Chapter VI: In the Ascendant (2)

“Who does not remember that thirty years ago—a short period in the
life of a nation—but little could be said with impunity in these
halls on the subject of slavery? We can hardly realize that this is
the same people and these the same halls, where now scarcely a man
can be found who will venture to do more than falter out an apology
for slavery, protesting in the same breath that he has no love for
the dying tyrant. None, I believe, but that man of more than
supernal boldness, from the city of New York [Mr. Fernando Wood],
has ventured, this session, to raise his voice in favor of slavery
for its own sake. He still sees in its features the reflection of
beauty and divinity, and only he. ‘How art thou fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground,
which didst weaken the nations!’ Many mighty men have been slain by
thee; many proud ones have humbled themselves at thy feet! All along
the coast of our political sea these victims of slavery lie like
stranded wrecks, broken on the headlands of freedom. How lately did
its advocates, with impious boldness, maintain it as God’s own, to
be venerated and cherished as divine? It was another and higher form
of civilization. It was the holy evangel of America, dispensing its
mercies to a benighted race, and destined to bear countless
blessings to the wilderness of the West. In its mad arrogance it
lifted its hand to strike down the fabric of the Union, and since
that fatal day it has been a ‘fugitive and a vagabond upon the
earth.’ Like the spirit that Jesus cast out, it has, since then,
‘been seeking rest and finding none.’

“It has sought in all the corners of the Republic to find some
hiding-place in which to shelter itself from the death it so richly
deserves.

“It sought an asylum in the untrodden territories of the west, but,
with a whip of scorpions, indignant freemen drove it thence. I do
not believe that a loyal man can now be found who would consent that
it should again enter them. It has no hope of harbor there. It found
no protection or favor in the hearts or consciences of the freemen
of the Republic, and has fled for its last hope of safety behind the
shield of the Constitution. We propose to follow it there, and drive
it thence, as Satan was exiled from heaven. But now, in the hour of
its mortal agony, in this hall, it has found a defender.

“My gallant colleague [Mr. Pendleton], for I recognize him as a
gallant and able man, plants himself at the door of his darling, and
bids defiance to all assailants. He has followed slavery in its
flight, until at last it has reached the great temple where liberty
is enshrined—the Constitution of the United States—and there, in
that last retreat, declares that no hand shall strike it. It reminds
me of that celebrated passage in the great Latin poet, in which the
serpents of the Ionian sea, when they had destroyed Laocoon and his
sons, fled to the heights of the Trojan citadel and coiled their
slimy lengths around the feet of the tutelar goddess, and were
covered by the orb of her shield. So, under the guidance of my
colleague [Mr. Pendleton], slavery, gorged with the blood of ten
thousand freemen, has climbed to the high citadel of American
nationality, and coiled itself securely, as he believes, around the
feet of the statue of Justice and under the shield of the
Constitution of the United States. We desire to follow it even
there, and kill it beside the very altar of liberty. Its blood can
never make atonement for the least of its crimes.

“But the gentleman has gone further. He is not content that the
snaky sorceress shall be merely under the protection of the
Constitution. In his view, by a strange metamorphosis, slavery
becomes an invisible essence, and takes up its abode in the very
grain and fiber of the Constitution, and when we would strike it he
says, ‘I can not point out any express clause that prohibits you
from destroying slavery; but I find a prohibition in the intent and
meaning of the Constitution. I go under the surface, out of sight,
into the very genius of it, and in that invisible domain slavery is
enshrined, and there is no power in the Republic to drive it
thence.’

“But he has gone even deeper than the spirit and intent of the
Constitution. He has announced a discovery, to which I am sure no
other statesman will lay claim. He has found a domain where slavery
can no more be reached by human law than the life of Satan by the
sword of Michael. He has marked the hither boundary of this newly
discovered continent, in his response to the question of the
gentleman from Iowa.

“Not finding any thing in the words and phrases of the Constitution
that forbids an amendment abolishing slavery, he goes behind all
human enactments, and far away among the eternal equities, he finds
a primal law which overshadows States, nations, and constitutions,
as space envelops the universe, and by its solemn sanctions one
human being can hold another in perpetual slavery. Surely, human
ingenuity has never gone farther to protect a malefactor, or defend
a crime. I shall make no argument with my colleague on this point,
for in that high court to which he appeals, eternal justice dwells
with freedom, and slavery has never entered.

“On the justice of the amendment itself no arguments are necessary.
The reasons crowd in on every side. To enumerate them would be a
work of superfluity. To me it is a matter of great surprise that
gentlemen on the other side should wish to delay the death of
slavery. I can only account for it on the ground of long continued
familiarity and friendship. I should be glad to hear them say of
slavery, their beloved, as did the jealous Moor:

“Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.”

