Chapter IX: Great Questions and Great Answers (1)

“Who shall make answer on such themes as these?”

It is now appropriate to consider somewhat _in extenso_ the claims of James A. Garfield to be regarded as a statesman. It must needs be in the life of every public man, more particularly in the life of a Congressman, and more particularly still in the life of him who has risen to the rank of leader of the House, that he speak much on questions of passing interest. Many of the topics which engage his attention flit away with the occasion which gave them birth. They are the issues of the day, creatures of prejudice and partisanship. Hence in the history of the life of a public man, many paragraphs will be found which merely recount the battles fought and victories won in the ordinary contests of the arena.

In the most marked contrast with this, however, is another class of questions which rise to the level of perpetual interest, affecting not only the destinies of the hour, but pregnant with the fate of the future. Not questions of the day are these, passing like a shadow over the landscape of current events; but shining rather like those orbs from whose disks the effulgence is shed which makes shadows possible. Albeit, there are themes of statesmanship vitally affecting the life of the nation; and only he, who in the heated arena of public life shows himself able to grapple with such problems, is worthy of the name of statesman.

Was James A. Garfield a statesman? In considering this question, and finding therefor a fitting answer, it is necessary clearly to understand what _are_ the leading themes of American statesmanship. Perhaps a fair analysis of this great question will show that those topics of public discussion which rise to the dignity of questions of statesmanship will present about four leading heads:

I. Questions affecting THE NATIONALITY OF THE UNITED STATES.

II. Questions affecting THE FINANCIAL AND MONETARY SYSTEMS OF THE UNITED STATES.

III. Questions affecting THE REVENUE AND EXPENDITURES OF THE UNITED STATES.

IV. Questions concerning THE GENERAL CHARACTER AND TENDENCY OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS.

If it be shown that James A. Garfield proved himself able to grasp and discuss any or all of the great questions falling under this comprehensive classification, in such a manner as to throw new light upon them, to fix the status of public opinion regarding them, and to that extent to build more securely than hitherto the substructure of American greatness, then indeed is he worthy of the name of statesman. Let us then, without fear or partiality, apply the crucial test to Garfield’s public life, and see whether indeed he is the peer and fit companion for the great names of our history—for Hamilton, and Adams, and Webster, and Sumner, and Chase.

Before beginning this discussion, however, it will be necessary to remind the reader, that in considering the claims of Garfield to the rank of statesman under the outline presented above, the chronological order of the narrative will be broken up, and such a grouping made of his public speeches and papers as will best illustrate his views and establish his rank among the great men of our country.

First, then, as to questions affecting THE NATIONALITY OF THE UNITED STATES. What is the record of him whose life is here recounted concerning those great and vital themes upon which rests our perpetuity as a nation? Three utterances, his earliest, his latest, and his most characteristic, must be taken as representatives of the entire class.

On February 1, 1866, being thirty-five years of age, he presented his views on the general question of the restoration of the States lately in rebellion:

THIS IS A NATION.

“The word ‘State’, as it has been used by gentlemen in this
discussion, has two meanings, as perfectly distinct as though
different words had been used to express them. The confusion arising
from applying the same word to two different and dissimilar objects,
has had very much to do with the diverse conclusions which gentlemen
have reached. They have given us the definition of a ‘state’ in the
contemplation of public or international law, and have at once
applied that definition and the conclusions based upon it, to the
States of the American Union and the effects of war upon them. Let
us examine the two meanings of the word, and endeavor to keep them
distinct in their application to the questions before us.

“Phillimore, the great English publicist, says: ‘For all the
purposes of international law, a state (_demos_, _civitas_, _volk_)
may be defined to be a people permanently occupying a fixed
territory, bound together by common laws, habits, and customs, into
one body-politic, exercising through the medium of an organized
government, independent sovereignty and control over all persons and
things within its boundaries, capable of making war and peace, and
of entering into all international relations with the other
communities of the globe.’—_Phillimore’s International Law_, vol. i,
sec. 65.

“Substantially the same definition maybe found in Grotius, book one,
chapter one, section fourteen; in Burlamaqui, volume two, part one,
chapter four, section nine; and in Vattel, book one, chapter one.
The primary point of agreement in all these authorities is, that in
contemplation of international law a state is absolutely sovereign,
acknowledging no superior on earth. In that sense the United States
is a state, a sovereign state, just as Great Britain, France, and
Russia are states.

“But what is the meaning of the word State as applied to Ohio or
Alabama? Is either of them a state in the sense of international
law? They lack all the leading requisites of such a state. They are
only the geographical subdivisions of a state; and though endowed by
the people of the United States with the rights of local
self-government, yet in all their external relations their
sovereignty is completely destroyed, being merged in the supreme
Federal Government.—_Halleck’s International Law_, sec. 16, page 71.

“Ohio can not make war; can not conclude peace; can not make a
treaty with any foreign government, can not even make a compact with
her sister States; can not regulate commerce; can not coin money;
and has no flag. These indispensable attributes of sovereignty, the
State of Ohio does not possess, nor does any other State of the
Union. We call them States for want of a better name. We call them
States, because the original Thirteen had been so designated before
the Constitution was formed, but that Constitution destroyed all the
sovereignty which those States were ever supposed to possess in
reference to external affairs.

