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 on a Draft Bill, June 21, 1864.]

It has never been my policy to conceal a truth merely because it is unpleasant. It may be well to smile in the face of danger, but it is neither well nor wise to let danger approach unchallenged and unannounced. A brave nation, like a brave man, desires to see and measure the perils which threaten it. It is the right of the American people to know the necessities of the Republic when they are called upon to make sacrifices for it. It is this lack of confidence in ourselves and the people, this timid waiting for events to control us when they should obey us, that makes men oscillate between hope and fear; now in the sunshine of the hill-tops, and now in the gloom and shadows of the valley. To such men the bulletin which heralds success in the army gives exultation and high hope; the evening dispatch, announcing some slight disaster to our advancing columns, brings gloom and depression. Hope rises and falls by the accidents of war, as the mercury of the thermometer changes by the accidents of heat and cold. Let us rather take for our symbol the sailor's barometer, which faithfully forewarns him of the tempest, and gives him unerring promise of serene skies and peaceful seas.