Chapter XXIX—Garfield As A Lawyer.

In the crowded activities of Garfield's life, my readers may possibly have forgotten that he was a lawyer, having, after a course of private study during his presidency of Hiram College, been admitted to the bar, in 1861, by the Supreme Court of Ohio. When the war broke out he was about to withdraw from his position as teacher, and go into practice in Cleveland; but, as a Roman writer has expressed it, "Inter arma silent leges." So law gave way to arms, and the incipient lawyer became a general.

When the soldier put off his armor it was to enter Congress, and instead of practicing law, Garfield helped to frame laws.

But in 1865 there came an extraordinary occasion, which led to the Ohio Congressman entering upon his long delayed profession. And here I quote from the work of Major Bundy, already referred to: "About that time that great lawyer, Judge Jeremiah S. Black, as the attorney of the Ohio Democrats who had been opposing the war, came to his friend Garfield, and said that there were some men imprisoned in Indiana for conspiracy against the Government in trying to prevent enlistments and to encourage desertion. They had been tried in 1864, while the war was going on, and by a military commission sitting in Indiana, where there was no war, they had been sentenced to death. Mr. Lincoln commuted the sentence to imprisonment for life, and they were put into State's prison in accordance with the commutation. They then took out a writ of habeas corpus, to test the constitutionality and legality of their trial, and the judges in the Circuit Court had disagreed, there being two of them, and had certified their disagreement to the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Black said to Garfield that he had seen what Garfield had said in Congress, and asked him if he was willing to say in an argument in the Supreme Court what he had advocated in Congress.

"To which Garfield replied: 'It depends on your case altogether.'

"Judge Black sent him the facts in the case—the record.

"Garfield read it over, and said: 'I believe in that doctrine.'

"To which Judge Black replied: 'Young man, you know it is a perilous thing for a young Republican in Congress to say that, and I don't want you to injure yourself.'

"Said Garfield: 'It does not make any difference. I believe in English liberty, and English law. But, Judge Black, I am not a practitioner in the Supreme Court, and I never tried a case in my life anywhere.'

"'How long ago were you admitted to the bar?' asked Judge Black.

"'Just about six years age.'

"'That will do,' Black replied, and he took Garfield thereupon over to the Supreme Court and moved his admission.

"He immediately entered upon the consideration of this important case. On the side of the Government was arrayed a formidable amount of legal talent. The Attorney-General was aided by Gen. Butler, who was called in on account of his military knowledge, and by Henry Stanbury. Associated with Gen. Garfield as counsel for the petitioners were two of the greatest lawyers in the country—Judge Black and Hon. David Dudley Field, and the Hon. John E. McDonald, now Senator from Indiana. The argument submitted by Gen. Garfield was one of the most remarkable ever made before the Supreme Court of the United States, and was made under circumstances peculiarly creditable to Garfield's courage, independence, and resolute devotion to the cause of constitutional liberty—a devotion not inspired by wild dreams of political promotion, for at that time it was dangerous for any young Republican Congressman to defend the constitutional rights of men known to be disloyal, and rightly despised and hated for their disloyal practices."

I refer any of my maturer readers who may desire an abstract of the young lawyer's masterly and convincing argument, to Major Bundy's valuable work, which necessarily goes more deeply into such matters than the scope of my slighter work will admit. His argument was listened to with high approval by his distinguished associate counsel, and the decision of the Supreme Court was given unanimously in favor of his clients.

Surely this was a most valuable début, and Garfield is probably the first lawyer that ever tried his first case before that august tribunal. It was a triumph, and gave him an immediate reputation and insured him a series of important cases before the same court. I have seen it stated that he was employed in seventeen cases before the Supreme Court, some of large importance, and bringing him in large fees. But for his first case he never received a cent. His clients were poor and in prison, and he was even obliged to pay for printing his own brief. His future earnings from this source, however, added materially to his income, and enabled him to install his family in that cherished home at Mentor, which has become, so familiar by name to the American people.

I can not dwell upon Garfield's experience as a lawyer. I content myself with quoting, from a letter addressed by Garfield to his close friend, President Hinsdale, of Hiram College, the account of a case tried in Mobile, which illustrates his wonderful industry and remarkable resources.

Under date of June 18, 1877, Garfield writes

"You know that my life has abounded in crises and difficult situations. This trip has been, perhaps, not a crisis, but certainly has placed me in a position of extreme difficulty. Two or three months ago, W.B. Duncan, a prominent business man in New York, retained me as his lawyer in a suit to be heard in the United States Court in Mobile, and sent me the papers in the case. I studied them, and found that they involved an important and somewhat difficult question of law, and I made myself sufficiently familiar with it, so that when Duncan telegraphed me to be in Mobile on the first Monday in June, I went with a pretty comfortable sense of my readiness to meet anybody who should be employed on the other side. But when I reached Mobile, I found there were two other suits connected, with this, and involving the ownership, sale, and complicated rights of several parties to the Mobile and Ohio Railroad.

"After two days' skirmishing, the court ordered the three suits to be consolidated. The question I had prepared myself on passed wholly out of sight, and the whole entanglement of an insolvent railroad, twenty-five years old, and lying across four States, and costing $20,000,000, came upon us at once. There were seven lawyers in the case besides me. On one side were John A. Campbell, of New Orleans, late member of the Supreme Bench of the United States; a leading New York and a Mobile lawyer. Against us were Judge Hoadley, of Cincinnati, and several Southern men. I was assigned the duty of summing up the case for our side, and answering the final argument of the opposition. I have never felt myself in such danger of failure before, all had so much better knowledge of the facts than I, and all had more experience with that class of litigation? but I am very sure no one of them did so much hard work, in the five nights and six days of the trial, as I did. I am glad to tell you that I have received a dispatch from Mobile, that the court adopted my view of the case, and gave us a verdict on all points."

