no city in the country can be found more active and

earnest men—solid business men. It is an honor to any one to have

the confidence of such a people. I am glad to be here this evening

to greet you and thank you for your kind invitation.” [Applause.]

Garfield had now more offices in prospect or actual possession than

usually fall to the lot of one man. He was still a member of the House

of Representatives in the Forty-sixth Congress; he was also United

States Senator-elect for the State of Ohio; and, thirdly, he was

President-elect of the United States. On the 10th of November, being

perhaps content with the Presidency, he resigned his seats in the House

and Senate, and thus for about four months became Citizen Garfield, of

Ohio.

The 2d of December was rather a Red-letter day at Mentor. The

Presidential electors for the State of Ohio, on that day called on the

President-elect and tendered their best regards. In answer to their

congratulations he spoke with much animation and feeling as follows:

“_Gentlemen_: I am deeply grateful to you for this call, and for

these personal and public congratulations. If I were to look upon

the late campaign and its result merely in the light of a personal

struggle and a personal success, it would probably be as gratifying

as any thing could be in the history of politics. If my own conduct

during the campaign has been in any way a help and a strength to our

cause, I am glad. It is not always an easy thing to behave well. If,

under trying circumstances, my behavior as a candidate has met your

approval, I am greatly gratified. But the larger subject—your

congratulations to the country on the triumph of the Republican

party—opens a theme too vast for me to enter upon now.

“I venture, however, to mention a reflection which has occurred to

me in reference to the election of yesterday. I suppose that no

political event has happened in all the course of the contest since

the early spring, which caused so little excitement, and, indeed, so

little public observation, as the Presidential election which was

held yesterday at midday. The American people paid but little

attention to the details of the real Presidential election, and for

a very significant reason: although you and all the members of the

Electoral Colleges had absolute constitutional and technical right

to vote for any body you chose, and although no written law directed

or suggested your choice, yet every American knew that the august

sovereign of this Republic—the 9,000,000 of voters—on an early day

in November had pronounced the omnipotent fiat of choice; and that

sovereign, assuming as done that which he had ordered to be done,

entertained no doubt but that his will would be implicitly obeyed by

all the Colleges in all the States. That is the reason why the

people were so serenely quiet yesterday. They had never yet found an

American who failed to keep his trust as a Presidential Elector.

“From this thought I draw this lesson: that when that omnipotent

sovereign, the American people, speaks to any one man and orders him

to do a duty, that man is under the most solemn obligations of

obedience which can be conceived, except what the God of the

universe might impose upon him. Yesterday, through your votes, and

the votes of others in the various States of the Union, it is

probable (the returns will show) that our great political sovereign

has laid his commands upon me. If he has done so, I am as bound by

his will and his great inspiration and purpose as I could be bound

by any consideration that this earth can impose upon any human

being. In that presence, therefore, I stand and am awed by the

majesty and authority of such a command.

“In so far as I can interpret the best aspirations and purposes of

our august sovereign, I shall seek to realize them. You and I, and

those who have acted with us in the years past, believe that our

sovereign loves liberty, and desires for all inhabitants of the

Republic peace and prosperity under the sway of just and equal laws.

Gentlemen, I thank you for this visit; for this welcome; for the

suggestions that your presence and your words bring, and for the

hope that you have expressed, that in the arduous and great work

before us we may maintain the standard of Nationality and promote

all that is good and worthy in this country, and during the coming

four years we may raise just as large a crop of peace, prosperity,

justice, liberty, and culture as it is possible for forty-nine

millions of people to raise.”

At the close of the address there was a general hand-shaking _à la

Américaine_; and then to add to the interest of the occasion the

President’s aged mother, to whom more than ever of late his heart had

turned with loyal devotion, was led into the apartment and presented to

the distinguished guests by her more distinguished son.

Two days afterwards there was another assembly of visitors at Mentor.

