GARFIELD, JAMES A. 



287 



all the engagements of that army in Middle and 

 Southern Tennessee. With the battle of Chicka- 

 mauga General Gartield's military career closed. 

 His ability and bravery were recognized by the 

 War Department in an order promoting him 

 to the rank of major-general of volunteers 

 "for gallant and meritorious services at the 

 battle of Chickamauga." 



He resigned his commission in the army on 

 taking his seat in the Thirty-eighth Congress, 

 December 5, 1863, having been elected, while 

 absent in the field the year before, a Represent- 

 ative from the Nineteenth Congressional Dis- 

 trict of Ohio. He was reflected to the Thirty- 

 ninth, Fortieth, Forty-first, Forty-second, Forty 

 third, Forty-fourth, Forty-fifth, and Forty-sixth 

 Congresses. He served on the Committee of 

 Military Affairs during his first term, a com- 

 mittee which ranked all others in importance 

 at that time. He opposed the giving of boun- 

 ties to any but veteran soldiers who might re- 

 enlist, and was one of the two who voted against 

 the Bounty Bill passed January 6, 1864. He 

 made one of his strongest and most effective 

 speeches in favor of granting to Mr. Lincoln 

 the power which he asked for drafting men to 

 fill up the ranks, and it was largely due to the 

 influence of this speech that a resolution to 

 that effect was carried through the House. In 

 the Thirty-ninth Congress he was assigned to 

 the Committee of Ways and Means, and at once 

 entered upon those financial studies that have 

 made him an authority on American finance. 

 He was chairman of the Military Committee in 

 the Fortieth Congress, and of Banking and Cur- 

 rency in the Forty-first. On the 15th of May, 

 1868, he made a speech on " The Currency," 

 which has been termed a sound money manual 

 and a cyclopaedia of financial facts. It pro- 

 cured for him the distinction of being elected 

 an honorary member of the Cobden Club of 

 London. His financial record in the House is 

 that of an opponent of inflation and repudiation, 

 an advocate of the payment of the national 

 debt, and return to specie payments. Besides 

 his regular committee-work he has done much 

 extra service upon special committees, making 

 at one time a thorough examination of the af- 

 fairs of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing 

 of the Treasury Department ; at another, pre- 

 siding at the sittings of a special committee to 

 inquire into the causes of the gold panic in 1870. 

 While chairman of the Committee on Appro- 

 priations, during the Forty-second and Forty- 

 third Congresses, he carried on the work of 

 reform, begun by Mr. Dawes, in the method 

 of making appropriations. Prior to the act 

 approved July 12, 1870, there had been two 

 kinds of appropriations annual and perma- 

 nent. Nearly one half of the expenses of the 

 Government had been provided for by these 

 permanent appropriations, Congress having no 

 direct control over them. Unexpended bal- 

 ances of appropriations had been accumulating 

 in the bureaus from the beginning of the Gov- 

 ernment. If any part of the money appropri- 



ated for a specific purpose remained unex- 

 pended at the end of the fiscal year, this bal- 

 ance stood on the books of the Treasury to 

 the credit of the bureau, and could be used at 

 any time for the purpose named. When these 

 balances were covered into the Treasury in 

 1872, they amounted to $174,000,000. That 

 law, made still more stringent by the act of 

 June 24, 1874, requires that any surplus of ap- 

 propriations remaining at the end of each fis- 

 cal year, except so much as shall be needed to 

 execute contracts already made, shall go into 

 the general fund of the Treasury. 



A sudden reaction in politics gave the con- 

 trol of the House of Representatives of the 

 Forty -fourth Congress to the Democrats, De- 

 cember, 1875. In the three succeeding Con- 

 gresses, the Republicans being in the minority, 

 General Garfield was assigned a place on the 

 Committee of Ways and Means. After Mr. 

 Blaine's transfer to the Senate in June, 1876, 

 he became and continued to remain, till the end 

 of his Congressional career, the acknowledged 

 leader of the Republicans in the House. 



His speech in June, 1876, in reply to Mr. Hill, 

 of Georgia, on the General Amnesty Bill, and 

 his reply to the Hon. L. Q. C. Lamar, of Mis- 

 sissippi, August 4th, added greatly to his repu- 

 tation as one of the ablest and most forcible 

 speakers in the halls of Congress. He was one 

 of the Republican statesmen invited by Presi- 

 dent Grant to go to Louisiana to witness the 

 counting of the vote for Presidential electors 

 by the State Returning Board, November, 1876. 

 While the Electoral Bill was pending in the 

 House, he made a speech in opposition to its 

 passnge, holding that neither Congress nor the 

 Commission could go behind the action of a 

 State; yet, after the Commission was created, 

 he was unanimously designated by the Repub- 

 licans of the House, and was elected a member 

 of the Electoral Commission. In the Forty- 

 fifth Congress his most effective speeches were 

 made on questions relating to finance, trade, 

 and industry. His speeches during the extra 

 session and the first regular session of the Forty- 

 sixth Congress embrace these titles : "Revolu- 

 tion in Congress " ; " Close of Debate on First 

 Army Bill "; " Legislative Appropriation Bill "; 

 " Second Army Appropriation Bill "; "Judicial 

 Appropriation Bill " ; " Nullification " ; " De- 

 fense of Union Soldiers of Seceded States " ; 

 " Resumption and the Currency " ; " The New 

 Silver Bill"; "The Mississippi River an Ob- 

 ject of National Care " ; " The Revived Doc- 

 trine of State Sovereignty"; "Ancient and Mod- 

 ern Panics"; "Obedience to the Law the 

 Foremost Duty of Congress"; "Pulp and 

 Paper " ; and " How News and Public Opinion 

 are manufactured." At all times a forcible and 

 elegant speaker, he is especially noted for mak- 

 ing the most felicitous and appropriate speeches 

 on commemorative and ceremonial occasions. 



The year 1880 witnessed General Garfield's. 

 preferment to two of the highest official posi- 

 tions in the gift of the American people. In 