Who can doubt, after reading of these two cases, that had Garfield devoted himself to the practice of the law exclusively, he would have made one of the most successful members of the profession in the country, perhaps risen to the highest rank? As it was, he was only able to devote the time he could spare from his legislative labors.

These increased as years sped. On the retirement of James G. Blaine from the lower House of Congress, the leadership of his party devolved upon Garfield. It was a post of honor, but it imposed upon him a vast amount of labor. He must qualify himself to speak, not superficially, but from adequate knowledge upon all points of legislation, and to defend the party with which he was allied from all attacks of political opponents.

On this subject he writes, April 21, 1880: "The position I hold in the House requires an enormous amount of surplus work. I am compelled to look ahead at questions likely to be sprung upon us for action, and the fact is, I prepare for debate on ten subjects where I actually take part in but one. For example, it seemed certain that the Fitz John Porter case would be discussed in the House, and I devoted the best of two weeks to a careful 're-examination' of the old material, and a study of the new.

"There is now lying on top of my book-case a pile of books, revisions, and manuscripts, three feet long by a foot and a half high, which I accumulated and examined for debate, which certainly will not come off this session, perhaps not at all. I must stand in the breach to meet whatever comes.

"I look forward to the Senate as at least a temporary relief from this heavy work. I am just now in antagonism with my own party on legislation in reference to the election law, and here also I have prepared for two discussions, and as yet have not spoken on either."

My young readers will see that Garfield thoroughly believed in hard work, and appreciated its necessity. It was the only way in which he could hold his commanding position. If he attained large success, and reached the highest dignity in the power of his countrymen to bestow, it is clear that he earned it richly. Upon some, accident bestows rank; but not so with him. From his earliest years he was growing, rounding out, and developing, till he became the man he was. And had his life been spared to the usual span, it is not likely that he would have desisted, but ripened with years into perhaps the most profound and scholarly statesman the world has seen.

Chapter XXX—The Scholar In Politics.

In the midst of his political and professional activity, Garfield never forgot his days of tranquil enjoyment at Hiram College, when he was devoted solely to the cultivation of his mind, and the extension of his knowledge. He still cherished the same tastes, and so far as his leisure—he had no leisure, save time snatched from the engrossing claims of politics—so far, at any rate, as he could manage the time, he employed it for new acquisitions, or for the review of his earlier studies.

In January, 1874, he made a metrical version of the third ode of Horace's first book. I quote four stanzas:

In reviewing the work of the year 1874, he writes: "So far as individual work is concerned, I have done something to keep alive my tastes and habits. For example, since I left you I have made a somewhat thorough study of Goethe and his epoch, and have sought to build up in my mind a picture of the state of literature and art in Europe, at the period when Goethe began to work, and the state when he died. I have grouped the various poets into order, so as to preserve memoirs of the impression made upon my mind by the whole. The sketch covers nearly sixty pages of manuscript. I think some work of this kind, outside the track of one's every-day work, is necessary to keep up real growth."

In July, 1875, he gives a list of works that he had read recently. Among these are several plays of Shakespeare, seven volumes of Froude's England, and a portion of Green's "History of the English People." He did not limit himself to English studies, but entered the realms of French and German literature, having made himself acquainted with both these languages. He made large and constant use of the Library of Congress. Probably none of his political associates made as much, with the exception of Charles Sumner.

Major Bundy gives some interesting details as to his method of work, which I quote: "In all his official, professional, and literary work, Garfield has pursued a system that has enabled him to accumulate, on a vast range and variety of subjects, an amount of easily available information such as no one else has shown the possession of by its use. His house at Washington is a workshop, in which the tools are always kept within immediate reach. Although books overrun his house from top to bottom, his library contains the working material on which he mainly depends. And the amount of material is enormous. Large numbers of scrap-books that have been accumulating for over twenty years, in number and in value—made up with an eye to what either is, or may become, useful, which would render the collection of priceless value to the library of any first-class newspaper establishment—are so perfectly arranged and indexed, that their owner with his all-retentive memory, can turn in a moment to the facts that may be needed for almost any conceivable emergency in debate.

"These are supplemented by diaries that preserve Garfield's multifarous political, scientific, literary, and religious inquiries, studies, and readings. And, to make the machinery of rapid work complete, he has a large box containing sixty-three different drawers, each properly labeled, in which he places newspaper cuttings, documents, and slips of paper, and from which he can pull out what he wants as easily as an organist can play on the stops of his instrument. In other words, the hardest and most masterful worker in Congress has had the largest and most scientifically arranged of workshops."

It was a pleasant house, this, which Garfield had made for himself in Washington. With a devoted wife, who sympathized with him in his literary tastes, and aided him in his preparation for his literary work, with five children (two boys now at Williams College, one daughter, and two younger sons), all bright and promising, with a happy and joyous temperament that drew around him warmly-attached friends, with a mind continually broadening and expanding in every direction, respected and appreciated by his countrymen, and loved even by his political opponents, Garfield's lot seemed and was a rarely happy one. He worked hard, but he had always enjoyed work. Higher honors seemed hovering in the air, but he did not make himself anxious about them. He enjoyed life, and did his duty as he went along, ready to undertake new responsibilities whenever they came, but by no means impatient for higher honors.

Filling an honored place in the household is the white-haired mother, who, with justifiable pride, has followed the fortunes of her son from his destitute boyhood, along the years in which he gained strength by battling with poverty and adverse circumstances, to the time when he fills the leading place in the councils of the nation. So steadily has he gone on, step by step, that she is justified in hoping for him higher honors.