“Has she not betrayed and slain men enough? Are they not strewn over
a thousand battle-fields? Is not this Moloch already gorged with the
bloody feast? Its best friends know that its final hour is fast
approaching. The avenging gods are on its track. Their feet are not
now, as of old, shod with wool, for slow and stately stepping, but
winged, like Mercury’s, to bear the swift message of vengeance. No
human power can avert the final catastrophe.”

Five days after this address, Mr. Garfield, together with Henry Winter Davis, made a lively attack on the War Department. At this time the writ of _habeas corpus_ was suspended, and the art of imprisoning men without warrant or accusation was reaching a high state of perfection. The Carroll and Old Capital prisons were full of victims who could not find out why they were thus arbitrarily confined.

This tyrannical practice having been brought before the committee on military affairs, some of them investigated the subject. As a result, a resolution was offered calling for a public inquiry, which resolution passed. The next day Thaddeus Stevens attempted to get it rescinded, whereupon he was met by a fiery speech from Mr. Garfield, which saved the resolution; and in a few days there was a general freeing of all prisoners against whom no sufficient charges could be made.

In his speech, Mr. Garfield graphically told of the great injustice which was being done, especially to men who had served the country in the field. One of these was a colonel in the Union army, who had been wounded and discharged from the service, but now, for some unknown reason, perhaps maliciously, had been deprived of his liberty. Mr. Garfield had been an admirer of Stanton, and recognized the great Secretary’s ability and patriotism; but this could not save either him or his subordinates from just censures.

This action was the occasion of much admiring notice from the public, and even from Stanton himself. For such was the reputed roughness of Stanton’s temper that few men ever had enough temerity to criticise him.

On the night of April 14, 1865, the war-heated blood of this nation was frozen with sudden horror at a deed which then had no parallel in American history—the murder of Abraham Lincoln.

That night General Garfield was in New York City.

In the early morning hours a colored servant came to the door of his room at the hotel, and in a heart-broken voice announced that Mr. Lincoln, the emancipator of his race from bondage, had been shot down by a traitor to the country.

Morning came; but dark were the hours whose broken wings labored to bring the light of day. Soon the streets were filled with people. Every body seemed to have come out and left the houses empty. It was not a holiday, and yet all seemed to be doing nothing. No business was transacted, yet mirth and laughter were unheard. Such silence and such multitudes never before were met together.

Garfield wandered out into the streets, and noted these ominous appearances. The city was like Paris, just before its pavements are to be torn up for a barricade battle in some revolutionary outbreak.

Great posters, fixed in prominent places, called for a nine o’clock meeting of citizens at Wall Street Exchange Building. The newspaper bulletins, black, brief recorders of fate as they are, were surrounded with crushing crowds waiting for the latest word from Washington.

Arriving in the region of Wall Street, General Garfield made his way through the mass of men who surrounded the Exchange Building, until he reached the balcony. Here Benjamin F. Butler was making an address. Fifty thousand people were crowding toward that central figure, from whose left arm waved a yard of crape which told the terrible story to multitudes who could not hear his words.

General Butler ceased speaking. What should be done with this great crowd of desperate men? What would they do with themselves?

Lincoln was dead; word came that Seward, with his throat cut, was dying. Men feared some dread conspiracy which would redden the North with innocent blood, and hand over the Government to treason and traitors.

Two men in this crowd said that “Lincoln ought to have been shot long ago.” A minute later one of them was dead; the other lay in the ditch, bleeding and dying. Thousands of men clutched, in their pockets, revolvers and knives, to be used on whoever said a word against the martyred President.

Suddenly from the extreme right wing of the crowd rose a cry: “The World!” “The office of the World!” “The World!”—and the mass began to move as one man toward that office. Where would this end? Destruction of property, loss of life, violence and anarchy, were in that movement, and apparently no human power could now check its progress.

Then a man stepped to the front of the balcony and held his arm aloft. His commanding attitude arrested universal attention. Perhaps he was going to give them the latest news. They waited. But while they listened, the voice—it was the voice of General Garfield—only said:

“Fellow-citizens: Clouds and darkness are around about Him! His
pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds of the skies! Justice and
judgment are the establishment of His throne! Mercy and truth shall
go before His face! Fellow-citizens: God reigns, and the Government
at Washington still lives!”

The tide of popular fury was stayed. The impossible had been accomplished. “The World” was saved; but that was not much. The safety of a great city was secured; and that was much.