This time it was a delegation of colored Republicans—Black Republicans

in both senses of the word—from South Carolina, headed by the negro

orator, R. B. Elliott, who delivered the congratulatory address. In

answer, the President-elect said:

“_General Elliott and Gentlemen_: I thank you for your

congratulations on the successful termination of the great campaign

that recently closed, and especially for your kind allusion to me

personally for the part I bore in that campaign.

“What I have done, what I have said concerning your race and the

great problem that your presence on this continent has raised, I

have said as a matter of profound conviction, and hold to with all

the meaning of the words employed in expressing it. What you have

said in regard to the situation of your people, the troubles that

they encountered, the evils from which they have suffered and still

suffer, I listened to with deep attention, and shall give it full

measure of reflection.

“This is not the time nor the place for me to indicate any thing as

to what I shall have to say and do, by and by, in an official way.

But this I may say: I noted as peculiarly significant one sentence

in the remarks of General Elliott, to the effect that the majority

of citizens, as he alleges, in some portions of the South, are

oppressed by the minority. If this be so, why is it so? Because a

trained man is two or three men in one, in comparison with an

untrained man; and outside of politics and outside of parties, that

suggestion is full, brim-full, of significance, that the way to make

the majority always powerful over the minority, is to make its

members as trained and intelligent as the minority itself. That

brings the equality of citizenship; and no law can confer and

maintain in the long run a thing that is not upheld with a

reasonable degree of culture and intelligence. Legislation ought to

do all it can. I have made these suggestions simply to indicate that

the education of your race, in my judgment, lies at the base of the

final solution of your great question; and that can not be

altogether in the hands of the State or National Government. The

Government ought to do all it properly can, but the native hungering

and thirsting for knowledge that the Creator planted in every child,

must be cultivated by the parents of those children to the last

possible degree of their ability, so that the hands of the people

shall reach out and grasp in the darkness the hand of the Government

extended to help, and by that union of effort bring what mere

legislation alone can not immediately bring.

“I rejoice that you have expressed so strongly and earnestly your

views in regard to the necessity of your education. I have felt for

years that that was the final solution.

“Those efforts that are humble and comparatively out of sight are,

in the long run, the efforts that tell. I have sometimes thought

that the men that sink a coffer-dam into the river, and work for

months in anchoring great stones to build the solid abutments and

piers, whose work is by and by hidden by the water and out of sight,

do not get their share of the credit. The gaudy structure of the

bridge that rests on these piers, and across which the trains

thunder, is the thing that strikes the eye of the general public a

great deal more than the sunken piers and hard work. The educational

growth and the building up of industry, the economy and all that can

help the foundations of real prosperity is the work that, in the

long run, tells. Some Scotch poet said, or put it in the mouth of

some prophet to say, that the time would come ‘when Bertram’s right

and Bertram’s might shall meet on Ellengowan’s height,’ and it is

when the might and the right of a people meet that majorities are

never oppressed by minorities. Trusting, gentlemen, that you may

take part in this earnest work of building up your race from the

foundation into the solidity of intelligence and industry, and upon

those bases at last see all your rights recognized, is my personal

wish and hope for your people.”

About this time in November, the weather closed in stormy and cold, and,

fortunately for Garfield, the tide of visitors ebbed, and he found a

little rest. Late in the month, he made a brief visit to Washington,

where he spent a few days among his friends and political advisers.

After that, he returned to Mentor, and during December his life was

passed in comparative quiet at his home.

No doubt in these December days the vision of his boyhood rose many

times to view. No doubt, in the silence of the winter evening, by his

glowing hearth at Lawnfield, with the wife of his youth by his side and

the children of their love around them, and the certain Presidency of

the Republic just beyond, he realized in as full measure as falls to the

lot of man that strange thing which is called success.

The New Year came in. The bleak January—bitter cold—went by. On the 16th

of February, the distinguished Senator Conkling, of New York, made a

visit to the President-elect. In the imagination of the political

busybodies the event was fraught with great consequences. It was said

that the haughty stalwart leader was on a mission looking to the

construction of the new administration, to seek favor for his friends,

and to pledge therefor the support—hitherto somewhat doubted—of himself

and his partisans. The interview was named the “Treaty of Mentor;” but

the likelihood is that the _treaty_ consisted of no more than

distinguished civilities and informal discussion of the _personnel_ of

the new Cabinet, etc. A few days later the President-elect made his

departure for Washington to be inaugurated. The special train which was

to bear himself and family away, left Mentor on the 28th of February.

