FILLING THE GAP.
Called to Washington--Elected to the Congress--His Plan for increasing
the Army--The Slaves' Friend--Abraham Lincoln shot--Stilling the Tumult.
After the battle of Chickamauga, General Garfield retired from the army.
His help was greatly needed in a sphere where the same courage would find
scope, but where other gifts besides decision and dash were required.
He had been a State Senator for Ohio for several years. Now he was to
become a Member of Congress, the national Parliament of the United States.
He was elected a representative of Congress in 1862, but did not
immediately take his seat. So far, his place seemed with the army; but
when, in 1863, immediately after the battle of Chickamauga, he went with
despatches to Washington, President Lincoln expressed a strong desire
that he should remain, and help to guide the affairs of the war in the
national Parliament. Such help as his was needed. Lincoln was beset by
timid and divided, and in some cases interested, advisers, and the
presence of a strong, fearless counsellor, as wise and experienced as
Garfield, was a great accession of strength.
Here his moral courage was soon put to the test. More soldiers were
urgently required, and two plans were laid before the country. One was
to offer a bounty to volunteers; the other plan was to pass a law
requiring every able-bodied man between the ages of eighteen and
forty-five to be enrolled.
Garfield's party favoured the former plan. Garfield himself approved the
latter. He said that, in such times as these, only the most worthless
men would want to be bought, the best would feel it a duty to serve their
country, and his vote was given in favour of compulsory enlistment. It
was a step that required courage, for it placed him in opposition to the
whole of his friends and supporters. But he said, "I must vote according
to conscience. My constituents may refuse to elect me again, but for
fear of that, I cannot trample on my convictions." By his eloquence he
was able to carry the law calling out half a million of men, and it was
not long before he convinced the whole country, as he had convinced
Congress, of the wisdom of his advice.
Garfield had long ago discovered that it was almost as dangerous to
refuse his friends as to oppose his foes. But the straight and simple
line he had marked out for himself was his sufficient guide. There was
one man, he used to say, from whose company he could never escape. He
must eat, walk, work, and sleep with him; and no matter whom he
disappointed besides, he was bound to gain and keep the respect of that
one individual, who was himself. It was a wholesome saying, and it
expressed the principles which guided all his public life.
While the war lasted, no man more resolutely opposed any kind of
concession to the rebels; but when it was ended, he was foremost in his
attempts to soothe the passions which the war had enkindled.
From one point, however, he never flinched; that was in the treatment of
the negroes. He had begun his career as their advocate, he continued it
as their protector and friend. When an officer on service, he had risked
his position, and even his life, by refusing to surrender a poor fugitive
slave who had sought shelter in his camp, although ordered to do so by
his superior officer. And when, at the close of the war, a bill was
brought before Congress to limit the rights of the freed slaves, Garfield
indignantly and successfully opposed it.
On the 14th of April 1865, just after being elected to the Presidency for
the second time, Abraham Lincoln was shot by a rebel sympathiser, named
Booth. And the same night the life of the Secretary of State, Seward,
was also attempted. These crimes roused the people of the North to
madness. In every city the men assembled with ominous cries for
vengeance.
In New York, a foolish man called out that Lincoln ought to have been
shot long ago. That cruel speech cost the speaker his life. He was
struck down by a hundred hands. Then a vast crowd gathered in front of
the _World_ newspaper office, which was a supporter of the rebels. It
was a crisis when a single spark might kindle a fire that only could be
put out by bloodshed. At that moment a man stepped out upon the balcony
of the City Hall,--a tall, portly man, whose mighty voice was heard above
the tumult of the crowd of angry men. There was stillness, and then,
solemnly and slowly, the voice cried, "Fellow-citizens,--Clouds and
darkness are round Him! His pavilion is on the dark waters, and thick
clouds of the skies! Justice and judgment are the habitation of His
throne! Mercy and truth shall go before His face! Fellow-citizens, God
reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives!" As the angry
waves of Galilee were hushed at the sound of the voice of Christ, so did
the surging passion of that great multitude grow still at the words of
His servant that day. Men ceased from cries of vengeance, and turned to
Him who "had made His throne in the heavens," and bowed their hearts
before Him.
The voice which swayed and stilled the crowd that day was the voice of
Garfield; he it was who, in that dreadful moment, stood in the gap
between the living and the dead.