college, and wrote to Yale, Brown, and Williams. Their replies are shown
in his letter to a friend at this time. "Their answers are now before
me. All tell me I can graduate in two years. They are all brief business
notes; but President Hopkins concludes with this sentence: 'If you come
here, we shall be glad to do what we can for you.' Other things being so
nearly equal, this sentence, which seems to be a kind of friendly grasp
of the hand, has settled the question for me. I shall start for Williams
next week." A kind sentence gave to Williams a distinguished honor for
all coming years.
Garfield had not only paid his way while at Hiram, but he had saved
three hundred and fifty dollars for his course at Williams. Here he
earned money, as he had at Hiram, by teaching, and borrowed a few
hundreds from Dr. J. P. Robinson of Cleveland, Ohio, offering a life
insurance policy as security.
In college, says Dr. Hopkins, "as General Garfield was broad in his
scholarship, so was he in his sympathies. No one thought of him as a
recluse or as bookish. Not _given_ to athletic sports, he was fond of
them. His mind was open to the impression of natural scenery, and, as
his constitution was vigorous, he knew well the fine points on the
mountains around us. He was also social in his disposition, both giving
and inspiring confidence. So true is this of his intercourse with the
officers of the college, as well as with others, that he was never even
suspected of anything low or trickish.... General Garfield gave himself
to study with a zest and delight wholly unknown to those who find in it
a routine. A religious man and a man of principle, he pursued of his own
accord the ends proposed by the institution. He was prompt, frank,
manly, social, in his tendencies; combining active exercise with habits
of study, and thus did for himself what it is the object of a college to
enable every young man to do,--he made himself a MAN."
When Garfield was at Williams, the slavery question had become the
exciting topic of the day. Preston Brooks' attack on Charles Sumner had
aroused the indignation of the students, who called a meeting, at which
Garfield made an eloquent and powerful speech. At his graduation in
1856, when he was twenty-five, he delivered the metaphysical oration,
the highest honor awarded. He now returned to Hiram College, having been
appointed professor of Greek and Latin. At once he began his work with
zest. He said later: "I have taken more solid comfort in the thing
itself, and received more moral recompense and stimulus in after life
from capturing young men for an education than from anything else in the
world.
"As I look back over my life thus far, I think of nothing that so fills
me with pleasure as the planning of these sieges, the revolving in my
mind of plans for scaling the walls of the fortress; of gaining access
to the inner soul-life, and at last seeing the besieged party won to a
fuller appreciation of himself, to a higher conception of life and of
the part he is to bear in it. The principal guards which I have found it
necessary to overcome in gaining these victories are the parents or
guardians of the young men themselves. I particularly remember two such
instances of capturing young men from their parents. Both of those boys
are to-day educators, of wide reputation,--one president of a college,
the other high in the ranks of graded-school managers. Neither, in my
opinion, would to-day have been above the commonest walks of life unless
I, or some one else, had captured him. There is a period in every young
man's life when a very small thing will turn him one way or the other.
He is distrustful of himself, and uncertain as to what he should do. His
parents are poor, perhaps, and argue that he has more education than
they ever obtained, and that it is enough. These parents are sometimes a
little too anxious in regard to what their boys are going to do when
they get through with their college course. They talk to the young man
too much, and I have noticed that the boy who will make the best man is
sometimes most ready to doubt himself. I always remember the turning
period in my own life, and pity a young man at this stage from the
bottom of my heart. One of the young men I refer to came to me on the
closing day of the spring term, and bade me good-by at my study. I
noticed that he awkwardly lingered after I expected him to go, and had
turned to my writing again.
"'I suppose you will be back again in the fall, Henry,' I said, to fill
in the vacuum. He did not answer, and, turning toward him, I noticed
that his eyes were filled with tears, and that his countenance was
undergoing contortions of pain. He at length managed to stammer out,
'No, I am not coming back to Hiram any more. Father says I have got
education enough, and that he needs me to work on the farm; that
education don't help along a farmer any.'