The time came, and he was elected to the United States Senate in place of Judge Thurman, who had ably represented the State in the same body, and had been long regarded as one of the foremost leaders of the Democratic party. But his mantle fell upon no unworthy successor. Ohio was fortunate in possessing two such men to represent her in the highest legislative body of the nation.

Doubtless this honor would have come sooner to Garfield, for in 1877 he was the candidate to whom all eyes were directed, but he could not be spared from the lower House, there being no one to take his place as leader. He yielded to the expressed wishes of President Hayes, who, in the exceptional position in which he found himself, felt the need of a strong and able man in the House, to sustain his administration and help carry out the policy of the Government. Accustomed to yield his own interest to what he regarded as the needs of his country, Garfield quietly acquiesced in what to most men would have been a severe disappointment.

But when, after the delay of four years, he was elected to the Senate, he accepted with a feeling of satisfaction—not so much because he was promoted as because, in his new sphere of usefulness, he would have more time for the gratification of his literary tastes.

In a speech thanking the members of the General Assembly for their support, he said:

"And now, gentlemen of the General Assembly, without distinction of party, I recognize this tribute and compliment paid to me to-night. Whatever my own course may be in the future, a large share of the inspiration of my future public life will be drawn from this occasion and from these surroundings, and I shall feel anew the sense of obligation that I feel to the State of Ohio. Let me venture to point a single sentence in regard to that work. During the twenty years that I have been in public life, almost eighteen of it in the Congress of the United States, I have tried to do one thing. Whether I was mistaken or otherwise, it has been the plan of my life to follow my conviction at whatever cost to myself.

"I have represented for many years a district in Congress whose approbation I greatly desired; but, though it may seem, perhaps, a little egotistical to say it, I yet desired still more the approbation of one person, and his name was Garfield. [Laughter and applause]. He is the only man that I am compelled to sleep with, and eat with, and live with, and die with; and, if I could not have his approbation, I should have had companionship. [Renewed laughter and applause]. And in this larger constituency which has called me to represent them now, I can only do what is true to my best self, following the same rule. And if I should be so unfortunate as to lose the confidence of this larger constituency, I must do what every other fair-minded man has to do—carry his political life in his hand and take the consequences. But I must follow what seems to me to be the only safe rule of my life; and with that view of the case, and with that much personal reference, I leave that subject."

This speech gives the key-note of Garfield's political action. More than once he endangered his re-election and hazarded his political future by running counter to what he knew to be the wishes of his constituents and his party; but he would never allow himself to be a slave to party, or wear the yoke of political expediency. He sought, first of all, to win the approval of his own conscience and his own sense of right, and then he was willing to "take the consequences," even if they were serious enough to cut short the brilliant career which he so much enjoyed.

I conceive that in this respect he was a model whom I may safely hold up for the imitation of my readers, young or old. Such men do credit to the country, and if Garfield's rule of life could be universally adopted, the country would never be in peril. A conscientious man may make mistakes of judgment but he can never go far astray.

Chapter XXXI—The Tributes Of Friends.

Before going farther, in order that my young readers may be better qualified to understand what manner of man Garfield was, I will quote the remarks made by two of his friends, one a prominent member of the party opposed to him in politics. In the Milwaukee Sentinel of Sept. 22d, I find this tribute by Congressman Williams, of that State:

"Happening to sit within one seat of him for four years in the House, I, with others, perhaps had a better opportunity to see him in all of his moods than those more removed. In action he was a giant; off duty he was a great, noble boy. He never knew what austerity of manner or ceremonious dignity meant. After some of his greatest efforts in the House, such as will live in history, he would turn to me, or any one else, and say: 'Well, old boy, how was that?' Every man was his confidant and friend, so far as the interchange of every-day good feeling was concerned.

"He once told me how he prepared his speeches; that first he filled himself with the subject, massing all the facts and principles involved, so far as he could; then he took pen and paper and wrote down the salient points in what he regarded their logical order. Then he scanned them critically, and fixed them in his memory. 'And then,' said he, 'I leave the paper in my room and trust to the emergency.' He told me that when he spoke at the serenade in New York a year ago, he was so pressed by callers that the only opportunity he had for preparation was, to lock the door and walk three times around the table, when he was called out to the balcony to begin. All the world knows what that speech was.

"He was wrapped up in his family. His two boys would come up to the House just before adjournment, and loiter about his desk with their books in their hands. After the House adjourned, other members would go off in cars or carriages, or walk down the avenue in groups. But Garfield, with a boy on each side of him, would walk down Capitol Hill, as we would say in the country 'cross-lots,' all three chatting together on equal terms.

"He said to me one day during the canvass, while the tears came to his eyes, 'I have done no more in coming up from poverty than hundreds and thousands of others, but I am thankful that I have been able to keep my family by my side, and educate my children.'

"He was a man with whom anybody could differ with impunity. I have said repeatedly, that were Garfield alive and fully recovered, and a dozen of his intimate friends were to go to him, and advise that Guiteau be let off, he would say, 'Yes, let him go.' The man positively knew no malice. And for such a man to be shot and tortured like a dog, and by a dog!

"He was extremely sensitive. I have seen him come into the House in the morning, when some guerrilla of the press had stabbed him deeper in his feelings than Guiteau's bullet did in the body, and when he looked pallid from suffering, and the evident loss of sleep; but he would utter no murmur, and in some short time his great exuberance of spirits would surmount it all, and he would be a boy again.

