The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, Twentieth President of the United States / Embracing an Account of the Scenes and Incidents of His Boyhood; the Struggles of His Youth; the Might of His Early Manhood; His Valor As a Soldier; His Career As a Statesman; His Election to the Presidency; and the Tragic Story of His Death.

by John Clark Ridpath

“Fellow-citizens, I believe I have done my country and you some service, and the only way I can still continue thus to serve you is by enjoying, in a reasonable degree, your confidence and support. I am very grateful for the expression of confidence which you have again given me by choosing me a seventh time as your candidate. It was an expression which I have reason to believe was the result of your deliberate judgment, based on a full knowledge of my record; and it is all the more precious to me because it came after one of those storms of public feeling which sometimes sweeps away the work of a life-time.”

Aside from what has been here recounted, Garfield did not speak much on these unpleasant topics. Having put himself on record, he did not convict himself by protesting overmuch.

That he felt these things deeply one can not doubt. In a letter of January 4, 1875, written to B. A. Hinsdale, he said:

“With me the year 1874 has been a continuation, and in some respects an exaggeration, of 1873. That year brought me unusual trials, and brought me face to face with personal assaults and the trial that comes from calumny and public displeasure. This year has perhaps seen the culmination, if not the end, of that kind of experience. I have had much discipline of mind and heart in living the life which these trials brought me. Lately I have been studying myself with some anxiety to see how deeply the shadows have settled around my spirit. I find I have lost much of that exuberance of feeling, that cheerful spirit which I think abounded in me before. I am a little graver and less genial than I was before the storm struck me. The consciousness of this came to me slowly, but I have at last given in to it, and am trying to counteract the tendency.”

These efforts were successful; for prosperity and popularity returned to him; and even if they had not, General Garfield was not the man to acquire bitterness of spirit.

In fact, if there was one thing wherein Garfield was greater than any man in the illustrious group, whose names form a matchless diadem for the epoch in which he lived, it was in a sweetness of temper, a loftiness of spirit, the equal of which can hardly be found in secular history. His spirit knew no malice; his heart no revenge. A distinguished man who served with him in Congress, but who was not a great friend, told the writer that in this regard Garfield inspired him with awe. His conservative views made him many party enemies. Time after time these brilliant debaters—Farnsworth and the rest—would attack Garfield. No sarcasm was too cutting, no irony too cold. At times the speaker seemed to leave the quiver of ridicule without an arrow. When Garfield rose to reply, it was in a tone of calm discussion. He would proceed to the subject in hand in the friendliest and most earnest manner. No attack could provoke him to reply to personalities or invective. Never did he lose self-poise for a moment. It was said that a stranger entering the House after Garfield had begun his speech in answer to some most galling attack would never suspect that the speech was a reply to hostile and malignant assault.

The elections of 1874 having resulted favorably to the Democratic party, the Republicans found themselves with only a minority in the House in the Forty-Fourth Congress. Blaine lost his position as Speaker, and Michael C. Kerr, of Indiana, presided. Committees were all reorganized with Democratic chairmen and majorities.

Garfield, after having been four years Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, now found himself near the foot of the Committee of Ways and Means, with a weighty group of Democrats above him on the list. During his last four terms, Garfield was a member of the House Committee on Rules. His knowledge of Parliamentary Law amounted to a mastery of the subject.

In consequence of this change, General Garfield, suddenly relieved of his usual large responsibility in the work of legislation, was turned into a comparatively new field of public life. Relieved of the real work of legislation, for the first time he had a good opportunity to observe how others would do that work.

A very brief season of such observation on the part of Garfield and his fellow-partisans was enough to make them dissatisfied with Democratic statesmanship. The new majority began to destroy what Republicans had spent so many years in building up. Then came organized opposition.