Other meetings were held in New York City on that memorable day, and the magnetic speaker of the morning was called out again. In the course of an address that afternoon he uttered these words:

“By this last act of madness, it seems as though the Rebellion had
determined that the President of the soldiers should go with the
soldiers who have laid down their lives on the battle-field. They
slew the noblest and gentlest heart that ever put down a rebellion
upon this earth. In taking that life they have left the iron hand of
the people to fall upon them. Love is on the front of the throne of
God, but justice and judgment, with inexorable dread, follow behind;
and when law is slighted and mercy despised, when they have rejected
those who would be their best friends, then comes justice with her
hoodwinked eyes, and with the sword and scales. From every gaping
wound of your dead chief, let the voice go up from the people to see
to it that our house is swept and garnished. I hasten to say one
thing more, fellow-citizens. For mere vengeance I would do nothing.
This nation is too great to look for mere revenge. But _for security
of the future_ I would do every thing.”

It is a remarkable fact that when the nation gave expression to its sorrow over Lincoln’s death, Garfield should have been so notably _the voice_ which spoke that sorrow.

A year passed on. In April of 1866, Congress, busy with the important legislation of that period, neglected to remember the approaching anniversary. On the morning of April 14, the newspapers announced that, according to President Johnson’s order, the Government offices would be closed that day out of respect to murdered Lincoln.

Congressmen at the breakfast table read this announcement, and hurried to the Capitol, inquiring what corresponding action should be taken by the two Houses of Congress.

General Garfield was in the committee room, hard at work on the preparation of a bill, when, shortly before time for the House to come to order, Speaker Colfax came hurriedly in, saying that Mr. Garfield must be in the House directly and move an adjournment. At the same time Garfield should make an address appropriate to such an anniversary. That gentleman protested that the time was too short, but Colfax insisted, and left the room.

Remaining there alone for a quarter of an hour, the General thought of the tragic event, and what he should say. Is there not something weirdly prophetic, to us who live under the reign of Arthur, in the picture of that silent man of serious mien and thoughtful brow, sitting alone, and thinking of our _first_ assassinated President?

Just as the clerk finished reading the previous day’s Journal of the House, Mr. Garfield arose and said:

“_Mr. Speaker_: I desire to move that this House do now adjourn; and
before the vote upon that motion is taken, I desire to say a few
words.

“This day, Mr. Speaker, will be sadly memorable so long as this
nation shall endure, which, God grant, maybe ‘till the last syllable
of recorded time,’ when the volume of human history shall be sealed
up and delivered to the Omnipotent Judge.

“In all future time, on the recurrence of this day, I doubt not that
the citizens of this Republic will meet in solemn assembly to
reflect on the life and character of Abraham Lincoln, and the awful
tragic event of April 14, 1865,—an event unparalleled in the history
of nations, certainly unparalleled in our own. It is eminently
proper that this House should this day place upon its records a
memorial of that event.

“The last five years have been marked by wonderful developments of
human character. Thousands of our people before unknown to fame,
have taken their places in history, crowned with immortal honors. In
thousands of humble homes are dwelling heroes and patriots whose
names shall never die. But greatest among all these developments
were the character and fame of Abraham Lincoln, whose loss the
nation still deplores. His character is aptly described in the words
of England’s great laureate—written thirty years ago—in which he
traces the upward steps of some

“‘Divinely gifted man,
Whose life in low estate began,
And on a simple village green:

Who breaks his birth’s invidious bar,
And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance,
And grapples with his evil star:

Who makes by force his merit known,
And lives to clutch the golden keys
To mold a mighty State’s decrees,
And shape the whisper of the throne:

And moving up from high to higher,
Becomes on Fortune’s crowning slope,
The pillar of a people’s hope,
The center of a world’s desire.’

“Such a life and character will be treasured forever as the sacred
possession of the American people and of mankind. In the great drama
of the rebellion, there were two acts. The first was the war, with
its battles and sieges, victories and defeats, its sufferings and
tears. That act was closing one year ago to-night, and just as the
curtain was lifting on the second and final act, the restoration of
peace and liberty,—just as the curtain was rising upon new events
and new characters,—the evil spirit of the rebellion, in the fury of
despair, nerved and directed the hand of the assassin to strike down
the chief character in both.

“It was no one man who killed Abraham Lincoln; it was the embodied
spirit of treason and slavery, inspired with fearful and despairing
hate, that struck him down in the moment of the nation’s supremest
joy.

“Ah, sirs, there are times in the history of men and nations when
they stand so near the veil that separates mortals from immortals,
time from eternity, and men from their God, that they can almost
hear the beatings and feel the pulsations of the heart of the
Infinite! Through such a time has this nation passed. When two
hundred and fifty thousand brave spirits passed from the field of
honor through that thin veil to the presence of God, and when at
last its parting folds admitted the martyr President to the company
of the dead heroes of the Republic, the nation stood so near the
veil that the whispers of God were heard by the children of men.

“Awe-stricken by His voice, the American people knelt in tearful
reverence and made a solemn covenant with Him and with each other
that this nation should be saved from its enemies, that all its
glories should be restored, and on the ruins of treason and slavery
the temples of freedom and justice should be built, and should
survive forever. It remains for us, consecrated by that great event,
and under a covenant with God, to keep that faith, to go forward in
the great work until it shall be completed.