"He never went to lunch without a troop of friends with him. He loved to talk at table, and there is no gush in saying he talked a God socially and intellectually. Some of his off-hand expressions were like a burst of inspiration. Like all truly great men, he did not seem to realize his greatness. And, as I have said, he would talk as cordially and confidentially with a child as with a monarch. And I only refer to his conversations with me because you ask me to, and because I think his off-hand conversations with any one reveal his real traits best.

"Coming on the train from Washington, after his nomination, he said: 'Only think of this! I am yet a young man? if elected and I serve my term I shall still be a young man. Then what am I going to do? There seems to be no place in America for an ex-President.'

"And then came in what I thought the extreme simplicity and real nobility of the man. 'Why,' said he, 'I had no thought of being nominated. I had bought me some new books, and was getting ready for the Senate.'

"I laughed at the idea of his buying books, like a boy going to college, and remembered that during his Congressional career he had furnished materials for a few books himself. And then, with that peculiar roll of the body and slap on the shoulder with the left hand, which all will recognize, he said: 'Why! do you know that up to 1856 I never saw a Congressional Globe, nor knew what one was!' And he then explained how he stumbled upon one in the hands of an opponent in his first public anti-slavery debate.

"A friend remarked the other day that Garfield would get as enthusiastic in digging a six-foot ditch with his own hands, as when making a speech in Congress. Such was my observation. Going down the lane, he seemed to forget for the time that there was any Presidential canvass pending. He would refer, first to one thing, then another, with that off-hand originality which was his great characteristic. Suddenly picking up a smooth, round pebble, he said, 'Look at that! Every stone here sings of the sea.'

"Asking why he bought his farm, he said he had been reading about metals, how you could draw them to a certain point a million times and not impair their strength, but if you passed that point once, you could never get them back. 'So,' said he, 'I bought this farm to rest the muscles of my mind!' Coming to two small wooden structures in the field, he talked rapidly of how his neighbors guessed he would do in Congress, but would not make much of a fist at farming, and then called my attention to his corn and buckwheat and other crops, and said that was a marsh, but he underdrained it with tile, and found spring-water flowing out of the bluff, and found he could get a five-foot fall, and with pumps of a given dimension, a water-dam could throw water back eighty rods to his house, and eighty feet above it. 'But,' said he, in his jocularly, impressive manner, 'I did my surveying before I did my work.'"

This is certainly a pleasant picture of a great man, who has not lost his simplicity of manner, and who seems unconscious of his greatness—in whom the love of humanity is so strong that he reaches out a cordial hand to all of his kind, no matter how humble, and shows the warmest interest in all.

Senator Voorhees, of Indiana, was among the speakers at the memorial meeting in Terre Haute, and in the course of his remarks, said: "I knew James A. Garfield well, and, except on the political field, we had strong sympathies together. It is nearly eighteen years since we first met, and during that period I had the honor to serve seven years in the House of Representatives with him.

"The kindness of his nature and his mental activity were his leading traits. In all his intercourse with men, women, and children, no kinder heart ever beat in human breast than that which struggled on till 10.30 o'clock Monday night, and then forever stood still. There was a light in his face, a chord in his voice, and a pressure in his hand, which were full of love for his fellow-beings. His manners were ardent and demonstrative with those to whom he was attached, and he filled the private circle with sunshine and magnetic currents. He had the joyous spirits of boyhood and the robust intellectuality of manhood more perfectly combined than any other I ever knew. Such a character was necessarily almost irresistible with those who knew him personally, and it accounts for that undying hold which, under all circumstances, bound his immediate constituents to him as with hooks of steel. Such a nature, however, always has its dangers as well as its strength and its blessings. The kind heart and the open hand never accompany a suspicious, distrustful mind. Designing men mark such a character for their own selfishness, and Gen. Garfield's faults—for he had faults, as he was human—sprang more from this circumstance than from all others combined. He was prompt and eager to respond to the wishes of those he esteemed his friends, whether inside or outside of his own political party. That he made some mistakes in his long, busy career is but repeating the history of every generous and obliging man who has lived and died in public life. They are not such, however, as are recorded in heaven, nor will they mar or weaken the love of his countrymen.

"The poor, laboring boy, the self-made man, the hopeful, buoyant soul in the face of all difficulties and odds, constitute an example for the American youth, which will never be lost nor grow dim.

"The estimate to be placed on the intellectual abilities of Gen. Garfield must be a very high one. Nature was bountiful to him, and his acquirements were extensive and solid. If I might make a comparison, I would say that, with the exception of Jefferson and John Quincy Adams, he was the most learned President in what is written in books in the whole range of American history.

"The Christian character of Gen. Garfield can not, with propriety, be omitted in a glance, however brief, at his remarkable career. Those who knew him best in the midst of his ambition and his worldly hopes will not fail now at his tomb to bear their testimony to his faith in God and his love for the teachings of the blessed Nazarene.

"It seems but yesterday that I saw him last, and parted from him in all the glory of his physical and mental manhood. His eye was full of light, his tread elastic and strong, and the world lay bright before him. He talked freely of public men and public affairs. His resentments were like sparks from the flint. He cherished them not for a moment. Speaking of one who, he thought, had wronged him, he said to me, that, sooner or later, he intended to pour coals of fire on his head by acts of kindness to some of his kindred. He did not live to do so, but the purpose of his heart has been placed to his credit in the book of eternal life"

A correspondent of the New York Tribune suggests that the following lines, from Pollok's "Course of Time," apply with remarkable fitness to his glorious career:

Chapter XXXII—From Canal-Boy To President.

James A Garfield had been elected to the United States Senate, but he was never a member of that body. Before the time came for him to take his seat he had been invested with a higher dignity. Never before in our history has the same man been an actual member of the House of Representatives, a Senator-elect, and President-elect.

