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

by E. E. Brown

[Speech at Cleveland, October 11, 1879.—Appeal to Young Men.]

Now, I tell you, young man, don't vote the Republican ticket just because your father votes it. Don't vote the Democratic ticket, even if he does vote it. But let me give you this one word of advice, as you are about to pitch your tent in one of the great political camps. Your life is full and buoyant with hope now, and I beg you, when you pitch your tent, pitch it among the living and not among the dead. If you are at all inclined to pitch it among the Democratic people and with that party, let me go with you for a moment while we survey the ground where I hope you will not shortly lie. It is a sad place, young man, for you to put your young life into. It is to me far more like a graveyard than like a camp for the living. Look at it! It is billowed all over with the graves of dead issues, of buried opinions, of exploded theories, of disgraced doctrines. You cannot live in comfort in such a place. Why, look here! Here is a little double mound. I look down on it and I read, "Sacred to the memory of Squatter Sovereignty and the Dred Scott decision." A million and a half of Democrats voted for that, but it has been dead fifteen years—died by the hand of Abraham Lincoln, and here it lies. Young man, that is not the place for you.

But look a little farther. Here is another monument—a black tomb—and beside it, as our distinguished friend said, there towers to the sky a monument of four million pairs of human fetters taken from the arms of slaves, and I read on its little headstone this: "Sacred to the memory of human slavery." For forty years of its infamous life the Democratic party taught that it was divine—God's institution. They defended it, they stood around it, they followed it to its grave as a mourner. But here it lies, dead by the hand of Abraham Lincoln. Dead by the power of the Republican party. Dead by the justice of Almighty God. Don't camp there, young man.

But here is another—a little brimstone tomb—and I read across its yellow face in lurid, bloody lines these words: "Sacred to the memory of State Sovereignty and Secession." Twelve millions of Democrats mustered around it in arms to keep it alive; but here it lies, shot to death by the million guns of the Republic. Here it lies, its shrine burnt to ashes under the blazing rafters of the burning Confederacy. It is dead! I would not have you stay in there a minute, even in this balmy night air, to look at such a place.

But just before I leave it I discover a new-made grave, a little mound—short. The grass has hardly sprouted over it, and all around it I see torn pieces of paper with the word "fiat" on them, and I look down in curiosity, wondering what the little grave is, and I read on it: "Sacred to the memory of the Rag Baby nursed in the brain of all the fanaticism of the world, rocked by Thomas Ewing, George H. Pendleton, Samuel Cary, and a few others throughout the land." But it died on the 1st of January, 1879, and the one hundred and forty millions of gold that God made, and not fiat power, he upon its little carcass to keep it down forever.

Oh, young man, come out of that! That is no place in which to put your young life. Come out, and come over into this camp of liberty, of order, of law, of justice, of freedom, of all that is glorious under these night stars.

Is there any death here in our camp? Yes! yes! Three hundred and fifty thousand soldiers, the noblest band that ever trod the earth, died to make this camp a camp of glory and of liberty forever.

But there are no dead issues here. There are no dead ideas here. Hang out our banner from under the blue sky this night until it shall sweep the green turf under your feet! It hangs over our camp. Read away up under the stars the inscription we have written on it, lo! these twenty-five years.

Twenty-five years ago the Republican party was married to Liberty, and this is our silver wedding, fellow-citizens. A worthily married pair love each other better on the day of their silver wedding than on the day of their first espousals; and we are truer to Liberty to-day, and dearer to God than we were when we spoke our first word of liberty. Read away up under the sky across our starry banner that first word we uttered twenty-five years ago! What was it? "Slavery shall never extend over another foot of the territories of the great West." Is that dead or alive? Alive, thank God, forevermore! And truer to-night than it was the hour it was written! Then, it was a hope, a promise, a purpose. To-night it is equal with the stars—immortal history and immortal truth.

Come down the glorious steps of our banner. Every great record we have made we have vindicated with our blood and with our truth. It sweeps the ground, and it touches the stars. Come there, young man, and put in your young life where all is living, and where nothing is dead but the heroes that defended it! I think these young men will do that.