“Following the lead of that great man, and obeying the high behests
of God, let us remember that—

“‘He has sounded forth a trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat.
Be swift, my soul, to answer him, be jubilant at my feet;
For God is marching on.’

“I move, sir, that this House do now adjourn.”

The motion being agreed to, the House was declared adjourned.

It is now necessary to hasten on to the Thirty-Ninth Congress, wherein General Garfield, no longer under the disadvantages of a new member, continued to develop rapidly as an able worker.

General Garfield was a thorough-going temperance man. On returning to his house in Painesville, Ohio, in the summer of 1865, he found the good people of that place in trouble on account of a brewery which had been established in their midst. All efforts to have it removed had been unavailing. Public meetings were held. Garfield attended one of these, and while there announced that he would that day remove the brewery.

He just went over to the brewer and bought him out for $10,000. The liquor on hand, and such brewing machinery as could not be used for any thing else, he destroyed. When autumn came he used his new establishment as a cider-mill. The cider was kept till it became good vinegar, and then sold. The General thus did a good thing for the public, and, it is said, made money out of the investment, until, after several years, he sold the building.

When Congress met in December, 1865, it had to face a great task. The rebellion had been put down, but at great cost; and they had an enormous debt to provide for. Four years of war had disorganized every thing, and great questions of finance, involving tariffs, and taxation, and a thousand vexed themes of public policy, hung with leaden weight over the heads of our national legislators.

Garfield was one of the few men who were both able and willing to face the music and bury themselves in the bewildering world of figures which loomed in the dusky foreground of coming events. The interest alone on our liabilities amounted to $150,000,000.

When Speaker Colfax made up his committees, he asked Garfield what he would like. Garfield replied that he would like to have a place which called for the study of finance. Justin S. Morrill, Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, also asked for him.

He was, accordingly, put upon that committee, and immediately began to study the subjects which were connected with its prospective work.

Conceiving that our financial condition was in some respects parallel to that of England at the close of the Napoleonic wars, he carefully investigated the conditions, policy, and progress of that Government from the time of Waterloo until the resumption of specie payments. The most remarkable periods of our own financial history were also studied, especially that wherein the great Alexander Hamilton appears the master mind.

These pursuits, and a wide-reaching knowledge of the existing conditions in our own country, were the foundations on which Garfield built the structure of a set of opinions which were then received as good, and which still withstand the test of time.

Garfield was a splendid lawyer. It is only because his course was pushed aside into the great lines of war and of politics that his history is not largely the story of great triumphs at the bar. When he was examined for admission to the bar of Ohio, the lawyers who examined him pronounced his legal knowledge phenomenal for a man to have acquired in the short time he had been reading.

But he never practiced in any court until 1866. In this place there can be mentioned only his first case, in which he argued before the United States Supreme Court. Afterwards he had about thirty cases in that court, and often appeared in State courts. At one time Judge Jeremiah S. Black, a lawyer of National reputation, offered him a partnership. Financially it would have been a good thing for Garfield, but fortunately for his constituents and for the country, he refused. Yet, in the language of Stanley Matthews, now of the U. S. Supreme Court, Mr. Garfield actually ranked “as one of the very best lawyers at the bar of the whole country.”

In 1864, L. P. Milligan, W. A. Bowles, and Stephen Horsey, three citizens of Indiana, were arrested in that State on charges of treason. There was no doubt that they were guilty of the crime. But, unfortunately, they were not tried according to law. No government can long hold such absolute powers as were given to our government during the rebellion, without developing in some degree a carelessness of the forms of law which is fatal to liberty. Indiana was not the scene of war. Her courts, and the United States courts there were open for the prosecution of criminals. Yet these men were arrested by the military department, tried by a military commission, and condemned to be hanged. Lincoln commuted their sentence to imprisonment for life, and they were sent to the State penitentiary. At this juncture a petition was presented to the U. S. Circuit Court for a writ of _habeas corpus_, to test the legality of these arbitrary proceedings. The judges of that court not agreeing, the points on which they disagreed were certified up to the Supreme Court. These points were:

“1. On the facts stated in said petition and exhibits, ought a writ
of _habeas corpus_ to be issued according to the prayer of said
petition? 2. On the facts stated in said petition and exhibits,
ought the petitioners to be discharged from custody, as in said
petition prayed? 3. On the facts stated in said petition and
exhibits, had the military commission mentioned therein jurisdiction
legally to try and sentence said petitioners in manner and form as
in said petition and exhibits is stated?”