On the 8th of June, 1880, the Republican Convention at Chicago selected Garfield as their standard-bearer on the thirty-sixth ballot. No one, probably, was more surprised or bewildered than Garfield himself, who was a member of the Convention, when State after State declared in his favor. In his loyalty to John Sherman, of his own State, whom he had set in nomination in an eloquent speech, he tried to avert the result, but in vain. He was known by the friends of other candidates to be thoroughly equipped for the highest office in the people's gift, and he was the second choice of the majority.

Inauguration As President Of The United States.

Inauguration As President Of The United States.

Mary Clemmer, the brilliant Washington correspondent, writes of the scene thus: "For days before, many that would not confess it felt that he was the coming man, because of the acclaim of the people whenever Garfield appeared. The culminating moment came. Other names seemed to sail out of sight like thistledown on the wind, till one (how glowing and living it was) was caught by the galleries, and shout on shout arose with the accumulative force of ascending breakers, till the vast amphitheater was deluged with sounding and resounding acclaim, such as a man could hope would envelope and uplift his name but once in a life-time. And he? There he stood, strong, Saxon, fair, debonair, yet white as new snow, and trembling like an aspen. It seemed too much, this sudden storm of applause and enthusiasm for him, the new idol, the coming President; yet who may say that through his exultant, yet trembling heart, that moment shot the presaging pang of distant, yet sure-coming woe?"

Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, who was the President of the Convention, in a speech made not long afterward, paid the following just tribute to Garfield's character and qualifications:

"Think of the qualifications for the office which that man combines. Do you want a statesman in the broadest sense? Do you demand a successful soldier? Do you want a man of more experience in civil affairs? No President of the United States since John Quincy Adams has begun to bring to the Presidential office, when he entered, anything like the experience in statesmanship of Gen. Garfield. As you look over the list, Grant, Jackson, and Taylor have brought to the position great fame as soldiers, but who since John Quincy Adams has had such a civil career to look back upon as Gen. Garfield? Since 1864 I can not think of one important question debated in Congress or discussed before the great tribunal of the American people in which you can not find the issue stated more clearly and better than by any one else in the speeches in the House of Representatives or on the hustings of Gen. Garfield—firm and resolute, constant in his adherence to what he thinks is right, regardless of popular delusions or the fear that he will become less popular, or be disappointed in his ambitions.

"Just remember when Republicans and Democrats alike of Ohio fairly went crazy over the financial heresy, this man stood as with his feet on a rock, demanding honesty in government. About six years ago I sat by the side of an Ohio Representative, who had an elaborately prepared table, showing how the West was being cheated; that Ohio had not as many bank bills to the square mile as the East, and that the Southwest was even worse off than Ohio.

"In regard to the great questions of human rights he has stood inflexible. The successor of Joshua R. Giddings, he is the man on whom his mantle may be said to have descended. Still he is no blind partisan. The best arguments in favor of civil service reform are found in the speeches of Gen. Garfield. He is liberal and generous in the treatment of the South, one of the foremost advocates of educational institutions in the South at the national expense. Do you wish for that highest type—the volunteer citizen soldier? Here is a man who enlisted at the beginning of the war; from a subordinate officer he became a major-general, trusted by those best of commanders, Thomas and Rosecranz, always in the thickest of the fight, the commander of dangerous and always successful expeditions, and returning home crowned with the laurels of victory. Do you wish for an honored career, which in itself is a vindication of the system of the American Republic? Without the attributes of rank or wealth, he has risen from the humblest to the loftiest position."

When the nominee of the convention had leisure to reflect upon his new position, and then cast his eye back along his past life, beginning with his rustic home in the Ohio wilderness, and traced step by step his progress from canal-boy to Presidential candidate, it must have seemed to him almost a dream. It was indeed a wonderful illustration of what we claim for our Republican institutions, the absolute right of the poorest and humblest, provided he has the requisite talent and industry to aspire to the chief place and the supreme power. "It was the most perfect instance of the resistless strength of a man developed by all the best and purest impulses, forces, and influences of American institutions into becoming their most thorough and ablest embodiment in organic and personal activity, aspiration, and character."

The response to the nomination throughout the country was most hearty. It was felt that the poor Ohio canal-boy had fitted himself, after an arduous struggle with poverty, for the high post to which he was likely to be called. The N.Y. Tribune, whose first choice had been the brilliant son of Maine, James G. Blaine, welcomed the result of the convention thus:

"From one end of the nation to the other, from distant Oregon to Texas, from Maine to Arizona, lightning has informed the country of the nomination yesterday of James A. Garfield, as the Republican candidate for the Presidency.

"Never was a nomination made which has been received by friend and foe with such evidence of hearty respect, admiration, and confidence. The applause is universal. Even the Democratic House of Representatives suspended its business that it might congratulate the country upon the nomination of the distinguished leader of the Republicans.

"James Abram Garfield is, in the popular mind, one of the foremost statesmen of the nation. He is comparatively a young man, but in his service he commands the confidence and admiration of his countrymen of all parties. His ability, his thorough study, and his long practical experience in political matters gives an assurance to the country that he will carry to the Presidential office a mind superior, because of its natural qualifications and training, to any that has preceded him for many years. He will be a President worthy in every sense to fill the office in a way that the country will like to see it filled—with ability, learning, experience, and integrity. That Gen. Garfield will be elected we have no question. He is a candidate worthy of election, and will command not only every Republican vote in the country, but the support of tens of thousands of non-partisans who want to see a President combining intellectual ability with learning, experience, and ripe statesmanship."

The prediction recorded above was fulfilled. On the second of November, 1880, James A. Garfield was elected President of the United States.

