FOOTNOTES:
[D] "nother talk that I recall was at a social gathering. It was at a dinner party after the failure of Greeley's campaign. The host was, perhaps the most original genius in Washington. He was an old companion of Greeley at Brook Farm. He was giving the dinner in payment of a bet he had lost by reason of Greeley's defeat. The conversation embraced all the topics of the day and in the course of it turned to Seward. A member of the company thought that Seward had been dead years before he was put into the grave. General Garfield thought differently, and delivered, on the spur of the moment, a remarkable eulogy on the dead statesman. Soon afterward, I reduced to notes the outlines of that eulogy, so far as my memory served me, and I reproduce it here. General Garfield possesses rare conversational powers, and uses, in social discourse, a diction not less eloquent and elegant than that to which he is accustomed in the forum."—Washington Correspondent of the Chicago Tribune.
THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
PRESIDENT GARFIELD'S FIRST OFFICIAL WORDS TO THE COUNTRY.
Fellow Citizens,—We stand to-day upon an eminence which overlooks a hundred years of national life, a century crowded with perils, but crowned with the triumphs of liberty and law. Before continuing the onward march, let us pause on this height for a moment to strengthen our faith and renew our hope by a glance at the pathway along which our people have travelled. It is now three days more than a hundred years since the adoption of the first written Constitution of the United States, the articles of confederation and perpetual union. The new Republic was then beset with danger on every hand. It had not conquered a place in the family of nations. The decisive battle of the war for independence, whose centennial anniversary will soon be gratefully celebrated at Yorktown, had not yet been fought. The colonists were struggling not only against the armies of a great nation, but against the settled opinions of mankind, for the world did not believe that the supreme authority of government could be safely intrusted to the guardianship of the people themselves. We cannot overestimate the fervent love of liberty, the intelligent courage and the saving common sense with which our fathers made the great experiment of self-government. When they found, after a short trial, that the confederacy of States was too weak to meet the necessities of a vigorous and expanding republic, they boldly set it aside, and in its stead established a national union founded directly upon the will of the people, endowed with future powers of self-preservation, and with ample authority for the accomplishment of its great objects. Under this Constitution the boundaries of freedom have been enlarged, the foundations of order and peace have been strengthened, and the growth in all the better elements of national life has vindicated the wisdom of the founders, and given new hopes to their descendants. Under this Constitution our people long ago made themselves safe against danger from without, and secured for their mariners and flag equality of rights on all the seas. Under this Constitution twenty-five States have been added to the Union, with constitutions and laws framed and enforced by their own citizens to secure the manifold blessings of local self-government. The jurisdiction of this Constitution now covers an area fifty times greater than that of the original thirteen States, and a population twenty times greater than that of 1780. The supreme trial of the Constitution came at last under the tremendous pressure of civil war. We ourselves are witnesses that the Union emerged from the blood and fire of that conflict purified and made stronger for all the beneficent purposes of good government.
And now, at the close of this first century of growth, with the inspirations of its history in their hearts, our people have lately reviewed the condition of their nation, passed judgment upon the conduct and opinions of political parties, and have registered their will concerning the future administration of the Government. To interpret and to execute that will in accordance with the Constitution is the paramount duty of the Executive. Even from this brief review it is manifest that the nation is resolutely facing to the front, resolved to employ its best energies in developing the great possibilities of the future. Sacredly preserving whatever has been gained to liberty and good government during the century, our people are determined to leave behind them all those bitter controversies, including things which have been irrevocably settled, and the further discussion of which can only stir up strife and delay the onward march. The supremacy of the nation and its laws should be no longer a subject of debate. That discussion which for half a century threatened the existence of the Union was closed at last in the high court of war by a decree from which there is no appeal, that the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof are and shall continue to be the supreme law of the land, binding alike upon the States and the people. This decree does not disturb the autonomy of the States nor interfere with any of their necessary rules of local self-government, but it does fix and establish the permanent supremacy of the Union. The will of the nation speaking with the voice of battle and through the amended Constitution has fulfilled the great promise of 1776 by proclaiming "Liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof."
The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the full rights of citizenship is the most important political change we have known since the adoption of the Constitution of 1787. No thoughtful man can fail to appreciate its beneficent effect upon our institutions and people. It has freed us from the perpetual danger of war and dissolution. It has added immensely to the moral and industrial forces of our people. It has liberated the master as well as the slave from a relation which wronged and enfeebled both. It has surrendered to their own guardianship the manhood of more than 5,000,000 of people, and has opened to each one of them a career of freedom and usefulness. It has given new inspiration to the power of self-help in both races, by making labor more honorable to the one and more necessary to the other. The influence of this force will grow greater and bear richer fruit with the coming years. No doubt the great change has caused serious disturbance to our Southern community. This is to be deplored, though it was unavoidable. But those who resisted the change should remember, that under our institutions there was no middle ground for the negro race between slavery and equal citizenship. There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States; freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places the smallest obstacles in the pathway of any virtuous citizen. The emancipated race has already made remarkable progress; with unquestioning devotion to the Union, with a patience and gentleness not born of fear, they have "followed the light as God gave them to see the light." They are rapidly laying the material foundations for self-support, widening the circle of intelligence, and beginning to enjoy the blessings that gather around the homes of industrious poor. They deserve the generous encouragement of all good men. So far as my authority can lawfully extend, they shall enjoy the full and equal protection of the Constitution and the laws.
The free enjoyment of equal suffrage is still in question, and a frank statement of the issue may aid its solution. It is alleged, that in many communities negro citizens are practically denied the freedom of the ballot. In so far as the truth of this allegation is admitted, it is answered, that in many places honest local government is impossible if the mass of uneducated negroes are allowed to vote. These are grave allegations. So far as the latter is true, it is the only palliation that can be offered for opposing the freedom of the ballot. Bad local government is certainly a great evil which ought to be prevented, but to violate the freedom and sanctity of the suffrage is more than an evil; it is a crime, which, if persisted in, will destroy the government itself. Suicide is not a remedy. If in other lands it be high treason to compass the death of the king, it should be counted no less a crime here to strangle our sovereign power and stifle its voice. It has been said that unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of nations. It should be said, with the utmost emphasis, that this question of the suffrage will never give repose or safety to the States of the nation, until each, within its own jurisdiction, makes, and keeps the ballot free and pure by the strong sanctions of the law. But the danger which arises from ignorance in the voter cannot be denied. It covers a field far wider than that of negro suffrage and the present condition of that race. It is a danger that lurks and hides in the sources and fountains of power in every State. We have no standard by which to measure the disaster that may be brought upon us by ignorance and vice in the citizens, when joined to corruption and fraud in the suffrage. The voters of the Union who make and unmake constitutions, and upon whom will hang the destinies of our governments, can transmit their supreme authority to no successor save the coming generation of voters, who are the sole heirs of sovereign power. If that generation comes to its inheritance blinded by ignorance and corrupted by vice, the fall of the republic will be certain and remediless. The census has already sounded the alarm, in the appalling figures which mark how dangerously high the tide of illiteracy has risen among our voters and their children. To the South, this question is of supreme importance, but the responsibility for the existence of slavery did not rest upon the South alone; the nation itself is responsible for the extension of the suffrage, and is under special obligations to aid in removing the illiteracy which it has added to the voting population.