This was the case. On March 6, 1866, it was to be argued. The eminent counsel engaged therein were: Hons. Joseph E. McDonald, Jere. S. Black, James A. Garfield, and David D. Field, for petitioners; Hons. Benjamin F. Butler, James Speed, and Henry Stanbery, for the Government.

Garfield had been invited to appear in this case by Mr. Black, who had observed that, although a patriotic friend of the Administration, Garfield had often sternly opposed its tendency to break all restraints of law in the exercise of its powers. So he expected,—and found it true,—that Garfield’s judgment would be with his side of the Milligan case. Of course that was the unpopular side. For Mr. Garfield to defend Milligan and his fellow-traitors would perhaps again endanger his reëlection; but he was not the man to hesitate when he saw himself in the right.

One of Garfield’s Democratic co-counsel in this case has called this act the greatest and bravest of Garfield’s life. Like old John Adams, defending British soldiers for the Boston massacre, storms of obloquy and the sunshine of favor he alike disregarded for the sake of principle.

After two days and nights of preparation, Mr. Garfield had decided upon the points of his argument. Needless to say, it was a complete and unanswerable presentation of those great English and American constitutional principles which secure the free people of those countries from star chambers and military despotisms. It showed forth clearly the limits of military power, and demonstrated the utter want of jurisdiction of a military court over civilian citizens.

When Garfield finished, he had established every essential point of his case beyond a peradventure. His speech closed with these eloquent words, in appeal to the court:

“Your decision will mark an era in American history. The just and
final settlement of this great question will take a high place among
the great achievements which have immortalized this decade. It will
establish forever this truth, of inestimable value to us and to
mankind, that a Republic can wield the vast enginery of war without
breaking down the safeguards of liberty; can suppress insurrection
and put down rebellion, however formidable, without destroying the
bulwarks of law; can, by the might of its armed millions, preserve
and defend both nationality and liberty. Victories on the field were
of priceless value, for they plucked the life of the Republic out of
the hands of its enemies; but

‘Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war;’

and if the protection of law shall, by your decision, be extended
over every acre of our peaceful territory, you will have rendered
the great decision of the century.

“When Pericles had made Greece immortal in arts and arms, in liberty
and law, he invoked the genius of Phidias to devise a monument which
should symbolize the beauty and glory of Athens. That artist
selected for his theme the tutelar divinity of Athens, the Jove-born
Goddess, protectress of arts and arms, of industry and law, who
typified the Greek conception of composed, majestic, unrelenting
force. He erected on the heights of the Acropolis a colossal statue
of Minerva, armed with spear and helmet, which towered in awful
majesty above the surrounding temples of the gods. Sailors on
far-off ships beheld the crest and spear of the Goddess, and bowed
with reverent awe. To every Greek she was the symbol of power and
glory. But the Acropolis, with its temples and statues, is now a
heap of ruins. The visible gods have vanished in the clearer light
of modern civilization. We can not restore the decayed emblems of
ancient Greece, but it is in your power, O Judge, to erect in this
citadel of our liberties a monument more lasting than brass;
invisible, indeed, to the eye of flesh, but visible to the eye of
the spirit as the awful form and figure of Justice crowning and
adorning the Republic; rising above the storms of political strife,
above the din of battle, above the earthquake shock of rebellion;
seen from afar and hailed as protector by the oppressed of all
nations; dispensing equal blessings, and covering with the
protecting shield of law the weakest, the humblest, the meanest,
and, until declared by solemn law unworthy of protection, the
guiltiest of its citizens.”

Other and very able arguments were made on both sides of the case; but the law was sustained and the prisoners set free.

For this act Garfield was denounced by many newspapers and many individuals in his own State and elsewhere. But, as usual, he weathered it all, and was reëlected to Congress in the fall; for the Reserve people had come to the point of believing in Garfield, though he did not follow their opinions. In from one to three years afterwards they generally discovered that he had been right from the start.

On February 1, 1866, Garfield made that masterly address on the Freedmen’s Bureau, in which he so clearly set forth his views on the nature of the Union, and the States of which it is composed. This speech will be more fully mentioned in another place. On March 16, 1866, he made a remarkably able speech on “The Currency and Specie Payments,” farther reference to which must, for the present, be deferred.

A man of Mr. Garfield’s intellect and scholarly acquirements, could not fail to be interested in the cause of education, always and every-where. He was himself a splendid result of the free-school system of Ohio, and had been an enthusiastic teacher. What, then, more natural than that as a public man he should try to interest Congress in the condition of American schools?

At the request of the American Association of School Superintendents, Mr. Garfield, in February, 1866, prepared a bill for the establishment of a National Bureau of Education. The principal object of this bureau was to collect statistics and other facts, and so to arrange and to publish them as to enlighten the people as to our progress in the means of education. The bill was opposed on account of the expense, as it called for an appropriation of fifteen thousand dollars!