"'Is your father here?' I asked, almost as much affected by the
statement as the boy himself. He was a peculiarly bright boy,--one of
those strong, awkward, bashful, blond, large-headed fellows, such as
make men. He was not a prodigy by any means; but he knew what work
meant, and, when he had won a thing by true endeavor, he knew its value.
"'Yes; father is here, and is taking my things home for good,' said the
boy, more affected than ever.
"'Well, don't feel badly,' I said. 'Please tell him Mr. Garfield would
like to see him at his study, before he leaves the village. Don't tell
him that it is about you, but simply that I want to see him.' In the
course of half an hour the old gentleman, a robust specimen of a Western
Reserve Yankee, came into the room and awkwardly sat down. I knew
something of the man before, and I thought I knew how to begin. I shot
right at the bull's-eye immediately.
"'So you have come up to take Henry home with you, have you?' The old
gentleman answered, 'Yes.' 'I sent for you because I wanted to have a
little talk with you about Henry's future. He is coming back again in
the fall, I hope?'
"'Wal, I think not. I don't reckon I can afford to send him any more.
He's got eddication enough for a farmer already, and I notice that when
they git too much they sorter git lazy. Yer eddicated farmers are
humbugs. Henry's got so far 'long now that he'd rather hev his head in a
book than be workin'. He don't take no interest in the stock nor in the
farm improvements. Everybody else is dependent in this world on the
farmer, and I think that we've got too many eddicated fellows setting
around now for the farmers to support.'
"'I am sorry to hear you talk so,' I said; 'for really I consider Henry
one of the brightest and most faithful students I have ever had. I have
taken a very deep interest in him. What I wanted to say to you was, that
the matter of educating him has largely been a constant outgo thus far,
but, if he is permitted to come next fall term, he will be far enough
advanced so that he can teach school in the winter, and begin to help
himself and you along. He can earn very little on the farm in the
winter, and he can get very good wages teaching. How does that strike
you?'
"The idea was a new and good one to him. He simply remarked, 'Do you
really think he can teach next winter?'
"'I should think so, certainly,' I replied. 'But, if he cannot do so
then, he can in a short time, anyhow.'
"'Wal, I will think on it. He wants to come back bad enough, and I guess
I'll have to let him. I never thought of it that way afore.'
"I knew I was safe. It was the financial question that troubled the old
gentleman, and I knew that would be overcome when Henry got to teaching,
and could earn his money himself. He would then be so far along, too,
that he could fight his own battles. He came all right the next fall,
and, after finishing at Hiram, graduated at an eastern college."
One secret of Garfield's success in teaching was his deep interest in
the young. He said, "I feel a profounder reverence for a boy than for a
man. I never meet a ragged boy of the street without feeling that I may
owe him a salute, for I know not what possibilities may be buttoned up
under his shabby coat. When I meet you in the full flush of mature life,
I see nearly all there is of you; but among these boys are the great men
of the future, the heroes of the next generation, the philosophers, the
statesmen, the philanthropists, the great reformers and moulders of the
next age. Therefore, I say, there is a peculiar charm to me in the
exhibitions of young people engaged in the business of an education."
He made himself a student with his students. He said: "I shall give you
a series of lectures upon history, beginning next week. I do this not
alone to assist you; the preparation for the lectures will _compel_ me
to study history."
He was always a worker. "When I get into a place that I can easily fill,
I always feel like shoving out of it into one that requires of me more
exertion."
His active mind was not content with teaching. He delivered lectures in
the neighboring towns on geology, illustrated by charts of his own
making; upon "Walter Scott;" Carlyle's "Frederick the Great;" the
"Character of the German People;" government, and the topics of the
times. He preached almost every Sabbath in some Disciple church. A year
after his return from Williams he was promoted to the presidency of
Hiram College.