“I submit, Mr. Speaker, that the five great publicists—Grotius,
Puffendorf, Bynkershoek, Burlamaqui, and Vattel, who have been so
often quoted in this debate, and all of whom wrote more than a
quarter of a century, and some nearly two centuries before our
Constitution was formed, can hardly be quoted as good authorities in
regard to the nature and legal relationships of the component States
of the American Union.

“Even my colleague from the Columbus District [Mr. Shellabarger], in
his very able discussion of this question, spoke as though a State
of this Union was the same as a state in the sense of international
law, with certain qualities added. I think he must admit that nearly
all the leading attributes of such a state are taken from it when it
becomes a State of the Union.

“Several gentlemen, during this debate, have quoted the well known
doctrine of international law, ‘that war annuls all existing
compacts and treaties between belligerents;’ and they have
concluded, therefore, that our war has broken the Federal bond and
dissolved the Union. This would be true, if the rebel States were
_states_ in the sense of international law—if our Government were
not a sovereign nation, but only a league between sovereign states.
I oppose to this conclusion the unanswerable proposition that this
_is_ a nation; that the rebel States are _not_ sovereign states, and
therefore their failure to achieve independence was a failure to
break the Federal bond—to dissolve the Union....

“In view of the peculiar character of our Government, in what
condition did the war leave the rebel States?”

He argued that by the admission of a State to the Union, the laws of the United States were extended to it. _A State might violate one of these laws, but could not annul it._ Each rebel State exerted every power to break away from these laws, but was unable to destroy or invalidate one of them. Each rebel State let go of the Union, but the Union did not let go of it:

“Let the stars of heaven illustrate our constellation of States.
When God launched the planets upon their celestial pathway, He bound
them all by the resistless power of attraction to the central sun,
around which they revolved in their appointed orbits. Each may be
swept by storms, may be riven by lightnings, may be rocked by
earthquakes, may be devastated by all the terrestrial forces and
overwhelmed in ruin, but far away in the everlasting depths the
sovereign sun holds the turbulent planet in its place. This earth
may be overwhelmed until the high hills are covered by the sea; it
may tremble with earthquakes miles below the soil, but it must still
revolve in its appointed orbit. So Alabama may overwhelm all her
municipal institutions in ruin, but she can not annul the omnipotent
decrees of the sovereign people of the Union. She must be held
forever in her orbit of obedience and duty.

* * * * *

“Now, let us inquire how the surrender of the military power of the
rebellion affected the legal condition of those States. When the
rebellion collapsed, and the last armed man of the Confederacy
surrendered to our forces, I affirm that there was not in one of
those States a single government that we did or could recognize.
There was not in one of those States, from governor down to
constable, a single man whom we could recognize as authorized to
exercise any official function whatever. They had formed governments
alien and hostile to the Union. Not only had their officers taken no
oaths to support the Constitution of the United States, but they had
heaped oath upon oath to destroy it.

“I go further. I hold that there were in those States no
constitutions of any binding force and effect; none that we could
recognize. A constitution, in this case, can mean nothing less than
a constitution of government. A constitution must constitute
something, or it is no constitution. When we speak of the
constitution of Alabama, we mean the constitution of the government
of Alabama. When the rebels surrendered, there remained no
constitution in Alabama, because there remained no government. Those
States reverted into our hands by victorious war, with every
municipal right and every municipal authority utterly and completely
swept away.”

After citing from the highest authorities on the laws of war, he sums up the legal status of the rebellious states as follows:

“1. That, by conquest, the United States obtained complete control
of the rebel territory.

“2. That every vestige of municipal authority in those States was,
by secession, rebellion, and the conquest of the rebellion, utterly
destroyed.

“3. That the state of war did not terminate with the actual
cessation of hostilities, but that, under the laws of war, it was
the duty of the President, as commander-in-chief, to establish
governments over the conquered people of the insurgent States, which
governments, no matter what may be their form, are really military
governments, deriving their sole power from the President.

“4. That the governments thus established, are valid while the state
of war continues and until Congress acts in the case.

“5. That it belongs exclusively to the legislative authority of the
Government to determine the political status of the insurgent
States, either by adopting the governments the President has
established, or by permitting the people to form others, subject to
the approval of Congress.

“It was time for Congress to act. That action should recognize,
first, the stupendous facts of the war. By the Emancipation
Proclamation we not only declared the slaves free, but pledged the
faith of the nation _to ‘maintain their freedom.’_ What is freedom?
It is no mere negative; no mere privilege of not being chained,
bought and sold, branded or scourged. It is a tangible realization
of the truths that ‘all men are created free and equal,’ and that
the sanction of just government is the ‘consent of the governed.’

“These truths can never be realized until each man has a right to be
heard in all matters concerning himself....