Had this been a story of the imagination, such as I have often written, I should not have dared to crown it with such an ending. In view of my hero's humble beginnings, I should expect to have it severely criticised as utterly incredible, but reality is oftentimes stranger than romance, and this is notably illustrated in Garfield's wonderful career.

Chapter XXXIII—The New Administration.

On the evening of March 3d, preceding the inauguration, the President-elect met twenty of his college classmates at supper at Wormley's Hotel, in Washington, and mutual congratulations were exchanged. He was the first President of the United States selected from among the graduates of Williams College, and all the alumni, but more especially the class of 1856, were full of pride and rejoicing. From none probably were congratulations more welcome to the new President than from his old academic associates. If I transcribe the speech which Gen. Garfield made upon that occasion it is because it throws a light upon his character and interprets the feelings with which he entered upon the high office to which his countrymen had called him:

"CLASSMATES: To me there is something exceedingly pathetic in this reunion. In every eye before me I see the light of friendship and love, and I am sure it is reflected back to each one of you from my inmost heart. For twenty-two years, with the exception of the last few days, I have been in the public service. To-night I am a private citizen. To-morrow I shall be called to assume new responsibilities, and on the day after, the broadside of the world's wrath will strike. It will strike hard. I know it, and you will know it. Whatever may happen to me in the future, I shall feel that I can always fall back upon the shoulders and hearts of the class of '56 for their approval of that which is right, and for their charitable judgment wherein I may come short in the discharge of my public duties. You may write down in your books now the largest percentage of blunders which you think I will be likely to make, and you will be sure to find in the end that I have made more than you have calculated—many more.

"This honor comes to me unsought. I have never had the Presidential fever—not even for a day; nor have I it to-night. I have no feeling of elation in view of the position I am called upon to fill. I would thank God were I to-day a free lance in the House or the Senate. But it is not to be, and I will go forward to meet the responsibilities and discharge the duties that are before me with all the firmness and ability I can command. I hope you will be able conscientiously to approve my conduct; and when I return to private life, I wish you to give me another class-meeting."

This brief address exhibits the modesty with which Gen. Garfield viewed his own qualifications for the high office for which twenty years of public life had been gradually preparing him. While all are liable to mistakes, it is hardly to be supposed that a man so prepared, and inspired by a conscientious devotion to what he deemed to be right, would have made many serious blunders. During his brief administration he made, as the country knows, an admirable beginning in reforming abuses and exacting the most rigid economy in the public service. There was every probability of his being his own successor had his life been spared.

The inaugural ceremonies were very imposing. Washington was thronged as it had never been before on any similar occasion. Private citizens, civic bodies, and military companies were present from every part of the country. Prominent among the eminent citizens present was the stately and imposing figure of Gen. Hancock, who had been the nominee of the opposing party, and who, with admirable good feeling and good taste, had accepted an invitation to be present at the inauguration of his successful rival.

And there were others present whom we have met before. The wife and mother of the new President, with flushed cheeks and proud hearts, witnessed the ceremonies that made the one they loved the head of the State. To him they were more than all the rest. When he had taken the oath of office in the presence of the assembled tens of thousands, Garfield turned to his aged mother and imprinted a kiss upon her cheek, and afterward upon that of his wife. It was a touch of nature that appealed to the hearts of all present.

In the White House, one of the best rooms was reserved for his aged mother, for whom he cherished the same fond love and reverence as in his boyish days. It was a change, and a great one, from the humble log-cabin in which our story opens; it was a change, too, from the backwoods boy, in his suit of homespun, to the statesman of noble and commanding figure, upon whom the eyes of the nation were turned. The boy who had guided the canal-boat was now at the helm of the national vessel, and there was no fear that he would run her aground. Even had storms come, we might safely trust in him who had steered the little steamboat up the Big Sandy River, in darkness and storm and floating obstructions, to the camp where his famished soldiers were waiting for supplies. For, as is the case with every great man, it was difficulty and danger that nerved Garfield to heroic efforts, and no emergency found him lacking.

His life must now be changed, and the change was not altogether agreeable. With his cordial off-hand manners, and Western freedom, he, no doubt, felt cramped and hampered by the requirements of his new position. When he expressed his preference for the position of a freelance in the House or Senate, he was sincere. It was more in accordance with his private tastes. But a public man can not always choose the place or the manner in which he will serve his country. Often she says to him, "Go up higher!" when he is content with an humble place, and more frequently, perhaps, he has to be satisfied with an humble place when he considers himself fitted for a higher.

So far as he could, Gen. Garfield tried to preserve in the Executive Mansion the domestic life which he so highly prized. He had his children around him. He made wise arrangements for their continued education, for he felt that whatever other legacy he might be able to leave them, this would be the most valuable. Still, as of old, he could count on the assistance of his wife in fulfilling the duties, social and otherwise, required by his exalted position.

Nor was he less fortunate in his political family. He had selected as his Premier a friend and political associate of many years' standing, whose brilliant talent and wide-spread reputation brought strength to his administration. In accepting the tender of the post of Secretary of State, Mr. Blaine said: "In our new relation I shall give all that I am, and all that I can hope to be, freely and joyfully to your service. You need no pledge of my loyalty in heart and in act. I should be false to myself did I not prove true both to the great trust you confide to me, and to your own personal and political fortunes in the present and in the future. Your administration must be made brilliantly successful, and strong in the confidence and pride of the people, not at all directing its energies for re-election, and yet compelling that result by the logic of events and by the imperious necessities of the situation.