In 1858, when he was twenty-seven, he married Lucretia Rudolph, whom he
had known at Geauga Seminary, and who was his pupil in Latin and Greek
at Hiram. He had been engaged to her four years previously, when he
entered Williams, she being a year his junior. She was his companion in
study, as well as domestic life, and helped him onward in his great
career.
This same year, 1858, he entered his name as a student at law, with a
Cleveland firm, carrying on his studies at home, and fitted himself for
the bar in the usual time devoted by those who have no other work in
hand.
The following year, having taken an active part in the Republican
campaign for John C. Fremont for the presidency, Garfield was chosen
State senator. The same year Williams College invited him to deliver the
master's oration on Commencement day. On the journey thither, he visited
Quebec, taking with his wife their first pleasure trip. Only eight years
before this he was ringing the bell at Hiram. Promotion had come
rapidly, but deservedly.
In the Legislature he naturally took a prominent part. Lincoln had been
elected and had issued his call for seventy-five thousand men. Garfield,
in an eloquent speech, moved, "That Ohio contribute twenty thousand men,
and three million dollars, as the quota of the State." The motion was
enthusiastically carried.
Governor Dennison appointed Garfield colonel of the Forty-second Ohio
Regiment, and he left the Senate for the battlefield, nearly one hundred
Hiram students enlisting under him. At once he began to study military
tactics in earnest. He organized a school among the officers, and kept
the men at drill till they were efficient in the art of war. January
10, 1862, he fought the battle of Middle Creek, with eleven hundred men,
driving General Marshall out of Eastern Kentucky, with five thousand
men. The battle raged for five hours, sometimes a desperate hand-to-hand
fight. General Buell said in his official report of Garfield and his
regiment: "They have overcome formidable difficulties in the character
of the country, the condition of the roads, and the inclemency of the
season, and, without artillery, have in several engagements, terminating
in the battle of Middle Creek, driven the enemy from his intrenched
positions and forced him back into the mountains, with the loss of a
large amount of baggage and stores, and many of his men killed and
captured. These services have called into action the highest qualities
of a soldier--fortitude, perseverance, and courage." After this battle,
President Lincoln made Garfield a brigadier-general.
Says Mr. Bundy: "Having cleared out Humphrey Marshall's forces, Garfield
moved his command to Piketon, one hundred and twenty miles above the
mouth of the Big Sandy, from which place he covered the whole region
about with expeditions, breaking up rebel camps and perfecting his work.
Finally, in that poor and wretched country, his supplies gave out, and,
as usual, taking care of the most important matter himself, he went to
the Ohio River for supplies, got them, seized a steamer, and loaded it.
But there was an unprecedented freshet, navigation was very perilous,
and no captain or pilot could be induced to take charge of the boat.
Garfield at once availed himself of his canal-boat experience, took
charge of the boat, stood at the helm for forty out of forty-eight
hours, piloted the steamer through an untried channel full of dangerous
eddies and wild currents, and saved his command from starvation."
Later, Garfield became chief of General Rosecrans' staff, was in the
dreadful battle of Chickamauga, and was made major-general "for gallant
and meritorious services" in that battle. Rosecrans said: "All my staff
merited my warm approbation for ability, zeal, and devotion to duty; but
I am sure they will not consider it invidious if I especially mention
Brigadier-General Garfield, ever active, prudent, and sagacious. I feel
much indebted to him for both counsel and assistance in the
administration of this army. He possesses the energy and the instinct of
a great commander."
In the summer of 1862 the Nineteenth Congressional District of Ohio
elected Garfield to Congress. He hesitated about leaving the army, but,
being urged by his friends that it was his duty to serve his country in
the House of Representatives, he took his seat December, 1863. Among
such men as Colfax, Washburn, Conkling, Allison, and others, he at once
took an honorable position. He was made chairman of military affairs,
then of banking and currency, of appropriations, and other committees.