“I remember an incident in the history of the eastern church, as
recorded by Gibbon, volume two, chapter twenty-eight, which
illustrates the power that slavery has exercised among us. The
Christians of that day, under the lead of Theophilus, undertook to
destroy the heathen temples. Gibbon says:

“‘Theophilus proceeded to demolish the temple of Serapis without any
other difficulties than those which he found in the weight and
solidity of the materials, but these obstacles proved so insuperable
that he was obliged to leave the foundations and to content himself
with reducing the edifice itself to a heap of rubbish, a part of
which was soon afterward cleared away to make room for a church,
erected in honor of the Christian martyrs.

“‘The colossal statue of Serapis was involved in the ruin of his
temple and religion. A great number of plates of different metals,
artificially joined together, composed the majestic figure of the
deity, who touched on either side the walls of the sanctuary. The
aspect of Serapis, his sitting posture, and the scepter, which he
bore in his left hand, were extremely similar to the ordinary
representations of Jupiter. He was distinguished from Jupiter by the
basket, or bushel, which was placed on his head, and by the
emblematic monster which he held in his right hand, the head and
body of a serpent branching into three tails, which were again
terminated by the triple heads of a dog, a lion, and a wolf. It was
confidently affirmed that if any impious hand should dare to violate
the majesty of the god, the heavens and earth would instantly return
to the original chaos. An intrepid soldier, animated by zeal, and
armed with a weighty battle-ax, ascended the ladder, and even the
Christian multitude expected with some anxiety the event of the
combat. He aimed a vigorous stroke against the cheek of Serapis; the
cheek fell to the ground; the thunder was still silent, and both the
heavens and the earth continued to preserve their accustomed order
and tranquillity. The victorious soldier repeated his blows, the
huge idol was overthrown and broken in pieces, and the limbs of
Serapis were ignominiously dragged through the streets of
Alexandria. His mangled carcass was burnt in the amphitheater amid
the shouts of the populace, and many persons attributed their
conversion to this discovery of the impotence of their tutelary
deity.’

“So slavery sat in our national Capitol. Its huge bulk filled the
temple of our liberty, touching it from side to side. Mr. Lincoln,
on the 1st of January, 1863, struck it on the cheek, and the
faithless and unbelieving among us expected to see the fabric of our
institutions dissolve into chaos because their idol had fallen. He
struck it again; Congress and the States repeated the blow, and its
unsightly carcass lies rotting in our streets. The sun shines in the
heavens brighter than before. Let us remove the carcass and leave
not a vestige of the monster. We shall never have done that until we
have dared to come up to the spirit of the Pilgrim covenant of 1620,
and declare that all men shall be consulted in regard to the
disposition of their lives, liberty, and property. The Pilgrim
fathers proceeded on the doctrine that every man was supposed to
know best what he wanted, and had the right to a voice in the
disposition of himself.”

A second fact to be recognized was that 7,000,000 white men were waiting to have their case adjudged and their political status fixed.

“As to _persons_ we must see to it that hereafter personal liberty
and personal rights are placed in the keeping of the nation; that
the right to life, liberty, and property are to be guaranteed to
citizens in reality, and not left to the caprice of mobs and
contingencies of local legislation.... As to _States_, the burden of
proof rests on each one of them, to show whether it is fit to enter
the Federal circle in full communion of privileges. Men can not
change their hearts—love what they hated, and hate what they
loved—upon the issue of a battle; but our duty is to demand that
before we admit them they shall give sufficient assurance that,
whatever they believe or wish, their action in the future shall be
such as loyal men can approve.”

How far does that speech differ from the reconstruction policy actually adopted?

Thirteen years later, on June 27, 1879, the pending bill being one for the appropriations for United States marshals, General Garfield said:

“Mr. Chairman: ‘To this favor’ it has come at last. The great fleet
that set out on the 18th of March, with all its freightage and
armament, is so shattered that now all the valuables it carried are
embarked in this little craft, to meet whatever fate the sea and the
storm may offer. This little bill contains the residuum of almost
every thing that has been the subject of controversy at the present
session. I will not discuss it in detail, but will speak only of its
central feature, and especially of the opinions which the discussion
of that feature has brought to the surface during the present
session. The majority in this Congress have adopted what I consider
very extreme and dangerous opinions on certain important
constitutional questions. They have not only drifted back to their
old attitude on the subject of State Sovereignty, but they have
pushed that doctrine much further than most of their predecessors
ever went before, except during the period immediately preceding the
late war.

“Let me summarize them: First, there are no national elections;
second, the United States has no voters; third, the States have the
exclusive right to control all elections of members of Congress;
fourth, the senators and representatives in Congress are State
officers, or, as they have been called during the present session,
‘embassadors’ or ‘agents’ of the State; fifth, the United States has
no authority to keep the peace anywhere within a State, and, in
fact, has no peace to keep; sixth, the United States is not a Nation
endowed with sovereign power, but is a confederacy of States;
seventh, the States are sovereignties possessing inherent supreme
powers; they are older than the Union, and as independent
sovereignties the state governments created the Union and determined
and limited the powers of the General Government.