"I accept it as one of the happiest circumstances connected with this affair, that in allying my political fortunes with yours—or rather, for the time merging mine in yours—my heart goes with my head, and that I carry to you not only political support, but personal and devoted friendship. I can but regard it as somewhat remarkable that two men of the same age, entering Congress at the same time, influenced by the same aims, and cherishing the same ambitions, should never, for a single moment, in eighteen years of close intimacy, have had a misunderstanding or a coolness, and that our friendship has steadily grown with our growth, and strengthened with our strength.

"It is this fact which has led me to the conclusion embodied in this letter; for, however much, my dear Garfield, I might admire you as a statesman, I would not enter your Cabinet if I did not believe in you as a man and love you as a friend."

When it is remembered that Mr. Blaine before the meeting of the convention was looked upon as the probable recipient of the honor that fell to Garfield, the generous warmth of this letter will be accounted most creditable to both of the two friends, whose strong friendship rivalry could not weaken or diminish.

So the new Administration entered upon what promised to be a successful course. I can not help recording, as a singular circumstance, that the three highest officers were ex-teachers. Of Garfield's extended services as teacher, beginning with the charge of a district school in the wilderness, and ending with the presidency of a college, we already know. Reference has also been made to the early experience of the Vice-President, Chester A. Arthur, in managing a country school. To this it may be added that Mr. Blaine, too, early in life was a teacher in an academy, and, as may readily be supposed, a successful one. It is seldom in other countries that similar honors crown educational workers. It may be mentioned, however, that Louis Philippe, afterward King of the French, while an exile in this country, gave instruction in his native language. It is not, however, every ruler of boys that is qualified to become a ruler of men. Yet, in our own country, probably a majority of our public men have served in this capacity.

Chapter XXXIV—The Tragic End.

I should like to end my story here, and feel that it was complete. I should like with my countrymen to be still looking forward with interest to the successful results of an administration, guided by the experienced statesman whose career we have followed step by step from its humble beginnings. But it can not be.

On the second of July, in the present year, a startling rumor was borne on the wings of the lightning to the remotest parts of the land:

"President Garfield has been assassinated!"

The excitement was only paralleled by that which prevailed in 1865, when Abraham Lincoln was treacherously killed by an assassin. But in this later case the astonishment was greater, and all men asked, "What can it mean?"

We were in a state of profound peace. No wars nor rumors of war disturbed the humble mind, and the blow was utterly unexpected and inexplicable.

The explanation came soon enough. It was the work of a wretched political adventurer, who, inflated by an overweening estimate of his own abilities and importance, had made a preposterous claim to two high political offices—the post of Minister to Austria, and Consul to Paris—and receiving no encouragement in either direction, had deliberately made up his mind to "remove" the President, as he termed it, in the foolish hope that his chances of gaining office would be better under another administration.

My youngest readers will remember the sad excitement of that eventful day. They will remember, also, how the public hopes strengthened or weakened with the varying bulletins of each day during the protracted sickness of the nation's head. They will not need to be reminded how intense was the anxiety everywhere manifested, without regard to party or section, for the recovery of the suffering ruler. And they will surely remember the imposing demonstrations of sorrow when the end was announced. Some of the warmest expressions of grief came from the South, who in this time of national calamity were at one with their brothers of the North. And when, on the 26th of September, the last funeral rites were celebrated, and the body of the dead President was consigned to its last resting-place in the beautiful Lake View Cemetery, in sight of the pleasant lake on which his eyes rested as a boy, never before had there been such imposing demonstrations of grief in our cities and towns.

These were not confined to public buildings, and to the houses and warehouses of the rich, but the poorest families displayed their bit of crape. Outside of a miserable shanty in Brooklyn was displayed a cheap print of the President, framed in black, with these words written below, "We mourn our loss." Even as I write, the insignia of grief are still to be seen in the tenement-house districts on the East Side of New York, and there seems a reluctance to remove them.

But not alone to our own country were confined the exhibitions of sympathy, and the anxious alternations of hope and fear. There was scarcely a portion of the globe in which the hearts of the people were not deeply stirred by the daily bulletins that came from the sick couch of the patient sufferer. Of the profound impression made in England I shall give a description, contributed to the New York Tribune by its London correspondent, Mr. G.W. Smalley, only premising that the sympathy and grief were universal: from the Queen, whose messages of tender, womanly sympathy will not soon be forgotten, to the humblest day-laborers in the country districts. Never in England has such grief been exhibited at the sickness and death of a foreign ruler, and the remembrance of it will draw yet closer together, for all time to come, the two great sections of the English-speaking tongue. Were it not a subject of such general interest, I should apologize for the space I propose to give to England's mourning:

"It happened that some of the humbler classes were among the most eager to signify their feelings. The omnibus-drivers had each a knot of crape on his whip. Many of the cabmen had the same thing, and so had the draymen. In the city, properly so called, and along the water-side, it was the poorer shops and the smaller craft that most frequently exhibited tokens of public grief. Of the people one met in mourning the same thing was true. Between mourning put on for the day and that which was worn for private affliction it was not possible to distinguish. But in many cases it was plain enough that the black coat on the workingman's shoulders, or the bonnet or bit of crape which a shop-girl wore, was no part of their daily attire. They had done as much as they could to mark themselves as mourners for the President. It was not much, but it was enough. It had cost them some thought, a little pains, sometimes a little money, and they were people whose lives brought a burden to every hour, who had no superfluity of strength or means, and on whom even a slight effort imposed a distinct sacrifice. They are not of the class to whom the Queen's command for Court mourning was addressed. Few of that class are now in London. St. James' Street and Pall Mall, Belgravia and May Fair are depopulated. The compliance with the Queen's behest has been, I am sure, general and hearty, but evidences of it were to be sought elsewhere than in London.

