130 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



hundred and eighty-two members were upon its roll. 

 Among these were many distinguished party leaders 

 on both sides, veterans in the public service, with 

 established reputations for ability, and with that skill 

 which comes only from parliamentary experience. 

 Into this assemblage of men Garfield entered without 

 special preparation, and it might almost be said unex- 

 pectedly. The question of taking command of a di- 

 vision of troops under General Thomas, or taking his 

 seat hi Congress, was kept open till the last moment, 

 so late, indeed, that the resignation of his military 

 commission and his appearance in the House were al- 

 most contemporaneous. He wore the uniform of a 

 major-general of the United States Army on Satur- 

 day, and on Monday, in civilian's dress, he answered 

 to the roll-call as a Representative in Congress from 

 the State of Ohio. 



" He was especially fortunate in the constituency 

 which elected him. Descended almost entirely from 

 New England stock, the men of the Ashtabula dis- 

 trict were intensely radical on all questions relating 

 to human rights. Well educated, thrifty, thoroughly 

 intelligent in affairs, acutely discerning of character, 

 not quick to bestow confidence, and slow to withdraw 

 it, they were at once the most helpful and most ex- 

 acting of supporters. Their tenacious trust in men in 

 whom they have once confided is illustrated by the 

 unparalleled fact that Elisha Whittlesey, Joshua R. 

 Giddings, and James A. Garfield represented the dis- 

 trict for fifty-four years. 



" There is no test of a man's ability in any depart- 

 ment of public life more severe than service in the 

 House of Representatives ; there is no place where so 

 little deference is paid to reputation previously ac- 

 quired, or to eminence won outside ; no place where 

 so little consideration is shown for the feelings or the 

 failures of beginners. What a mail gains in the House 

 he gains by sheer force of his own character, and if 

 he loses and falls back, he must expect no mercy, and 

 will receive no sympathy. It is a field in which the 

 survival of the strongest is the recognized rule, and 

 where no pretense can deceive and no glamour can 

 mislead. The real man is discovered, his worth is im- 

 partially weighed, his rank is irreversibly decreed. 



" With possibly a single exception, Garfield was the 

 youngest member in the House when he entered, and 

 was but seven years from his college graduation. But 

 he had not been in his seat sixty days before his abil- 

 ity was recognized and his place conceded. He stepped 

 to the front with the confidence of one who belonged 

 there. The House was crowded with strong men of 

 both parties ; nineteen of them have since been trans- 

 ferred to the Senate, and many of them have served 

 with distinction in the gubernatorial chairs of their 

 respective States, and on foreign missions of great con- 

 sequence ; but among them all none grew so rapidly, 

 none so firmly, as Garfield. As is said by Trevelyan 

 of his parliamentary hero, Garfield succeeded ' be- 

 cause all the world in concert could not have kept 

 him in the background, and because, when once in 

 the front, he played his part with a prompt intrepidity 

 and a commanding ease that were but the outward 

 symptoms of the immense reserves of energy on 

 which it was in his power to draw.' Indeed, the ap- 

 parently reserved force which Garfield possessed was 

 one of his great characteristics. He never did so well 

 but that it seemed he could easily have done better. 

 He never expended so much strength but that he 

 seemed to be holding additional power at call. This 

 is one of the happiest and rarest distinctions of an 

 effective debater, and often counts for as much in 

 persuading an assembly as the eloquent and elaborate 

 argument." 



SERVICES IN THE HOUSE. 



" The great measure of Garfield' s fame was filled by 

 his service in the House of Representatives. His rnili- 

 tarv life, illustrated by honorable performance, and 

 rich in promise, was, as he himself felt, prematurely 

 terminated, and necessarily incomplete. Speculation 

 as to what he might have done in a field where tho 



great prizes are so few, can not be profitable. It is 

 sufficient to say that, as a soldier, he did his duty 

 bravely ; he did it intelligently ; he won an enviable 

 fame, and he retired from the service without blot or 

 breath against him. As a lawyer, though admirably 

 equipped for the profession, he can scarcely be said 

 to have entered on its practice. The few efforts he 

 made at the bar were distinguished by the same hio-h 

 order of talent which he exhibited on every field 

 where he was put to the test ; and. if a man may be 

 accepted as a competent judge of his own capacities 

 and adaptations, the law was the profession to which 

 Garfield should have devoted himself. But fate or- 

 dained otherwise, and his reputation in history will 

 rest largely upon his service in the House of Repre- 

 sentatives. That service was exceptionally long. He 

 was nine times consecutively chosen to the House, an 

 honor enjoyed probably by not twenty other Repre- 

 sentatives of the more than five thousand who have 

 been elected from the organization of the Government 

 to this hour. 



"As a parliamentary orator, as a debater on an issue 

 squarely joined, where the position had been chosen 

 and the ground laid out, Garfield must be assigned a 

 very high rank. More, perhaps, than any man with 

 whom he was associated in public life, he gave careful 

 and systematic study to public questions, and he came 

 to every discussion in which he took part with elab- 

 orate and complete preparation. He was a steady and 

 indefatigable worker. Those who imagine that talent 

 or genius can supply the place or achieve the results 

 of labor, will find no encouragement in Garfield's life. 

 In preliminary work he was apt, rapid, and skillful. 

 He possessed in a high degree the power of readily 

 absorbing ideas and facts, and, like Dr. Johnson, had 

 the art of getting from a book all that was of value in 

 it, by a reading apparently so quick and cursory that 

 it seemed like a mere glance at the table of contents. 

 He was a pre-eminently fair and candid man in de- 

 bate, took no petty advantage, stopped to no unworthy 

 methods, avoided personal allusions, rarely appealed 

 to prejudice, did not seek to inflame passion. He had 

 a quicker eye for the strong point of his adversary 

 than for his weak point ; and, on his own side, he so 

 marshaled his weighty arguments as to make his 

 hearers forget any possible lack in the complete 

 strength of his position. He had a habit of stating 

 his opponent's side with such amplitude of fairness, 

 and such liberality of concession, that his followers 

 often complained that he was giving his case away. 

 But never, in his prolonged participation in the pro- 

 ceedings of the House, did he give his case away, or 

 fail, in the judgment of competent and impartial lis- 

 teners, to gain the mastery. 



" These characteristics, which marked Garfield as 

 a great debater, did not, however, make him a great 

 parliamentary leader. A parliamentary leader, as that 

 term is understood wherever free representative gov- 

 ernment exists, is necessarily and very strictly the 

 organ of his party. An ardent American defined the 

 instinctive warmth of patriotism when he offered 

 the toast, ' Our country, always right ; but right or 

 wrong, our country.' The parliamentary leader who 

 lias a body of followers that will do and dare and die 

 for the cause, is one who believes his party always 

 right, but, right or wrong, is for his party. No more 

 important or exacting duty devolves upon him than 

 the selection of the field and the time for contest. He 

 must know not merelv how to strike, but where to 

 strike, and when to strike. He often skillfully avoids 

 the strength of his opponent's position, and scatters 

 confusion in his ranks by attacking an exposed point, 

 when really the righteousness of the cause and the 

 strength or logical intrenchment are against him. He 

 conquers often both against the right and the heavy 

 battalions ; as, when young Charles Fox, hi the days 

 of his Toryism, carried the House of Commons against 

 justice, against its immemorial rights, against his own 

 convictionsif, indeed, at that period, Fox had con- 

 victionsand, in the interest of a corrupt adminis- 

 tration, in obedience to a tyrannical sovereign, drove 