Speaking on this bill, June 8, 1866, Mr. Garfield called attention to the subject of national expenditures for extra governmental purposes. We had expended millions on a Coast Survey Bureau, on an Astronomical Observatory, on a Light-House Board, on Exploring Expeditions, on the Pacific Railroad Survey, on Agriculture, on the Patent Office,—why not a few dollars on Education? “As man is greater than the soil, as the immortal spirit is nobler than the clod it animates, so is the object of this bill of more importance than any mere pecuniary interest.”

The National Bureau of Education was established, and the results of its work have fully vindicated the opinions of its founders.

Garfield’s idea of what should be taught in our schools and colleges was as broad and deep as the domain of knowledge; but, withal, very practical. That he loved the classics, his own study of them demonstrates; but he saw that something better adapted to the scientific and practical character of our country was needed. In an address at Hiram, on June 14, 1867, he gave emphatic expression to this idea.

“A finished education is supposed to consist mainly of literary
culture. The story of the forges of the Cyclops, where the
thunderbolts of Jove were fashioned, is supposed to adorn elegant
scholarship more gracefully that those sturdy truths which are
preaching to this generation in the wonders of the mine, in the fire
of the furnace, in the clang of the iron-mills, and the other
innumerable industries, which, more than all other human agencies,
have made our civilization what it is, and are destined to achieve
wonders yet undreamed of. This generation is beginning to understand
that education should not be forever divorced from industry; that
the highest results can be reached only when science guides the hand
of labor. With what eagerness and alacrity is industry seizing every
truth of science and putting it in harness!”

Moreover, Mr. Garfield believed strongly in a liberal political education for the youth of the land. On this point, in the address above mentioned, he said:

“It is well to know the history of these magnificent nations, whose
origin is lost in fable, and whose epitaphs were written a thousand
years ago; but, if we can not know both, it is far better to study
the history of our own nation, whose origin we can trace to the
freest and noblest aspirations of the human heart—a nation that was
formed from the hardiest, purest, and most enduring elements of
European civilization; a nation that by its faith and courage has
dared and accomplished more for the human race in a single century
than Europe accomplished in the first thousand years of the
Christian era. The New England township was the type after which our
Federal Government was modeled; yet it would be rare to find a
college student who can make a comprehensive and intelligible
statement of the municipal organization of the township in which he
was born, and tell you by what officers its legislative, judicial,
and executive functions are administered. One half of the time which
is now almost wholly wasted in district schools on English grammar,
attempted at too early an age, would be sufficient to teach our
children to love the Republic, and to become its loyal and life-long
supporters. After the bloody baptism from which the Nation has risen
to a higher and nobler life, if this shameful defect in our system
of education be not speedily remedied, we shall deserve the infinite
contempt of future generations. I insist that it should be made an
indispensable condition of graduation in every American college,
that the student must understand the history of this continent since
its discovery by Europeans, the origin and history of the United
States, its constitution of government, the struggles through which
it has passed, and the rights and duties of citizens who are to
determine its destiny and share its glory.

“Having thus gained the knowledge which is necessary to life,
health, industry, and citizenship, the student is prepared to enter
a wider and grander field of thought. If he desires that large and
liberal culture which will call into activity all his powers, and
make the most of the material God has given him, he must study
deeply and earnestly the intellectual, the moral, the religious, and
the æsthetic nature of man; his relations to nature, to civilization
past and present; and, above all, his relations to God. These should
occupy, nearly, if not fully, half the time of his college course.
In connection with the philosophy of the mind, he should study
logic, the pure mathematics, and the general laws of thought. In
connection with moral philosophy, he should study political and
social ethics—a science so little known either in colleges or
Congresses. Prominent among all the rest, should be his study of the
wonderful history of the human race, in its slow and toilsome march
across the centuries—now buried in ignorance, superstition, and
crime; now rising to the sublimity of heroism and catching a glimpse
of a better destiny; now turning remorselessly away from, and
leaving to perish, empires and civilizations in which it had
invested its faith and courage and boundless energy for a thousand
years, and, plunging into the forests of Germany, Gaul, and Britain,
to build for itself new empires better fitted for its new
aspirations; and, at last, crossing three thousand miles of unknown
sea, and building in the wilderness of a new hemisphere its latest
and proudest monuments.”

When the Fortieth Congress met, in December of 1867, Mr. Garfield was, contrary to his wishes, taken off the Committee on Ways and Means and made Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. In the line of this work he pursued some very important investigations of both military and political character.

Among his most important speeches, in this connection, were that on the “Military Control of the Rebel States” made in February, 1867 (during the Thirty-Ninth Congress), and that delivered January 17, 1868, on the then all-absorbing theme, “Reconstruction.”

