The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield / Twentieth President of the United States, Including Full and Accurate Details of His Eventful Administration, Assassination, Last Hours, Death, Etc., Together with Notable Extracts from His Speeches and Letters
BOSTON D. LOTHROP COMPANY 32 FRANKLIN STREET Copyright, 1881, By D. Lothrop & Co.
To one who joined with us in sorrow true, And bowed her crowned head above our slain.
More eloquent voices for Christ and the gospel have never come from the grave of a dead President than those which we hear from the tomb of our lamented chief magistrate.
Twenty six years ago this summer a company of college students had gone to the top of Greylock Mountain, in Western Massachusetts, to spend the night. A very wide outlook can be gained from that summit. But if you will stand there with that little company to-day, you can see farther than the bounds of Massachusetts or the bounds of New England, or the bounds of the Union. James A. Garfield is one of that band of students, and as the evening shades gather, he rises up among the group and says, Classmates, it is my habit to read a portion of God's Word before retiring to rest. Will you permit me to read aloud? And then taking in his hand a pocket Testament, he reads in that clear, strong voice a chapter of Holy Writ, and calls upon a brother student to offer prayer. How far the little candle throws its beams! It required real principle to take that stand even in such a company. Was that candle of the Lord afterward put out amid the dampening and unfriendly influences of a long political life? It would not be strange. Many a Christian man has had his religious testimony smothered amid the stifling and vitiated air of party politics, till instead of a clear light, it has given out only the flicker and foulness of a smoking wick.
But pass on for a quarter of a century. The young student has become a man. He has been in contact for years with the corrupting influences of political life. Let us see where he stands now. In the great Republican Convention at Chicago he is a leading figure. The meetings have been attended with unprecedented excitement through the week. Sunday has come, and such is the strain of rivalry between contending factions that most of the politicians spend the entire day in pushing the interests of their favorite candidates. But on that Lord's day morning Mr. Garfield is seen quietly wending his way to the house of God. His absence being remarked upon to him next day, he said, in reply, I have more confidence in the prayers to God which ascended in the churches yesterday, than in all the caucusing which went on in the hotels.
E. E. Brown
THE
LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES
OF
JAMES A. GARFIELD,
TWENTIETH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
INCLUDING
TOGETHER WITH
NOTABLE EXTRACTS FROM HIS SPEECHES AND LETTERS
DEDICATION.
INTRODUCTION.
CONTENTS.
LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD
CHAPTER I.
FOOTNOTES:
TO JAMES A. GARFIELD.
FOOTNOTES:
FOOTNOTES:
PRESIDENT GARFIELD.
GARFIELD, PRESIDENT OF THE PEOPLE.
PRESIDENT GARFIELD.
AFTER THE BURIAL.
SONNET—JAMES A. GARFIELD.
MIDNIGHT.
REJOICE.
J. A. G.
J. A. G.
HOME AT LAST.
AN ODE ON THE ASSASSINATION.
FATHERLESS.
[Speech on the Currency.—46th Congress.]
[Letter to B. A. Kimball.]
[To the Same.]
[Speech on a Draft Bill, June 21, 1864.]
[Speech in New York City, 1865, on the Assassination of President Lincoln.]
[Speech in Congress on the Constitutional Amendment to abolish slavery, January 13, 1865]
[Reply to Mr. Lamar, in a Committee of the Whole.]
[From a Speech in Congress, 1866.]
[Letter to A. B. Hinsdale.]
[From an Address at Hiram College, June 14, 1867.]
[From the Same.]
[From the Same]
[Speech in the House of Representatives, February 12, 1867.]
[A Speech on Currency and the Banks, 1870.]
[From a Speech in the House, April 1, 1870.]
[Speech on the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, April 4, 1871.]
[Letter to Professor Demmon December 16, 1871.]
[Speech on the last Census.]
[Speech on National Aid to Education, February 6, 1872.]
[From a Speech on Repealing the Salary Clause, 1873.]
[Letter to B. A. Hinsdale, 1874.]
[Speech on the Currency and the Public Faith, April 8, 1874.]
[Speech on the Railway Problem, June 22, 1874.]
[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, June, 1874.]
[Letter to A. B. Hinsdale, 1876.]
[From "Life and Character of Almeda A. Booth," June 22, 1876.]
[From the Same.]
[From the Same.]
[From the "Atlantic Monthly," July, 1877.]
[From the "North American Review," May-June, 1878.]
[From a Speech at Faneuil Hall, Boston, September 11, 1878.]
[From an Address at Hiram College.]
[From a Speech on the Ninth Census.]
[From a Speech, December 10, 1878.]
[From a Speech, June 2, 1879.]
[Address, at the Memorial Meeting, in the House of Representatives, January 16, 1879.]
[On the Relation of the Government to Science, February 11, 1879.]
[Speech on the National Election.]
[Remarks, in the House of Representatives, February 11, 1879, on the Life and Character of Gustave Schleicher.]
[From the "North American Review," March, 1879.]
[From the Same, June, 1879.]
[Speech in Congress, on the first anniversary of Mr. Lincoln's death.]
[Speech at Cleveland, Ohio, October 11, 1879.—Resumption of Specie Payments.]
[Speech at Cleveland, October 11, 1879.—Appeal to Young Men.]
[From a Speech, January 14, 1880.]
[Letter of Acceptance, July 10, 1880.]
[From a Speech, at the unveiling of a Soldiers' Monument Painesville, Ohio, July 4, 1880.]
[Speech to a Delegation of four hundred Young Men—First Voters—of Cleveland, Ohio, at Mentor, October 8, 1880.]
[From a Speech in New York, August 6, 1880.]
[Remarks at Chatauqua August 1, 1880]
[From an Address at the Anniversary of Hiram College, directly after the Chicago Convention, 1880.]
FOOTNOTES:
THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
PRESIDENT GARFIELD'S FIRST OFFICIAL WORDS TO THE COUNTRY.
ADDENDA.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
IV.