“These declarations embody the sum total of the constitutional
doctrines which the Democracy has avowed during this extra session
of Congress. They form a body of doctrines which I do not hesitate
to say are more extreme than was ever before held on this subject,
except, perhaps, at the very crisis of secession and rebellion.

“Firmly believing that these doctrines and attempted practice of the
present Congress are erroneous and pernicious, I will state briefly
the counter-propositions:

“I affirm: first, that the Constitution of the United States was not
created by the governments of the States, but was ordained and
established by the only sovereign in this country—the common
superior of both the States and the Nation—the people themselves;
second, that the United States is a Nation, having a government
whose powers, as defined and limited by the Constitution, operate
upon all the States in their corporate capacity and upon all the
people; third, that by its legislative, executive, and judicial
authority the Nation is armed with adequate power to enforce all the
provisions of the Constitution against all opposition of individuals
or of States, at all times and all places within the Union.

“These are broad propositions; and I take the few minutes remaining
to defend them. The constitutional history of this country, or,
rather, the history of sovereignty and government in this country,
is comprised in four sharply defined epochs:

“First. Prior to the 4th day of July, 1776, sovereignty, so far as
it can be affirmed of this country, was lodged in the crown of Great
Britain. Every member of every colony (the colonists were not
citizens, but subjects) drew his legal rights from the crown of
Great Britain. ‘Every acre of land in this country was then held
mediately or immediately by grants from that crown,’ and ‘all the
civil authority then existing or exercised here flowed from the head
of the British empire.’

“Second. On the 4th day of July, 1776, the people of these colonies,
asserting their natural inherent right as sovereigns, withdrew the
sovereignty from the crown of Great Britain, and reserved it to
themselves. In so far as they delegated this national authority at
all, they delegated it to the Continental Congress assembled at
Philadelphia. That Congress, by general consent, became the supreme
government of this country—executive, judicial, and legislative in
one. During the whole of its existence it wielded the supreme power
of the new Nation.

“Third. On the 1st day of March, 1781, the same sovereign power, the
people, withdrew the authority from the Continental Congress, and
lodged it, so far as they lodged it at all, with the Confederation,
which, though a league of States, was declared to be a perpetual
union.

“Fourth. When at last our fathers found the Confederation too weak
and inefficient for the purposes of a great nation, they abolished
it, and lodged the national authority, enlarged and strengthened by
new powers, in the Constitution of the United States, where, in
spite of all assaults, it still remains. All these great acts were
done by the only sovereign in this Republic, the people themselves.

“That no one may charge that I pervert history to sustain my own
theories, I call attention to the fact that not one of the colonies
declared itself free and independent. Neither Virginia nor
Massachusetts threw off its allegiance to the British crown as a
colony. The great declaration was made not even by all the colonies
as colonies, but it was made in the name and by authority of ‘all
the good people of the colonies’ as one people.

“Mr. Chairman, the dogma of State Sovereignty, which has re-awakened
to such vigorous life in this chamber, has borne such bitter fruits
and entailed such suffering upon our people that it deserves more
particular notice. It should be noticed that the word ‘sovereignty’
can not be fitly applied to any government in this country. It is
not found in our constitution. It is a feudal word, born of the
despotism of the Middle Ages, and was unknown even in imperial Rome.
A ‘sovereign’ is a person, a prince, who has subjects that owe him
allegiance. There is no one paramount sovereign in the United
States. There is no person here who holds any title or authority
whatever, except the official authority given him by law. Americans
are not subjects, but citizens. Our only sovereign is the whole
people. To talk about the ‘inherent sovereignty’ of a corporation—an
artificial person—is to talk nonsense; and we ought to reform our
habit of speech on that subject.

“But what do gentlemen mean when they tell us that a State is
sovereign? What does sovereignty mean in its accepted use, but a
political corporation having no superior? Is a State of this Union
such a corporation? Let us test it by a few examples drawn from the
Constitution. No State of this Union can make war or conclude a
peace. Without the consent of Congress it can not raise or support
an army or a navy. It can not make a treaty with a foreign power,
nor enter into any agreement or compact with another State. It can
not levy imposts or duties on imports nor exports. It can not coin
money. It can not regulate commerce. It can not authorize a single
ship to go into commission anywhere on the high seas; if it should,
that ship would be seized as a pirate or confiscated by the laws of
the United States. A State can not emit bills of credit. It can
enact no law which makes any thing but gold and silver a legal
tender. It has no flag except the flag of the Union. And there are
many other subjects on which the States are forbidden by the
Constitution to legislative.

“How much inherent sovereignty is left in a corporation which is
thus shorn of all these great attributes of sovereignty?

“But this is not all. The Supreme Court of the United States may
declare null and void any law or any clause of the constitution of a
State which happens to be in conflict with the Constitution and laws
of the United States. Again, the States appear as plaintiffs and
defendants before the Supreme Court of the United States. They may
sue each other; and, until the Eleventh Amendment was adopted, a
citizen might sue a State. These ‘sovereigns’ may all be summoned
before their common superior to be judged. And yet they are endowed
with supreme inherent sovereignty!