On the slavery question he had always been outspoken. He said, on the
constitutional amendment abolishing slavery: "All along the coast of our
political sea these victims of slavery lie like stranded wrecks broken
on the headlands of freedom. How lately did its advocates, with impious
boldness, maintain it as God's own; to be venerated and cherished as
divine! It was another and higher form of civilization. It was the holy
evangel of America dispensing its mercies to a benighted race, and
destined to bear countless blessings to the wilderness of the West. In
its mad arrogance it lifted its hand to strike down the fabric of the
Union, and since that fatal day it has been 'a fugitive and a vagabond
in the earth.' Like the spirit that Jesus cast out, it has, since then,
been 'seeking rest and finding none.' It has sought in all the corners
of the republic to find some hiding-place in which to shelter itself
from the death it so richly deserves. It sought an asylum in the
untrodden territories of the West, but with a whip of scorpions
indignant freemen drove it thence. I do not believe that a loyal man can
now be found who would consent that it should again enter them. It has
no hope of harbor there. It found no protection or favor in the hearts
or consciences of the freemen of the republic, and has fled for its last
hope of safety behind the shield of the Constitution. We propose to
follow it there, and drive it thence, as Satan was exiled from
heaven.... To me it is a matter of great surprise that gentlemen on the
other side should wish to delay the death of slavery. I can only
account for it on the ground of long continued familiarity and
friendship.... Has she not betrayed and slain men enough? Are they not
strewn over a thousand battle-fields? Is not this Moloch already gorged
with the bloody feast? Its best friends know that its final hour is fast
approaching. The avenging gods are on its track. Their feet are not now,
as of old, shod with wool, nor slow and stately stepping, but winged
like Mercury's to bear the swift message of vengeance. No human power
can avert the final catastrophe."
On the currency he spoke repeatedly and earnestly. He carefully studied
English financial history, and mastered the French and German languages
that he might study their works on political economy and finance. Says
Captain F. H. Mason, late of the Forty-second Ohio Regiment, in his
sketch of Garfield, "In May, 1868, when the country was rapidly drifting
into a hopeless confusion of ideas on financial subjects, and when
several prominent statesmen had come forward with specious plans for
creating 'absolute money' by putting the government stamp upon bank
notes, and for paying off with this false currency the bonds which the
nation had solemnly agreed to pay in gold, General Garfield stood up
almost single-handed and faced the current with a speech which any
statesman of this century might be proud to have written on his
monument. It embraced twenty-three distinct but concurrent topics, and
occupied in delivering an entire day's session of the House."
"For my own part," he said, "my course is taken. In view of all the
facts of our situation, of all the terrible experiences of the past,
both at home and abroad, and of the united testimony of the wisest and
bravest statesmen who have lived and labored during the past century, it
is my firm conviction that any considerable increase of the volume of
our inconvertible paper money will shatter public credit, will paralyze
public industry, and oppress the poor; and that the gradual restoration
of our ancient standard of value will lead us by the safest and surest
paths to national prosperity and the steady pursuits of peace."
Again he said: "I for one am not willing that my name shall be linked to
the fate of a paper currency. I believe that any party which commits
itself to paper money will go down amid the general disaster, covered
with the curses of a ruined people.
"Mr. Speaker, I remember that on the monument of Queen Elizabeth, where
her glories were recited and her honors summed up, among the last and
the highest recorded as the climax of her honors was this: that she had
restored the money of her kingdom to its just value. And when this House
shall have done its work, when it shall have brought back values to
their proper standard, it will deserve a monument."
On the tariff question, General Garfield took the side of protection,
yet was no extremist. His oft reiterated belief was, "As an abstract
theory, the doctrine of free trade seems to be universally true, but as
a question of practicability, under a government like ours, the
protective system seems to be indispensable."