In the conflict between President Johnson and the majority in Congress, about the government of the late rebel States, Mr. Garfield was, of course, sternly opposed to that outrageous policy of the President, whose main object seemed to be the undoing of all the beneficial results of the war.

When the articles of impeachment against Johnson were passed, Garfield was not in Washington; but on his return, February 29, 1868, he took occasion to say that if he had been present he should have voted for them. He had formerly opposed such action because he thought it would be unsuccessful. Johnson’s later actions, however, especially his arbitrary dismissal of Secretary Stanton, were such clear violations of the Constitution that he supposed the President’s guilt could be judicially established, and therefore he favored the attempt.

On the 15th of May of this same year, Mr. Garfield delivered another address on the currency. His financial views were still in advance of his party, and the unsound views advanced by various politicians gave opportunity for many a well-directed shot from his well-stored armory of facts, figures, and principles. His speeches on this topic alone would fill a large volume.

In 1868 occurred one of the many attempts made by politicians to reduce the public debt by extorting money from the Nation’s creditors. On July 15, 1868, Mr. Garfield discussed, at considerable length and with all his usual clearness and ability, one of these measures, which, in this case, was a bill for the taxation of bonds. He was too honest a man, and, at the same time, too sound a financier, to be blind to the wrong as well as the impolitic character of such a law. Two paragraphs will suffice to exhibit these two points:

“Nobody expects that we can pay as fast as the debt matures, but we
shall be compelled to go into the market and negotiate new loans.
Let this system of taxation be pursued; let another Congress put the
tax at twenty per cent., another at forty per cent., and another at
fifty per cent., or one hundred per cent.; let the principle once be
adopted—the rate is only a question of discretion—and where will you
be able to negotiate a loan except at the most ruinous sacrifice?
Let such legislation prevail as the gentleman urges, and can we look
any man in the face and ask him to loan us money? If we do not keep
faith to-day, how can we expect to be trusted hereafter?

“There was a declaration made by an old English gentleman in the
days of Charles II. which does honor to human nature. He said he was
willing at any time to give his life for the good of his country;
but he would not do a mean thing to save his country from ruin. So,
sir, ought a citizen to feel in regard to our financial affairs. The
people of the United States can afford to make any sacrifice for
their country, and the history of the last war has proved their
willingness; but the humblest citizen can not afford to do a mean or
dishonorable thing to save even this glorious Republic.”

It was in 1867 that Garfield made his only trip to Europe. When the summer of that year came, the hard year’s work, just finished, had made considerable inroad on his health, and he thought a sea voyage would bring back his strength. On July 13, Mr. and Mrs. Garfield sailed from New York in the “City of London,” which carried them across the Atlantic in thirteen days.

Remembering the ambitions of his boyhood to become a sailor, Garfield enjoyed his voyage as few men do who cross the sea. They reached Liverpool on the 26th, and as they steamed up the Mersey, General Garfield significantly remarked, looking down into its muddy waters,

“The quality of Mersey is not strained.”

From Liverpool they went to London, stopping at two or three interesting places by the way. At London he visited both Houses of Parliament, heard debates on the great reform bill which passed at that time; saw Gladstone, Disraeli, Bright, and other great Englishmen, and after a week of sight-seeing and studying here, visited other parts of England, and then went to Scotland. Mr. Blaine and Mr. Morrill, were with them in Scotland. There the General visited the home of Burns and re-read “Tam O’Shanter.”

Leaving Scotland at Leith, they crossed the North Sea to Rotterdam, went to Brussels and Cologne, and thence up the Rhine to Mayence.

Thence by various stages, reveling in old world glories, he reached Italy—Florence and Rome. Here a year of life was crowded into a week, while Garfield lived amid the wrecks of antiquity and the decayed remnants of that dead empire whose splendid history can not be forgotten till “the last syllable of recorded time.”

On October first they proceeded, by a circuitous route, to make their way to Paris, where they met several American friends, among them the artist, Miss Ransom. After a short stay there, and a few excursions to other places, they finally started for home, and by November 6th they were once more standing on American soil.

General Garfield’s health was by this means thoroughly restored, and he had realized in some degree one of the sincerest wishes of his life,—a more familiar acquaintance with some places across the sea than books could give.

On May 30, 1868, occurred the first general observance of that beautiful national custom, the annual decoration of the soldiers’ graves. On that day, the President and his Cabinet, with a large number of Congressmen and other distinguished persons, and about fifteen thousand people, met on Arlington Heights to pay their respects to the Nation’s dead, and listen to an address. The orator of the day was Garfield.