“Again, the government of a State may be absolutely abolished by
Congress, in case it is not republican in form. And, finally, to cap
the climax of this absurd pretension, every right possessed by one
of these ‘sovereign’ States, every inherent sovereign right, except
the single right to equal representation in the Senate, may be taken
away, without its consent, by the vote of two-thirds of Congress and
three-fourths of the States. But, in spite of all these
disabilities, we hear them paraded as independent, sovereign States,
the creators of the Union and the dictators of its powers. How
inherently ‘sovereign’ must be that State west of the Mississippi
which the Nation bought and paid for with the public money, and
permitted to come into the Union a half century after the
Constitution was adopted! And yet we are told that the States are
inherently sovereign and created the National Government.

“The dogma of State Sovereignty in alliance with chattel slavery
made its appeal to that court of last resort where the laws are
silent, and where kings and nations appear in arms for judgment. In
that awful court of war two questions were tried: Shall slavery
live? And is a State so sovereign that it may nullify the laws and
destroy the Union? These two questions were tried on the thousand
battle-fields of the war; and if war ever ‘legislates,’ as a leading
Democrat of Ohio once wisely affirmed, then our war legislated
finally upon those subjects, and determined, beyond all controversy,
that slavery should never again live in this Republic, and that
there is not sovereignty enough in any State to authorize its people
either to destroy the Union or nullify its laws.”

Ten years ago a biographer who loved Garfield and cared for his fame would have omitted the speech from which we are about to give extracts. It is, however, no secret that, in 1871, General Garfield split with his party upon what was known in contemporary politics as “The Force Bill.” This bill was drawn, under the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, to protect the Republicans of the Southern States from outrage and murder. The President had laid before Congress a most terrible state of affairs. The Ku-Klux Klan, that bloody and mysterious organization, which was the terror of loyal men, and the guilty perpetrator of unnumbered crimes, thrust its hideous head into the face of the men who had fought for the Union. Murder, ostracism, incendiarism, bull-dozing, intimidation, ballot-box stuffing, and a thousand other outrages were committed. The best picture of the time is in “The Fool’s Errand.” These things, perhaps, (we do not say so) magnified by fear, hate, and political rancor, were too much for the Republican Congress and the men who had worn the blue under Southern skies. There was terrible bitterness. Revenge darkened the Northern heart. The majority in Congress resolved to clutch the demon’s throat with the iron grip of law. In a former chapter we spoke of the battle as an experience, and how it perpetually reproduced itself in the mind of its participants. The illustration of that is found in the attitude of President Grant and the soldier majority in Congress at the time of which we are writing. The “Force Bill” was really a tremendous battery. It was surrounded with sulphurous smoke, and was as grim as death.

But to the rule General Garfield was an exception. At the close of the war, he said, we passed into another political epoch. He believed in the Nation, but the calm balance of his mind refused assent to any extreme measure. There was no wavering on the supremacy of the Nation. But after all this was a Republic, and despotism, the one extreme, was as fatal as disunion, the other. General Garfield opposed the extreme parts of the “Force Bill.” He looked to the future of our country as well as the past. We summarize his elaborate speech:

THE FORCE BILL.

“Mr. Speaker: I am not able to understand the mental organization of
the man who can consider this bill, and the subject of which it
treats, as free from very great difficulties. He must be a man of
very moderate abilities, whose ignorance is bliss, or a man of
transcendant genius whom no difficulties can daunt and whose clear
vision no cloud obscures.

“The distinguished gentleman [Mr. Shellabarger] who introduced the
bill from the committee, very appropriately said that it requires us
to enter upon unexplored territory. That territory, Mr. Speaker, is
the neutral ground of all political philosophy; the neutral ground
for which rival theories have been struggling in all ages. There are
two ideas so utterly antagonistic that, when in any nation, either
has gained absolute and complete possession of that neutral ground,
the ruin of that nation has invariably followed. The one is that
despotism which swallows and absorbs all power in a single-central
government; the other is that extreme doctrine of local sovereignty
which makes nationality impossible, and resolves a general
government into anarchy and chaos. It makes but little difference,
as to the final result, which of these ideas drives the other from
the field; in either case ruin follows.

“The result exhibited by the one was seen in the Amphictyonic and
Achæan leagues of ancient Greece, of which Madison, in the twentieth
number of the _Federalist_, says:

“‘The inevitable result of all was imbecility in the government,
discord among the provinces, foreign influences and indignities, a
precarious existence in peace, and peculiar calamities in war.’

“This is a fitting description of all nations which have carried the
doctrine of local self-government so far as to exclude the doctrine
of nationality. They were not nations, but mere leagues, bound
together by common consent, ready to fall to pieces at the demand of
any refractory member. The opposing idea was never better
illustrated than when Louis XIV. entered the French Assembly, booted
and spurred, and girded with the sword of ancestral kings, and said
to the Deputies of France: ‘The State! I am the State!’

