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

The companion figure to that of Roscoe Conkling, of New York, was James A. Garfield, of Ohio. He was there as the chief supporter of John Sherman. The contrast between Conkling and Garfield was of the strongest possible kind. In person, Garfield was a taller man than Conkling, but his size and solidity of build made him look shorter. His figure, though less trim, had an air of comfortable friendliness and cheer about it. He, too, had a massive head, but it rested more easily above the broad shoulders. His face lacked the lines of scorn traced on the other, and made a true picture of a benevolent good nature, a generous, kindly heart, and a great and wise intellect. He wore a plain sack coat, and his attire generally though neat, was of an unstudied sort. He had a habit of sitting with his leg swinging over the arm of the chair, and his manners were those of a big, jolly, overgrown boy. In speaking he had a deep, rich voice, with a kindly accent, in marked contrast with the biting tones of the great New York Senator. He was never sarcastic, though often grave. His speeches were conservative but earnest. Socially, his manners were utterly devoid of restraint; he was accessible to every body, and appeared to be on good terms with himself. The dramatic element was completely absent. He believed in Sherman heartily, though he was evidently a stranger to the mysterious arts of the wire-puller and politician. For himself, he was well satisfied looking forward to the seat in the United States Senate, which he was to enter the next December, with joy and gratification.

These were the two chief figures of the Chicago Convention. Each was there as the chief supporter of another. The one was the conscious personification and representative of a tendency which, for fifty years, had been setting more and more strongly toward party organism and permanent structure, having for its aim a perfect power-getting and power-keeping machine. The other was the unconscious personification and representative of the opposite tendency, the current which set toward a flexible rather than rigid party organization, toward new political ideas, and the independence of individual thought. The one was a patrician, the other the child of the people.

When the Chicago Convention met, it was the nature of the organic tendency to have its candidate selected. On the other hand, it was equally the nature of the opposite tendency to have no candidate. But each force was present in the convention working in the hearts and minds of its members. Day after day, the angry white caps rose along the line where the two waves met. As the crisis approached the movement of resistance to the strengthening and increase of party organism, with that instinct which belongs to every subtle underlying tendency in human society, began to look and to feel its way toward a personal representative. Having found the man, the spirit would enter into him and possess him.

Thus it was that when the supreme moment came, personal candidates and preferences, pledges and plans, leaders and followers were suddenly lost from view. The force, which was greater than individuals, rose up, embodied itself in the person of a protesting and awe-stricken man within whose heart may have been some presentiment of the tragic future, and, subordinating all to itself, relentlessly demanding and receiving the sacrifice alike of candidates and of the supporter, defeating for the time being, not so much the silent soldier from Galena, as the political tendency which made him its representative.

Notwithstanding the nomination of Garfield, as the remaining chapters of this story will show, the spirit of party organism was not killed but stunned. Cast out from the most famous citizen of the Republic, it was to enter into a swine. History will say of Guiteau, that he embodied and represented a force stronger than himself.

Let us turn now from the internal philosophy to the external facts of the Chicago Convention.

Chicago is a roomy place and well-suited for the meeting of a large assembly, but its resources were taxed by the Convention of 1880. By Monday preceding the Convention, its hotels were crowded, and thousands upon thousands were pouring in every hour. It was a great gathering of rival clans, which did not wait the order of their generals to advance, but charged upon each other the moment they came upon the field.

There were two battles in progress—the one of the masses, the other of the leaders.

On Monday evening two public meetings of the “Grant” and “anti-Grant” elements, respectively, were held in Dearborn Park and in the Base Ball Park.

The speakers announced for the Grant meeting were Senators Conkling, Logan, Carpenter, Stewart L. Woodford of New York, Leonard Swett, Emory Storrs, Robert T. Lincoln, and Stephen A. Douglas. But the advertised speakers did not all appear; neither Conkling nor Carpenter spoke. They were too busy plotting elsewhere. In fact, this Grant meeting was, so far as any demonstration in favor of the third term was concerned, an acknowledged failure. The speakers, however, managed to throw some spirit into the affair, and aroused some enthusiasm.