No more touching and sincere expression of patriotic sentiments was ever uttered than he spoke there that day. Indeed, his reverence for the time and place was deeper than his words could tell. To this he referred in the beginning, saying:

“If silence is ever golden, it must be here, beside the graves of
fifteen thousand men, whose lives were more significant than speech,
and whose death was a poem the music of which can never be sung.
With words we make promises, plight faith, praise virtue. Promises
may not be kept; plighted faith may be broken; and vaunted virtue
may be only the cunning mask of vice. We do not know one promise
these men made, one pledge they gave, one word they spoke; but we do
know they summed up and perfected, by one supreme act, the highest
virtues of men and citizens. For love of country they accepted
death; and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their
patriotism and their virtue.

“For the noblest man that lives there still remains a conflict. He
must still withstand the assaults of time and fortune; must still be
assailed with temptations before which lofty natures have fallen.
But with _these_, the conflict ended, the victory was won, when
death stamped on them the great seal of heroic character, and closed
a record which years can never blot.”

This memorable address closed thus:

“And now, consider this silent assembly of the dead. What does it
represent? Nay, rather, what does it not represent? It is an epitome
of the war. Here are sheaves reaped, in the harvest of death, from
every battle-field of Virginia. If each grave had a voice to tell us
what its silent tenant last saw and heard on earth, we might stand,
with uncovered heads, and hear the whole story of the war. We should
hear that one perished when the first great drops of the crimson
shower began to fall, when the darkness of that first disaster at
Manassas fell like an eclipse on the Nation; that another died of
disease while wearily waiting for winter to end; that this one fell
on the field, in sight of the spires of Richmond, little dreaming
that the flag must be carried through three more years of blood
before it should be planted in that citadel of treason; and that one
fell when the tide of war had swept us back, till the roar of rebel
guns shook the dome of yonder Capitol, and re-echoed in the chambers
of the Executive Mansion. We should hear mingled voices from the
Rappahannock, the Rapidan, the Chickahominy, and the James; solemn
voices from the Wilderness, and triumphant shouts from the
Shenandoah, from Petersburg, and the Five Forks, mingled with the
wild acclaim of victory and the sweet chorus of returning peace. The
voices of these dead will forever fill the land, like holy
benedictions.

“What other spot so fitting for their last resting-place as this,
under the shadow of the capitol saved by their valor? Here, where
the grim edge of battle joined; here, where all the hope and fear
and agony of their country centered; here let them rest, asleep on
the Nation’s heart, entombed in the Nation’s love!

“The view from this spot bears some resemblance to that which greets
the eye at Rome. In sight of the Capitoline Hill, up and across the
Tiber, and overlooking the city, is a hill, not rugged or lofty, but
known as the Vatican Mount. At the beginning of the Christian Era,
an imperial circus stood on its summit. There, gladiator slaves died
for the sport of Rome, and wild beasts fought with wilder men. In
that arena, a Galilean fisherman gave up his life, a sacrifice for
his faith. No human life was ever so nobly avenged. On that spot was
reared the proudest Christian temple ever built by human hands. For
its adornment, the rich offerings of every clime and kingdom had
been contributed. And now, after eighteen centuries, the hearts of
two hundred million people turn toward it with reverence when they
worship God. As the traveler descends the Apennines, he sees the
dome of St. Peter rising above the desolate Campagna and the dead
city, long before the Seven Hills and ruined palaces appear to his
view. The fame of the dead fisherman has outlived the glory of the
Eternal City. A noble life, crowned with heroic death, rises above
and outlives the pride and pomp and glory of the mightiest empire of
the earth.

“Seen from the western slope of our Capitol, in direction, distance,
and appearance, this spot is not unlike the Vatican Mount, though
the river that flows at our feet is larger than a hundred Tibers.
Seven years ago this was the home of one who lifted his sword
against the life of his country, and who became the great imperator
of the rebellion. The soil beneath our feet was watered by the tears
of slaves, in whose hearts the sight of yonder proud Capitol
awakened no pride, and inspired no hope. The face of the goddess
that crowns it was turned toward the sea, and not toward them. But,
thanks be to God, this arena of rebellion and slavery is a scene of
violence and crime no longer! This will be forever the sacred
mountain of our capital. Here is our temple; its pavement is the
sepulcher of heroic hearts; its dome, the bending heaven; its altar
candles, the watching stars.

“Hither our children’s children shall come to pay their tribute of
grateful homage. For this are we met to-day. By the happy suggestion
of a great society, assemblies like this are gathering at this hour
in every State in the Union. Thousands of soldiers are to-day
turning aside in the march of life to visit the silent encampments
of dead comrades who once fought by their sides.

“From many thousand homes, whose light was put out when a soldier
fell, there go forth to-day, to join these solemn processions,
loving kindred and friends, from whose hearts the shadow of grief
will never be lifted till the light of the eternal world dawns upon
them.

“And here are children, little children, to whom the war left no
father but the Father above. By the most sacred right, theirs is the
chief place to-day. They come with garlands to crown their victor
fathers. I will delay the celebration no longer.”