“Between these opposite and extreme theories of government, the
people have been tossed from century to century; and it has been
only when these ideas have been in reasonable equipoise, when this
neutral ground has been held in joint occupancy, and usurped by
neither, that popular liberty and national life have been possible.
How many striking illustrations of this do we see in the history of
France! The deposition of Louis XIV., followed by the Reign of
Terror, when liberty had run mad and France was a vast scene of
blood and ruin! We see it again in our day. Only a few years ago,
the theory of personal government had placed in the hands of
Napoleon III., absolute and irresponsible power. The communes of
France were crushed, and local liberty existed no longer. Then
followed Sedan and the rest. On the first day of last month, when
France was trying to rebuild her ruined Government, when the
Prussian cannon had scarcely ceased thundering against the walls of
Paris, a deputy of France rose in the National Assembly and moved,
as the first step toward the safety of his country, that a committee
of thirty should be chosen, to be called the Committee of
Decentralization. But it was too late to save France from the
fearful reaction from despotism. The news comes to us, under the
sea, that on Saturday last, the cry was ringing through France:
‘Death to the Priests!’ and ‘Death to the Rich!’ and the swords of
the citizens of that new republic are now wet with each other’s
blood.

EQUIPOISE OF OUR GOVERNMENT.

“The records of time show no nobler or wiser work done by human
hands than that of our fathers when they framed this Republic.
Beginning in a wilderness world, they wrought unfettered by
precedent, untrammeled by custom, unawed by kings or dynasties. With
the history of other nations before them, they surveyed the new
field. In the progress of their work they encountered these
antagonistic ideas to which I have referred. They attempted to trace
through that neutral ground the boundary line across which neither
force should pass. The result of their labors is our Constitution
and frame of government. I never contemplate the result without
feeling that there was more than mortal wisdom in the men who
produced it. It has seemed to me that they borrowed their thought
from Him who constructed the universe and put it in motion. For
nothing more aptly describes the character of our Republic than the
solar system, launched into space by the hand of the Creator, where
the central sun is the great power around which revolve all the
planets in their appointed orbits. But while the sun holds in the
grasp of its attractive power the whole system, and imparts its
light and heat to all, yet each individual planet is under the sway
of laws peculiar to itself.

“Under the sway of terrestrial laws, winds blow, waters flow, and
all the tenantries of the planet live and move. So, sir, the States
move on in their orbits of duty and obedience, bound to the central
Government by this Constitution, which is their supreme law, while
each State is making laws and regulations of its own, developing its
own energies, maintaining its own industries, managing its local
affairs in its own way, subject only to the supreme but beneficent
control of the Union. When States Rights ran mad, put on the form of
secession, and attempted to drag the States out of Union, we saw the
grand lessons taught, in all the battles of the late war, that a
State could no more be hurled from the Union, without ruin to the
Nation, than could a planet be thrown from its orbit without
dragging after it, to chaos and ruin, the whole solar universe.

“Sir, the great war for the Union has vindicated the centripetal
power of the Nation, and has exploded, forever I trust, the
disorganizing theory of State Sovereignty, which slavery attempted
to impose upon this country. But we should never forget that there
is danger in the opposite direction. The destruction, or serious
crippling of the principle of local government, would be as fatal to
liberty as secession would have been fatal to the Union.

“The first experiment which our fathers tried in government-making
after the War of Independence was a failure, because the central
power conferred in the Articles of Confederation was not strong
enough. The second, though nobly conceived, became almost a failure,
because slavery attempted so to interpret the Constitution as to
reduce the nation again to a confederacy, a mere league between
sovereign States. But we have now vindicated and secured the
centripetal power; let us see that the centrifugal force is not
destroyed, but that the grand and beautiful equipoise may be
maintained.

“It will not be denied that before the adoption of the last three
amendments, it was the settled interpretation of the Constitution
that the protection of the life and property of private citizens
belonged to the State governments entirely.... Now three amendments
have been added to the Constitution, and it will not be denied that
each of these amendments has changed the relation of Congress to the
citizens of the States.”

Garfield spoke with his eye on the future: “This debate will become historic as the earliest legislative interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment,” he said. He reviewed the debates accompanying the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. Two propositions had been before Congress. The essential parts of the one adopted were—

“The Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate
legislation, the following provisions, to wit:

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall
any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without
due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the laws.

“And this is the rejected clause:

“The Congress shall have power to make all laws which may be
necessary and proper to secure to the citizens in these several
States equal protection in the rights of life, liberty, and
property.

“The one exerts its force directly upon the States, laying
restriction and limitations upon their power, and enabling Congress
to enforce these limitations. The other, the rejected proposition,
would have brought the power of Congress to bear directly upon the
citizens, and contained a clear grant of power to Congress to
legislate directly for the protection of life, liberty, and property
within the States. The first limited, but did not oust the
jurisdiction of the State over these subjects. The second gave
Congress plenary power to cover the whole subject with its
jurisdiction, and, as it seems to me, to the exclusion of the State
authorities.

“Mr. Speaker, unless we ignore both the history and the language of
these clauses we can not, by any reasonable interpretation, give to
the section as it stands in the Constitution, the force and effect
of the rejected clause.”