He said in Congress: "We have seen that one extreme school of economists
would place the price of all manufactured articles in the hands of
foreign producers by rendering it impossible for our manufacturers to
compete with them; while the other extreme school, by making it
impossible for the foreigner to sell his competing wares in our market,
would give the people no immediate check upon the prices which our
manufacturers might fix for their products. I disagree with both these
extremes. I hold that a properly adjusted competition between home and
foreign products is the best gauge by which to regulate international
trade. Duties should be so high that our manufacturers can fairly
compete with the foreign product, but not so high as to enable them to
drive out the foreign article, enjoy a monopoly of the trade, and
regulate the price as they please. This is my doctrine of protection. If
Congress pursues this line of policy steadily, we shall, year by year,
approach more nearly to the basis of free trade, because we shall be
more nearly able to compete with other nations on equal terms. I am for
a protection which leads to ultimate free trade. I am for that free
trade which can only be achieved through a reasonable protection.... If
all the kingdoms of the world should become the kingdom of the Prince of
Peace, then I admit that universal free trade ought to prevail. But that
blessed era is yet too remote to be made the basis of the practical
legislation of to-day. We are not yet members of 'the parliament of man,
the federation of the world.' For the present, the world is divided into
separate nationalities; and that other divine command still applies to
our situation, 'He that provideth not for his own household has denied
the faith, and is worse than an infidel,' and until that latter era
arrives patriotism must supply the place of universal brotherhood."
Again he said: "Those arts that enable our nation to rise in the scale
of civilization bring their blessings to all, and patriotic citizens
will cheerfully bear a fair share of the burden necessary to make their
country great and self-sustaining. I will defend a tariff that is
national in its aims, that protects and sustains those interests without
which the nation cannot become great and self-sustaining.... So
important, in my view, is the ability of the nation to manufacture all
these articles necessary to arm, equip, and clothe our people, that if
it could not be secured in any other way I would vote to pay money out
of the federal treasury to maintain government iron and steel, woollen
and cotton mills, at whatever cost. Were we to neglect these great
interests and depend upon other nations, in what a condition of
helplessness would we find ourselves when we should be again involved in
war with the very nations on whom we were depending to furnish us these
supplies? The system adopted by our fathers is wiser, for it so
encourages the great national industries as to make it possible at all
times for our people to equip themselves for war, and at the same time
increase their intelligence and skill so as to make them better fitted
for all the duties of citizenship in war and in peace. _We provide for
the common defence by a system which promotes the general welfare...._ I
believe that we ought to seek that point of stable equilibrium somewhere
between a prohibitory tariff on the one hand and a tariff that gives no
protection on the other. What is that point of stable equilibrium? In my
judgment, it is this; a rate so high that foreign producers cannot flood
our markets and break down our home manufacturers, but not so high as to
keep them altogether out, enabling our manufacturers to combine and
raise the prices, nor so high as to stimulate an unnatural and unhealthy
growth of manufactures.
"In other words, I would have the duty so adjusted that every great
American industry can fairly live and make fair profits, and yet so low
that, if our manufacturers attempted to put up prices unreasonably, the
competition from abroad would come in and bring down prices to a fair
rate."
On special occasions, such as his eulogies on Lincoln and General
Thomas, and on Decoration Day at Arlington Heights, Garfield was very
eloquent. At the latter place, he said: "If silence is ever golden, it
must be here, beside the graves of fifteen thousand men, whose lives
were more significant than speech, and whose death was a poem the music
of which can never be sung. With words, we make promises, plight faith,
praise virtue. Promises may not be kept; plighted faith may be broken;
and vaunted virtue may be only the cunning mask of vice. We do not know
one promise these men made, one pledge they gave, one word they spoke;
but we do know they summed up and perfected, by one supreme act, the
highest virtues of men and citizens. For love of country they accepted
death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism
and their virtue.
"For the noblest man that lives there still remains a conflict. He must
still withstand the assaults of time and fortune; must still be assailed
with temptations before which lofty natures have fallen. But with
_these_, the conflict ended, the victory was won, when death stamped on
them the great seal of heroic character, and closed a record which years
can never blot."