"Of other demonstrations it can hardly be necessary to repeat or enlarge upon the description you have already had. The drawn blinds of the Mansion House and of Buckingham Palace, the flags at half-mast in the Thames on ships of every nationality, the Stock and Metal Exchanges closed, the royal standard at half-mast on the steeple of the royal church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; the darkened windows of great numbers of banking houses and other places of business in the city itself—of all these you have heard.

"At the West End, the shops were not, as a rule, draped with black. Some of them had the Union Jack at half-mast; a few the Stars and Stripes in black with white and black hangings on the shop fronts. The greater number of shop-keepers testified to their association with the general feeling by shutters overhanging the tops of the windows, or by perpendicular slabs at intervals down the glass. Some had nothing; but in Regent Street, Bond Street, St. James' Street, and Piccadilly, which are the fashionable business streets of the West End, those which had nothing were the exception. The American Legation in Victoria Street, and the American Consulate in Old Broad Street, both of which were closed, were in deep mourning. The American Dispatch Agency, occupying part of a conspicuous building in Trafalgar Square, had nothing to indicate its connection with America or any share in the general sorrow.

"In many private houses—I should say the majority in such streets as I passed through during the day—the blinds were down as they would have been for a death in the family. The same is true of some of the clubs, and some of the hotels. The Reform Club, of which Garfield is said to have been an honorary member, had a draped American flag over the door.

"To-day, as on every previous day since the President's death, the London papers print many columns of accounts, each account very brief, of what has been done and said in the so-called provincial towns. One journal prefaces its copious record by the impressive statement that from nearly every town and village telegraphic messages have been sent by its correspondents describing the respect paid to General Garfield on the day of his funeral. These tributes are necessarily in many places of a similar character, yet the variety of sources from which they proceed is wide enough to include almost every form of municipal, ecclesiastical, political, or individual activity. Everywhere bells are tolled, churches thrown open for service, flags drooping, business is interrupted, resolutions are passed. Liverpool, as is natural for the multiplicity and closeness of her relations with the United States, may perhaps be said to have taken the lead. She closed, either in whole or in part, her Cotton Market, her Produce Markets, her Provision Market, her Stock Exchange. Her papers came out in mourning. The bells tolled all day long.

"Few merchants, one reads, came to their places of business, and most of those who came were in black. The Mayor and members of the Corporation, in their robes, attended a memorial service at St. Peter's, and the cathedral overflowed with its sorrowing congregation. Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham, Glasgow, Bradford, Edinburgh were not much behind Liverpool in demonstrations, and not at all behind it in spirit. It is an evidence of the community of feeling between the two countries that so much of the action is official. What makes these official acts so striking, also, is the evident feeling at the bottom of this, that between England and America there is some kind of a relation which brings the loss of the President into the same category with the loss of an English ruler.

"At Edinburgh it is the Lord Provost who orders the bells to be tolled till two. At Glasgow the Town Council adjourns. At Stratford-on-Avon the Mayor orders the flag to be hoisted at half-mast over the Town Hall, and the blinds to be drawn, and invites the citizens to follow his example, which they do; the bell at the Chapel of the Holy Cion tolling every minute while the funeral is solemnized at Cleveland. At Leeds the bell in the Town Hall is muffled and tolled, and the public meeting which the United States Consul, Mr. Dockery, addresses, is under the presidency of the acting Mayor. Mr. Dockery remarked that as compared with other great towns, so few were the American residents in Leeds, that the great exhibition of sympathy had utterly amazed him. The remark is natural, but Mr. Dockery need not have been amazed. The whole population of Leeds was American yesterday; and of all England. At Oxford the Town Council voted an address to Mrs. Garfield. At the Plymouth Guildhall the maces, the emblems of municipal authority, were covered with black At Dublin the Lord Mayor proposed, and the Aldermen adopted, a resolution of sympathy.

"In all the cathedral towns the cathedral authorities prescribed services for the occasion. I omit, because I have no room for them, scores of other accounts, not less significant and not less affecting. They are all in one tone and one spirit. Wherever in England, yesterday, two or three were gathered together, President Garfield's name was heard. Privately and publicly, simply as between man and man, or formally with the decorous solemnity and stately observance befitting bodies which bear a relation to the Government, a tribute of honest grief was offered to the President and his family, and of honest sympathy to his country. Steeple spoke to steeple, distant cities clasped hands. The State, the Church, the people of England were at one together in their sorrow, and in their earnest wish to offer some sort of comfort to their mourning brothers beyond the sea. You heard in every mouth the old cry, 'Blood is thicker than water.' And the voice which is perhaps best entitled to speak for the whole nation added, 'Yes, though the water be a whole Atlantic Ocean.'"

In addition to these impressive demonstrations, the Archbishop of Canterbury held a service and delivered an address in the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, on Monday. Mr. Lowell had been invited, of course, by the church wardens, and a pew reserved for him, but when he reached the church with his party half his pew was occupied.

"The Archbishop, who wore deep crape over his Episcopal robes, avoided calling his discourse a sermon, and avoided, likewise, through the larger portion of it, the purely professional tone common in the pulpit on such occasions. During a great part of his excellent address he spoke, as anybody else might have done, of the manly side of the President's character. He gave, moreover, his own view of the reason why all England has been so strangely moved. 'During the long period of the President's suffering,' said the Archbishop, 'we had time to think what manner of man this was over whom so great a nation was mourning day by day. We learned what a noble history his was, and we were taught to trace a career such as England before knew nothing of.'

"Among the innumerable testimonies to the purity and beauty of Garfield's character," says Mr. Smalley, "this address of the Primate of the English Church surely is one which all Americans may acknowledge with grateful pride."