Our country probably never produced a character more perfectly rounded,
physically, intellectually and morally than that which is presented to
us in the person of James A. Garfield, who was born in a log cabin in
Cuyahoga county, Ohio, November 19th, 1831.
His childhood was passed in almost complete isolation from social
influences, save those which proceeded from his mother. His father had
died when James was only eighteen months old, and when old enough to be
of any use he was put to work on the farm. The family was very poor, and
his services were needed to help 'make both ends meet.' At school, as a
little boy, he allowed no one to impose upon him. He is said to have
never picked a quarrel, but was sure to resent any indignity with
effect, no matter how large a boy the offender happened to be. He
attended school during the cold months when it was impossible to be of
value on the farm; summers he generally 'worked out,' at one time being
a driver-boy on the canal.
He attended school at the Geauga Seminary, where he got through his
first term on the absurdly small sum of seventeen dollars. When he
returned to school the next term he had but a six pence in his pocket,
and this he dropped into the contribution box the next day at church. He
made an arrangement with a carpenter in the village to board with him,
and have his washing, fuel and light furnished for one dollar and six
cents per week. The carpenter was building a house, and Garfield
engaged to help him nights and Saturdays. The first Saturday he planed
fifty-one boards, and thereby made one dollar and two cents. So the term
went, and he returned home, having earned his expenses and AND THREE
DOLLARS OVER.
The following winter he taught school at $12 a month and 'boarded
around.' In the spring he had $48, and when he returned to school he
boarded himself at an expense of thirty-one cents a week. Heretofore, he
had supposed a college course beyond him, but meeting a college graduate
who explained that it was barely possible for a poor boy to graduate, if
he worked and attended alternate years, he determined to try it. After
careful calculation Garfield concluded he could get through school
within TWELVE YEARS. He accordingly began to lay his plans to graduate.
Think of such determination, dear reader, and then see if you can
reasonably envy the position attained by Garfield. He appeared as a
scholar at Hiram, a new school of his own denomination, in 1851. Here he
studied all the harder, as he now had an object in life. Returning home
he taught a school, then returned to college, and attended the spring
term. During the summer he helped build a house in the village, he
himself planning all the lumber for the siding, and shingling the roof.
Garfield was now quite a scholar, especially in the languages, and upon
his return to Hiram he was made a tutor, and thenceforward he worked
both as a pupil and teacher, doing a tremendous amount of work to fit
himself for college. When he came to Hiram he started on the preparatory
course, to enter college, expecting it would take four years. Deciding
now to enter some eastern institution, he wrote a letter to the
president of each of the leading colleges in the east, telling them how
far he had progressed. They all replied that he could enter the junior
year, and thus graduate in two years from his entrance. He had
accomplished the preparatory course, generally requiring four solid
years, and had advanced two years on his college course. He had crowded
six years into three, beside supporting himself. If ever a man was
worthy of success Garfield was. He decided to enter Williams College,
where he graduated in 1856, thus came that institution to grasp the
honor of giving to the United States of America one of our most popular
presidents. The grasp of the mind of Garfield, even at this early
period, can be seen by glancing at the title of his essay, "The Seen and
the Unseen." He next became a professor; later, principal of the college
at Hiram.
In the old parties Garfield had little interest, but when the Republican
party was formed he became deeply interested, and became somewhat noted
as a stump orator for Fremont and Dayton. In 1860 he was sent to the
State senate, and while there began preparation for the legal
profession, and in 1861 was admitted to the bar. The war broke out about
this time, which prevented his opening an office, and he was
commissioned a colonel, finally a major-general. His career in the army
was brief, but very brilliant, and he returned home to go to Congress.
In Washington his legislative career was very successful. He proved to
be an orator of no mean degree of ability, his splendid education made
him an acknowledged scholar, and he soon became known as one of the
ablest debaters in Congress, serving on some of the leading committees.
When Ohio sent her delegation to the Republican National Convention, of
1880, pledged for Sherman, Garfield was selected as spokesman. His
speech, when he presented the name of John Sherman, coming, as it did,
when all was feverish excitement, must be acknowledged as a master-piece
of the scholarly oratory of which he was master. Conkling had just
delivered one in favor of Grant, the effect of which was wonderful. The
Grant delegates 'pooled' the flags, which marked their seats, marched
around the aisles and cheered and yelled as if they were dwellers in
Bedlam, just home after a long absence. Fully twenty minutes this went
on, and Mr. Hoar, the president of the convention after vainly trying to
restore order gave up in despair, sat down, and calmly allowed disorder
to tire itself out.
