"There are men and women scattered over the United States, holding positions of honor and wealth, who began the life that led them upward by the advice and with the assistance of Mr. and Mrs. Garfield."
The wife was always the ready and efficient helpmeet of her husband. Whenever he had a lecture or speech to prepare, she would search the whole library, consulting every book that pertained to the subject in hand, and then together they would discuss the topic from every point of view. One, in every thought and purpose, their quiet life at Hiram presented the same beautiful home picture that after honors could never dim nor tarnish.
CHAPTER XI.
Law Studies.—Becomes Interested in Politics.—Delivers Oration at the Williams Commencement.—Elected State Senator.—His Courage and Eloquence.
Shortly after his marriage, Garfield entered his name in the law office of Riddle and Williamson, attorneys in Cleveland, Ohio, as a student of law. This formality was necessary in order to ensure admission to the bar. It was not here, however, that he studied, and for a long time his friends knew nothing of the step he had taken. After his hours of teaching, at odd moments through the day, and often far into the night, he pored over his law-books with the same intensity of purpose he had shown in all his other undertakings.
It was his patriotic interest in the measures which were then before the legislature of Ohio that first led him to take up a critical study of law. He always wanted to go to the bottom of things, and his college training under President Hopkins had developed a wonderful power of synopsizing. In entering upon a course of law studies, it was not so much with the thought of becoming a lawyer, as to make himself conversant with the principles of law. When, however, he was admitted to the bar, he was so thoroughly equipped for practice, that he could go into courts of any grade and try the most intricate cases.
In later years a friend said of him:—
"Had Garfield gone to the bar for a living, his gift of oratory, his strong analytical powers, and his ability to do hard work, would soon have made him eminent. In the few law cases he took during vacation seasons he held his own with some of the best lawyers of the country. In one of them his ability to grasp successfully with an unexpected situation was signally demonstrated. The case was tried in Mobile, and involved the ownership of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. Garfield had prepared himself upon an important and difficult question of law involved, and felt a comfortable sense of readiness for the trial; but after he reached Mobile the court ordered the consolidation of three suits concerning the road, and the question upon which he had prepared himself passed wholly out of sight; and, as he wrote to a friend, 'the whole entanglement of an insolvent railroad twenty-five years old, lying across four states and costing $20,000,000, came upon us at once.' He was assigned the duty of summing up the case for his side. During the trial he did five days and five nights of the hardest work he ever did in his life. Then he made his argument and won the case."