Then followed an exhaustive discussion of the different clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, after which he passed to the provisions of the pending bill. Southern outrages had been stated by the President to exist. The trouble was not unequal laws, but their maladministration and denial of protection under them. This demanded legislation. But Congress had no power to assume original jurisdiction of the matter. It could only define and declare the offense, and should employ no terms which asserted the power of Congress to take jurisdiction, _until such denial of rights was clearly made_. Passing then to the extreme and most objectionable parts of the bill he said:

“But, Mr. Speaker, there is one provision in the fourth section
which appears to me both unwise and unnecessary. It is proposed not
only to authorize the suspension of the privileges of the writ of
_habeas corpus_, but to authorize the declaration of martial law in
the disturbed districts.

“I do not deny, but I affirm, the right of Congress to authorize the
suspension of the privileges of the writ of _habeas corpus_
whenever, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may
require it. Such action has been, and may again be, necessary to the
safety of the Republic; but I call the attention of the House to the
fact that never but once in the history of this Government has
Congress suspended the great privileges of this writ, and then it
was not done until after two years of war had closed all the
ordinary tribunals of justice in the rebellious districts, and the
great armies of the Union, extending from Maryland to the Mexican
line, were engaged in a death-struggle with the armies of the
rebellion. It was not until the third day of March, 1863, that the
Congress of the United States found the situation so full of peril
as to make it their duty to suspend this greatest privilege enjoyed
by Anglo-Saxon people. Are we ready to say that an equal peril
confronts us to-day?

“My objections to authorizing this suspension implies no distrust of
the wisdom or patriotism of the President. I do not believe he would
employ this power were we to confer it upon him; and if he did
employ it, I do not doubt he would use it with justice and wisdom.
But what we do on this occasion will be quoted as a precedent
hereafter, when other men with other purposes may desire to confer
this power on another President for purposes that may not aid in
securing public liberty and public peace.

“But this section provides no safeguard for citizens who may be
arrested during the suspension of the writ. There is no limit to the
time during which men may be held as prisoners. Nothing in the
section requires them to be delivered over to the courts. Nothing in
it gives them any other protection than the will of the commander
who orders their arrest.”

* * * * *

“But, sir, this fourth section goes a hundred bow-shots farther than
any similar legislation of Congress during the wildest day of the
rebellion. It authorizes the declaration of martial law. We are
called upon to provide by law for the suspension of all law! Do
gentlemen remember what martial law is? Refer to the digest of
opinions of the Judge Advocate-General of the United States, and you
will find a terse definition which gleams like a flash of a
sword-blade. The Judge Advocate says: ‘Martial law is the will of
the general who commands the army.’ And Congress is here asked to
declare martial law. Why, sir, it is the pride and boast of England
that martial law has not existed in that country since the Petition
of Right in the thirty-first year of Charles II. Three years ago the
Lord Chief-Justice of England came down from the high court over
which he was presiding to review the charge of another judge to the
grand jury, and he there announced that the power to declare martial
law no longer existed in England. In 1867, the same judge, in the
case of the Queen _vs_ Nelson, uttered this sentence:

“‘There is no such law in existence as martial law, and no power in
the Crown to proclaim it.’

“In a recent treatise, entitled _The Nation_, a work of great power
and research, the author, Mr. Mulford, says: ‘The declaration of
martial law, or the suspension of _habeas corpus_, is the
intermission of the ordinary course of law, and of the tribunals to
which an appeal may be made. It places the locality included in its
operations no longer under the government of law. It interrupts the
process of rights and the procedure of courts and restricts the
independence of civil administration. There is substituted for these
the intention of the individual. To this there is in the civil order
no formal limitation. In its immediate action it allows beyond
itself no obligation and acknowledges no responsibility. Its command
or its decree is the only law; its movement may be secret, and its
decisions are opened to the inquiry of no judge and the
investigation of no tribunal. There is no positive power which may
act, or be called upon to act, to stay its caprice or to check its
arbitrary career since judgment and execution are in its own
command, and the normal action and administration is suspended and
the organized force of the whole is subordinate to it.’

“Sir, this provision means war, or it means nothing; and I ask this
House whether we are now ready to take this step? Shall we ‘cry
havoc and let slip the dogs of war?’

“I have taken a humble part in one war, and I hope I shall always be
ready to do any duty that the necessities of the country may require
of me; but I am not willing to talk war or to declare war in advance
of the terrible necessity. Are there no measures within our reach
which may aid in preventing war? When a savage war lately threatened
our Western frontiers we sent our Commissioners of Peace in the hope
of avoiding war. Have we done all in our power to avoid that which
this section contemplates? I hope the committee will bring a
companion measure that looks toward peace and enable us to send the
olive branch with the sword.”