At last it ceases, Ohio is called, a form arises near the center of the
middle aisle, and moves toward the stage amid the clapping of thousands
of hands, which increases as General Garfield mounts the same platform
upon which Senator Conkling has so lately stood. In speaking he is not
so restless as was Conkling, but speaking deliberately he appeals to the
judgment of the masses, as follows:
"Mr. President: I have witnessed the extraordinary scenes of this
convention with deep solicitude. No emotion touches my heart more
quickly than a sentiment in honor of a great and noble character. But,
as I sat on these seats and witnessed these demonstrations, it seemed to
me you were a human ocean in a tempest. I have seen the sea lashed into
a fury and tossed into a spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the
dullest man. But I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm
level of the sea from which all heights and depths are measured. When
the storm had passed and the hour of calm settles on the ocean, when
sunlight bathes its smooth surface, then the astronomer and surveyor
takes the level from which he measures all terrestrial heights and
depths. Gentlemen of the convention, your present temper may not mark
the healthful pulse of our people. When our enthusiasm has passed, when
the emotions of this hour have subsided, we shall find the calm level of
public opinion below the storm from which the thoughts of a mighty
people are to be measured, and by which their final action will be
determined. Not here, in this brilliant circle where fifteen thousand
men and women are assembled, is the destiny of the Republic to be
decreed; not here, where I see the enthusiastic faces of seven hundred
and fifty-six delegates waiting to cast their votes into the urn and
determine the choice of their party; but by four million Republican
firesides, where the thoughtful fathers, with wives and children about
them, with the calm thoughts inspired by love of home and love of
country, with the history of the past, the hopes of the future, and the
knowledge of the great men who have adorned and blessed our nation in
days gone by--there God prepares the verdict that shall determine the
wisdom of our work to-night. Not in Chicago in the heat of June, but in
the sober quiet that comes between now and November, in the silence of
deliberate judgment will this great question be settled. Let us aid them
to-night.
"But now, gentlemen of the convention, what do we want? Bear with me a
moment. Hear me for this cause, and, for a moment, be silent that you
may hear. Twenty-five years ago this Republic was wearing a triple chain
of bondage. Long familiarity with traffic in the bodies and souls of men
had paralyzed the consciences of a majority of our people. The baleful
doctrine of State sovereignty had shocked and weakened the noblest and
most beneficent powers of the national government, and the grasping
power of slavery was seizing the virgin territories of the West and
dragging them into the den of eternal bondage. At that crisis the
Republican party was born. It drew its first inspiration from that fire
of liberty which God has lighted in every man's heart, and which all the
powers of ignorance and tyranny can never wholly extinguish. The
Republican party came to deliver and save the Republic. It entered the
arena when the beleaguered and assailed territories were struggling for
freedom, and drew around them the sacred circle of liberty which the
demon of slavery has never dared to cross. It made them free forever.
Strengthened by its victory on the frontier, the young party, under the
leadership of that great man who, on this spot, twenty years ago, was
made its leader, entered the national capitol and assumed the high
duties of the government. The light which shone from its banner
dispelled the darkness in which slavery had enshrouded the capitol, and
melted the shackles of every slave, and consumed, in the fire of
liberty, every slave-pen within the shadow of the capitol. Our national
industries, by an impoverishing policy, were themselves prostrated, and
the streams of revenue flowed in such feeble currents that the treasury
itself was well-nigh empty. The money of the people was the wretched
notes of two thousand uncontrolled and irresponsible State banking
corporations, which were filling the country with a circulation that
poisoned rather than sustained the life of business. The Republican
party changed all this. It abolished the babel of confusion, and gave
the country a currency as national as its flag, based upon the sacred
faith of the people. It threw its protecting arm around our great
industries, and they stood erect as with new life. It filled with the
spirit of true nationality all the great functions of the government. It
confronted a rebellion of unexampled magnitude, with slavery behind it,
and, under God, fought the final battle of liberty until victory was
won. Then, after the storms of battle, were heard the sweet, calm words
of peace uttered by the conquering nation, and saying to the conquered
foe that lay prostrate at its feet: 'This is our only refuge, that you
join us in lifting to the serene firmament of the Constitution, to shine
like stars for ever and ever, the immortal principles of truth and
justice, that all men, white or black, shall be free and stand equal
before the law.'