Fully three thousand people were gathered at the dépôt. Cheer after

cheer was given in honor of him who had made the name of Mentor for ever

famous. A farewell speech was delivered by Hon. A. L. Tinker, of

Painesville, and to this the Chief Magistrate responded thus:

“_Fellow-citizens and neighbors of Lake County_: I thank you for the

cordial and kindly greeting and farewell. You have come from your

homes than which no happier are known in this country, from this

beautiful lakeside full of that which makes country life happy, to

give me your blessing and farewell. You do not know how much I leave

behind me of friendship, and confidence, and home-like happiness;

but I know I am indebted to this whole people for acts of kindness,

of neighborly friendship, of political confidence, of public

support, that few men have ever enjoyed at the hands of any people.

You are a part of this great community of Northern Ohio, which, for

so many years, have had no political desire but the good of your

country; and now wishing but the promotion of liberty and justice,

have had no scheme but the building up of all that was worthy and

true in our Republic. If I were to search over all the world I could

not find a better model of political spirit, of aspirations for the

truth and the right, than I have found in this community during the

eighteen years its people have honored me with their confidence. I

thank the citizens of this county for their kindness, and especially

my neighbors of Mentor, who have demanded so little of me, and have

done so much to make my home a refuge and a joy. What awaits me I

can not now speak of, but I shall carry to the discharge of the

duties that lie before me, to the problems and dangers I may meet, a

sense of your confidence and your love, which will always be

answered by my gratitude. Neighbors, friends, and constituents,

farewell.” [Great applause.]

Promptly at 1 P. M. the train moved off, and the crowd dispersed. At

Ashtabula, that famous old seat of abolitionism, the President-elect was

called out by the chorus of cheers, and, in answer, said:

“_Citizens of Ashtabula_: I greatly thank you for this greeting. I

can not forget the tree that was planted so many years ago, and its

planting so far watched and assisted by the people of Ashtabula

County. It has grown to be a great tree. Its branches cover the

whole Republic, and its leaves and fruit are liberty to all men.

That is a work for the citizens of Ashtabula County to be proud of

to the latest generation. If I, as your representative, have helped

on the cause you so much have at heart, I am glad; and if in the

future I can help to confirm and strengthen what you have done so

much to build; if I can help to garner the harvest that you have

helped to plant, I shall feel that I have done something toward

discharging the debt of gratitude which I owe for your confidence

and love. I thank you, fellow-citizens, for this farewell greeting,

and I bid you good-bye.” [Great cheering.]

All along the route, as far as Altoona, Pennsylvania, where night

overtook the train, the scene at Ashtabula was renewed, the

President-elect responding pleasantly to the many greetings of the

people.

We are now come to the last scene in the progress of James A. Garfield

from the obscurity of a backwoods home to the high seat of the

Presidency. Wonderful career! Magnificent development of American

manhood and citizenship! The train carrying the President-elect reached

Washington on the evening of the 29th of February. By the courtesy of

Mrs. President Hayes the Garfield family was taken at once to the White

House. A press note, speaking of the arrival, said:

“The General looks travel-tired and weary, although the excitement

keeps him well stimulated, having something of the effect of

rich-living. He says that when once his Cabinet is settled, and he

begins home-life at the White House, he will have a comparative

freedom from worry. He does not sleep excellently well. Probably no

man ever did while engaged in making up a Cabinet.”

Here, then, we say, Good-night; but think of TO-MORROW!

The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, Twentieth President of the United States Embracing an Account of the Scenes and Incidents of His Boyhood; the Struggles of His Youth; the Might of His Early Manhood; His Valor As a Soldier; His Career As a Statesman; His Election to the Presidency; and the Tragic Story of His Death. · 第 13 / 18 章