This speech marked the separation of General Garfield from the Stalwart wing of the Republican party. It was never forgiven nor forgotten. It showed his balance of mind, his avoidance of extremes. The time when he delivered it was one of extremes. It was an epoch of reaction. It was verging toward the period when Sumner and Adams and Greeley were to forsake the party they had helped to create. It was a time when the fierce passions of war were beginning to find an opponent in the struggling instinct of reunion and peace. It was a time when the great radicals, who had fought slavery to its death, were to swing to the other extreme of loving gush and apologetic forgiveness toward a South which sat crouching in the Temple of Liberty, still maddened with the wild insanity of war. It was a time, on the other hand, when the great war leaders, gorged with the bloody spoils of victory, were to know no forgiveness, no forgetfulness, but to plant the iron heel of despotism upon the prostrate and bleeding foe. In this time of extremes General Garfield took the middle course. He remained a true Republican, but he recoiled from brutalism toward the South. Now that the passions of the hour have passed away, we believe that his speech on the enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment will stand as the wisest utterance of the times. It rises above the level of partisanship to that of statesmanship. In the midst of the tempest of popular excitement over Southern outrages he was calm. As he afterwards said in his nominating speech at Chicago:

“It is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea from which all
heights and depths are measured. When the storm has passed and the
hour of calm settles on the ocean, when sunlight bathes its smooth
surface, then the astronomer and surveyor takes the level from which
he measures all terrestrial heights and depths.”

This was the secret of all of Garfield’s views. In spite of political fears and dogmas, in spite of partisan doubts and dismay, he was right. Therefore, in his answers to the great questions affecting the nationality of the United States, James A. Garfield is entitled to the historic rank of statesman.

We will next inquire to what rank Garfield’s utterances on questions affecting THE FINANCIAL AND MONETARY SYSTEMS OF THE UNITED STATES BELONG. It has been noticed that this and the succeeding topic formed General Garfield’s specialty. In the epoch in which he lived they were the paramount themes of politics. He himself called the financial question the modern political Sphinx. For the last eight years, inflation, hard money, greenbacks, etc., had been discussed from every point of the compass, in every key and to every tune. Men thought it was a new thing. Years before the public clamor, General Garfield took his position on the financial question. He foresaw and foretold the experience of the country before the public mind had rolled its heavy eyes toward the subject. It has been claimed that on the financial question Garfield was ten years ahead of his generation; that he was a pioneer and leader in every sense in the advance toward the resumption of specie payments and a stable currency. Not in 1874, when the first great inflation bill ran its rapid career, nor in 1876, nor 1878, when the advocates of paper money had organized themselves into a political party, did he come forward with arguments on the currency for the first time. It was in 1866 that he turned the first furrow in Congress. On March 16th of that year, he enunciated, in a short but vigorous speech, the basal principles of finance, which in later efforts he was to elaborate and fortify with every argument or authority which could appeal to the human understanding. From that first position Garfield never receded. Not for a moment did he cease to regard irredeemable and inflated paper currency an unmixed evil, and resumption as the main end of the legislation of the epoch. His speeches on finance cover the entire field, and are very numerous. From two or three we present copious extracts. On May 15, 1868, he delivered a speech which was, and is, a complete manual of the principles of sound financial policy:

“I am aware that financial subjects are dull and uninviting in
comparison with those heroic themes which have absorbed the
attention of Congress for the last five years. To turn from the
consideration of armies and navies, victories and defeats, to the
array of figures which exhibits the debt, expenditure, taxation, and
industry of the nation, requires no little courage and self-denial;
but to these questions we must come, and to their solution Congress,
political parties, and all thoughtful citizens must give their best
efforts for many years to come.

“In April, 1861, there began in this country an industrial
revolution, not yet completed, as gigantic in its proportions, and
as far-reaching in its consequences, as the political and military
revolution through which we have passed. As the first step to any
intelligent discussion of the currency, it is necessary to examine
the character and progress of that industrial revolution.

“The year 1860 was one of remarkable prosperity in all branches of
business. For seventy years no Federal tax-gatherer had ever been
seen among the laboring population of the United States. Our public
debt was less than sixty-five million dollars. The annual
expenditures of the Government, including interest on the public
debt, were less than sixty-four million dollars. The revenues from
customs alone amounted to six-sevenths of the expenditures. The
value of our agricultural products for that year amounted to
$1,625,000,000. Our cotton crop alone was two billion one hundred
and fifty-five million pounds, and we supplied to the markets of the
world seven-eighths of all the cotton consumed. Our merchant marine
engaged in foreign trade amounted to two million five hundred and
forty-six thousand two hundred and thirty-seven tons, and promised
soon to rival the immense carrying trade of England.

“Let us now observe the effect of the war on the various departments
of business. From the moment the first hostile gun was fired, the
Federal and State governments became gigantic consumers. As far as
production was concerned, eleven States were completely separated
from the Union. Two million laborers, more than one-third of the
adult population of the Northern States, were withdrawn from the
ranks of producers, and became only consumers of wealth. The Federal
Government became an insatiable devourer. Leaving out of account the
vast sums expended by States, counties, cities, towns, and
individuals, for the payment of bounties, for the relief of sick and
wounded soldiers and their families, and omitting the losses, which
can never be estimated, of property destroyed by hostile armies, I
shall speak only of expenditures which appear on the books of the
Federal Treasury. From the 30th of June, 1861, to the 30th of June,
1865, there were paid out of the Federal Treasury $3,340,996,211,
making an aggregate during these four years of more than
$836,000,000 per annum.