"Then came the question of reconstruction, the public debt, and the
public faith. In the settlement of the questions the Republican party
has completed its twenty-five years of glorious existence, and it has
sent us here to prepare it for another lustrum of duty and victory. How
shall we do this great work? We cannot do it, my friends, by assailing
our Republican brethren. God forbid that I should say one word to cast a
shadow upon any name on the roll of our heroes. This coming fight is our
Thermopylæ. We are standing upon a narrow isthmus. If our Spartan hosts
are united, we can withstand all the Persians that the Xerxes of
Democracy can bring against us. Let us hold our ground this one year,
for the stars in their courses fight for us in the future. The census
taken this year will bring re-enforcements and continued power. But in
order to win this victory now, we want the vote of every Republican, of
every Grant Republican, and every anti-Grant Republican in America, of
every Blaine man and every anti-Blaine man. The vote of every follower
of every candidate is needed to make our success certain; therefore, I
say, gentlemen and brethren, we are here to take calm counsel together,
and inquire what we shall do. We want a man whose life and opinions
embody all the achievements of which I have spoken. We want a man who,
standing on a mountain height, sees all the achievements of our past
history, and carries in his heart the memory of all its glorious deeds,
and who, looking forward, prepares to meet the labor and the dangers to
come. We want one who will act in no spirit of unkindness toward those
we lately met in battle. The Republican party offers to our brethren of
the South the olive branch of peace, and wishes them to return to
brotherhood, on this supreme condition, that it shall be admitted
forever and forevermore, that, in the war for the Union, we were right
and they were wrong. On that supreme condition we meet them as brethren,
and on no other. We ask them to share with us the blessings and honors
of this great republic.
"Now, gentlemen, not to weary you, I am about to present a name for your
consideration--the name of a man who was the comrade and associate and
friend of nearly all those noble dead whose faces look down upon us from
these walls to-night, a man who began his career of public service
twenty-five years ago, whose first duty was courageously done in the
days of peril on the plains of Kansas, when the first red drops of that
bloody shower began to fall, which finally swelled into the deluge of
war. He bravely stood by young Kansas then, and, returning to his duty
in the National Legislature, through all subsequent time his pathway has
been marked by labors performed in every department of legislation. You
ask for his monuments. I point you to twenty-five years of national
statutes. Not one great beneficent statute has been placed in our
statute books without his intelligent and powerful aid. He aided these
men to formulate the laws that raised our great armies and carried us
through the war. His hand was seen in the workmanship of those statutes
that restored and brought back the unity and married calm of the States.
His hand was in all that great legislation that created the war
currency, and in a still greater work that redeemed the promises of the
Government, and made the currency equal to gold. And when at last called
from the halls of legislation into a high executive office, he displayed
that experience, intelligence, firmness and poise of character which has
carried us through a stormy period of three years. With one-half the
public press crying 'crucify him,' and a hostile Congress seeking to
prevent success, in all this he remained unmoved until victory crowned
him. The great fiscal affairs of the nation, and the great business
interests of the country he has guarded and preserved while executing
the law of resumption and effecting its object without a jar and against
the false prophecies of one-half of the press and all the Democracy of
this continent. He has shown himself able to meet with calmness the
great emergencies of the Government for twenty-five years. He has
trodden the perilous heights of public duty, and against all the shafts
of malice has borne his breast unharmed. He has stood in the blaze of
'that fierce light that beats against the throne,' but its fiercest ray
has found no flaw in his armor, no stain on his shield. I do not present
him as a better Republican or as better man than thousands of others we
honor, but I present him for your deliberate consideration. I nominate
John Sherman, of Ohio."
The speech was over, its effect was like oil upon troubled waters. When
the balloting began a single delegate only voted for Garfield. The fight
was between Grant, Blaine, Sherman and Edmunds; Windom and others were
waiting the possibility of a compromise. Garfield managed Sherman's
forces. He meant to keep his favorite in the field, in vain trying to
win over Blaine's followers. On the thirty-fourth ballot the Wisconsin
delegation determined to make a break, and hence put forth an effort in
an entirely new direction, casting their entire seventeen votes for
Garfield. The General arose and declined to receive the vote, but the
chairman ruled otherwise, and on the next ballot the Indiana delegation
swung over. On the thirty-sixth ballot he was nominated. Then followed
his canvass and election.
Time flew, and he was about to join his old friends at Willams' College,
when an assassin stealthily crept up and shot him from behind, as
dastardly assassins and cowardly knaves generally do. The whole country
was thrown into a feverish heat of excitement between this cowardly act
and the president's death, which occurred two months later. Thus, after
a struggle for recognition, which had won the admiration of the world,
he was snatched from the pleasure of enjoying the fruits of his toil,
and from the people who needed his service. Like Lincoln, he had come
from the people, he belonged to the people, and by his own right hand
had won the first place among fifty millions of people. Like Lincoln, he
was stricken down when his country expected the most of him, stricken in
the very prime of life. Like Lincoln, when that enjoyment for which he
had labored was about to crown his efforts; and like Lincoln, it could
not be said of him he lived in vain.