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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



creditable than his bearing through those five full 

 months of vituperation a prolonged agony of trial to 

 a sensitive man. a constant and cruel draft upon the 

 powers of moral endurance. The great mass of these 

 unjust imputations passed unnoticed, and with the 

 general debris of the campaign fell into oblivion. But 

 in a few instances the iron entered his soul, and he 

 died with the injury unforgotten if not unforgiven. 



" One aspect of Gar-field's candidacy was unprece- 

 dented. Never before, in the history of partisan con- 

 tests in this country, had a successful presidential 

 candidate spoken freely on passing events and current 

 issues. To attempt anything of the kind seemed 

 novel, rash, and even desperate. The older class of 

 voters recalled the unfortunate Alabama letter, in 

 which Mr. Clay was supposed to have signed his po- 

 litical death-warrant. They remembered also the 

 hot-tempered effusion by which General Scott lost a 

 large share of his popularity before his nomination, 

 and the unfortunate speeches which rapidly consumed 

 the remainder. The younger voters had seen Mr. 

 Greeley in a series of vigorous and original addresses 

 preparing the pathway for his own defeat. Unmind- 

 ful of these warnings, unheeding the advice of friends, 

 Garfield spoke to large crowds as he journeyed to and 

 from New York in August, to a great multitude in 

 that city, to delegations and deputations of every kind 

 that called at Mentor during the summer and autumn. 

 With innumerable critics, watchful and eager to catch 

 a phrase that might be turned into odium or ridicule, 

 or a sentence that might be distorted to his own or his 

 party's injury, Garfield did not trip or halt in any one 

 of his seventy speeches. This seems all the more re- 

 markable when it is remembered that he did not write 

 what he said, and yet spoke with such logical consec- 

 utiveness of thought and such admirable precision of 

 phrase as to defy the accident of misreport and the 

 malignity of misrepresentation." 



AS PRESIDENT. 



" In the beginning of his presidential life, Garfield' s 

 experience did not yield him pleasure or satisfaction. 

 The duties that engross so large a portion of the 

 President's time were distasteful to him, and were 

 unfavorably contrasted with his legislative work. ' I 

 have been dealing all these years with ideas,' he im- 

 patiently exclaimed one day, ' and here I am dealing 

 only with persons. I have been heretofore treating 

 of the fundamental principles of government, and 

 here I am considering all day whether A or B shall 

 be appointed to this or that office.' He was earnestly 

 seeking some practical way of correcting the evils 

 arising from the distribution of overgrown and un- 

 wieldy patronage evils always appreciated and often 

 discussed by him, but whose magnitude had been 

 more deeply impressed upon his mind since his acces- 

 sion to the presidency. Had he lived, a comprehen- 

 sive improvement in the mode of appointment and in 

 the tenure of office would have been proposed by him, 

 and with the aid of Congress no doubt perfected. 



" But, while many of the Executive duties were not 

 grateful to him, he 'was assiduous and conscientious 

 in their discharge. From the very outset he exhibit- 

 ed administrative talent of a high order. He grasped 

 the helm of office with the hand of a master. In this 

 respect, indeed, he constantly surprised many who 

 were most intimately associated with him in the Gov- 

 ernment, and especially those who had feared that he 

 might be lacking in the executive faculty. His dis- 

 position of business was orderly and rapid. His power 

 of analysis, and his skill in classification, enabled him 

 to dispatch a vast mass of detail with singular prompt- 

 ness and ease. His Cabinet meetings were admirably 

 conducted. His clear presentation of official subjects, 

 his well-considered suggestion of topics on which 

 discussion was invited, his quick decision when all 

 had been heard, combined to show a thoroughness of 

 mental training as rare as his natural ability and his 

 facile adaptation to a new and enlarged field of labor. 



" With perfect comprehension of all the inheritances 

 of the war, with a cool calculation of the obstacles in 



his way, impelled always by a generous enthusiasm, 

 Garfield conceived that much might be done by his 

 administration toward restoring harmony between 

 the different sections of the Union. He was anxious 

 to go South and speak to the people. As early as 

 April he had ineffectually endeavored to arrange for a 

 trip to Nashville, whither he had been cordially in- 

 vited, and he was again disappointed a few weeks 

 later to find that he could not go to South Carolina to 

 attend the centennial celebration of the victory of the 

 Cowpens. But for the autumn he definitely counted 

 on being present at three memorable assemblies in 

 the South, the celebration at Yorktown, the opening 

 of the Cotton Exposition at Atlanta, and the meeting 

 of the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga. He 

 was already turning over in his mind his address for 

 each occasion, and the three taken together, he said 

 to a friend, gave him the exact scope and verge which 

 he needed. ^ At Yorktown he would have before him 

 the associations of a hundred years that bound the 

 South and the North in the sacred memory of a com- 

 mon danger and a common victory. At Atlanta he 

 would present the material interests and the indus- 

 trial development which appealed to the thrift and in- 

 dependence of every household, and which should 

 unite the two sections by the instinct of self-interest 

 and self-defense. At Chattanooga he would revive 

 memories of the war only to show that after all its 

 disaster and all its suffering, the country was stronger 

 and greater, the Union rendered indissoluble, and the 

 future, through the agony and blood of one generation, 

 made brighter and better for all. 



" Garfield' s ambition for the success of his adminis- 

 tration was high. With strong caution and conserva- 

 tism in his nature, he was in no danger of attempting 

 rash experiments or of resorting to the empiricism of 

 statesmanship. But he believed that renewed and 

 closer attention should be given to questions affecting 

 the material interests and commercial prospects of 

 fifty millions of people. He believed that our conti- 

 nental relations, extensive and undeveloped as they 

 are, involved responsibility, and could be cultivated 

 into profitable friendship or be abandoned to harmful 

 indifference or lasting enmity. He believed with equal 

 confidence that an essential forerunner to a new era of 

 national progress must be a feeling of contentment in 

 every section of the Union, and a generous belief that 

 the benefits and burdens of government would be 

 common to all. Himself a conspicuous illustration of 

 what ability and ambition may do under republican 

 institutions, he loved his country with a passion of 

 patriotic devotion, and every waking thought was 

 given to her advancement. He was an American in 

 all his aspirations, and he looked to the destiny and 

 influence of the United States with the philosophic 

 composure of Jefferson and the demonstrative confi- 

 dence of John Adams. 



" The political events which disturbed the Presi- 

 dent's serenity for many weeks before that fatal day in 

 July form an important chapter in his career, and, in his 

 own judgment, involved questions of principle and of 

 right which are vitally essential to the constitutional 

 administration of the Federal Government. It would 

 be out of place here and now to speak the language of 

 controversy ; but the events referred to, however they 

 may continue to be a source of contention with others, 

 have become, so far as Garfield is concerned, as much 

 a matter of history as his heroism at Chickamauga 

 or his illustrious service in the House. Detail is not 

 needful, and personal antagonism shall not be rekin- 

 dled by any word uttered to-day. The motives of 

 those opposing him are not to be here adversely in- 

 terpreted nor their course harshly characterized. But 

 of the dead President this is to be said, and said be- 

 cause his own speech is for ever silenced and he can 

 be no more heard except through the fidelity and the 

 love of surviving friends : from the beginning to the 

 end of the controversy he so much deplored, the 

 President was never for one moment actuated by any 

 motive of gain to himself or of loss to others. Least 

 of all men did he harbor revenge, rarely did he even 



