“Gentlemen: I have been saying a good many things during the past few weeks, and think I should be nearly through talking by this time. I should be the listener. But I can not refrain from saying that I am exceedingly glad to meet with you, a company of Republicans from my native county, and congratulate you upon what you have done. You have shown your strength and character in your work. You have shown that you are men of high convictions and observe them in all that you do. I have always taken pride in this county and in the city of Cleveland. The Forest City is well worthy to be the capital of the Western Reserve. It has the credit of our country at heart, never losing sight of it in the heat of political warfare. In no city in the country can be found more active and earnest men—solid business men. It is an honor to any one to have the confidence of such a people. I am glad to be here this evening to greet you and thank you for your kind invitation.” [Applause.]
Garfield had now more offices in prospect or actual possession than usually fall to the lot of one man. He was still a member of the House of Representatives in the Forty-sixth Congress; he was also United States Senator-elect for the State of Ohio; and, thirdly, he was President-elect of the United States. On the 10th of November, being perhaps content with the Presidency, he resigned his seats in the House and Senate, and thus for about four months became Citizen Garfield, of Ohio.
The 2d of December was rather a Red-letter day at Mentor. The Presidential electors for the State of Ohio, on that day called on the President-elect and tendered their best regards. In answer to their congratulations he spoke with much animation and feeling as follows:
“Gentlemen: I am deeply grateful to you for this call, and for these personal and public congratulations. If I were to look upon the late campaign and its result merely in the light of a personal struggle and a personal success, it would probably be as gratifying as any thing could be in the history of politics. If my own conduct during the campaign has been in any way a help and a strength to our cause, I am glad. It is not always an easy thing to behave well. If, under trying circumstances, my behavior as a candidate has met your approval, I am greatly gratified. But the larger subject—your congratulations to the country on the triumph of the Republican party—opens a theme too vast for me to enter upon now.
“I venture, however, to mention a reflection which has occurred to me in reference to the election of yesterday. I suppose that no political event has happened in all the course of the contest since the early spring, which caused so little excitement, and, indeed, so little public observation, as the Presidential election which was held yesterday at midday. The American people paid but little attention to the details of the real Presidential election, and for a very significant reason: although you and all the members of the Electoral Colleges had absolute constitutional and technical right to vote for any body you chose, and although no written law directed or suggested your choice, yet every American knew that the august sovereign of this Republic—the 9,000,000 of voters—on an early day in November had pronounced the omnipotent fiat of choice; and that sovereign, assuming as done that which he had ordered to be done, entertained no doubt but that his will would be implicitly obeyed by all the Colleges in all the States. That is the reason why the people were so serenely quiet yesterday. They had never yet found an American who failed to keep his trust as a Presidential Elector.
“From this thought I draw this lesson: that when that omnipotent sovereign, the American people, speaks to any one man and orders him to do a duty, that man is under the most solemn obligations of obedience which can be conceived, except what the God of the universe might impose upon him. Yesterday, through your votes, and the votes of others in the various States of the Union, it is probable (the returns will show) that our great political sovereign has laid his commands upon me. If he has done so, I am as bound by his will and his great inspiration and purpose as I could be bound by any consideration that this earth can impose upon any human being. In that presence, therefore, I stand and am awed by the majesty and authority of such a command.
“In so far as I can interpret the best aspirations and purposes of our august sovereign, I shall seek to realize them. You and I, and those who have acted with us in the years past, believe that our sovereign loves liberty, and desires for all inhabitants of the Republic peace and prosperity under the sway of just and equal laws. Gentlemen, I thank you for this visit; for this welcome; for the suggestions that your presence and your words bring, and for the hope that you have expressed, that in the arduous and great work before us we may maintain the standard of Nationality and promote all that is good and worthy in this country, and during the coming four years we may raise just as large a crop of peace, prosperity, justice, liberty, and culture as it is possible for forty-nine millions of people to raise.”
At the close of the address there was a general hand-shaking à la Américaine; and then to add to the interest of the occasion the President’s aged mother, to whom more than ever of late his heart had turned with loyal devotion, was led into the apartment and presented to the distinguished guests by her more distinguished son.
Two days afterwards there was another assembly of visitors at Mentor. This time it was a delegation of colored Republicans—Black Republicans in both senses of the word—from South Carolina, headed by the negro orator, R. B. Elliott, who delivered the congratulatory address. In answer, the President-elect said:
“General Elliott and Gentlemen: I thank you for your congratulations on the successful termination of the great campaign that recently closed, and especially for your kind allusion to me personally for the part I bore in that campaign.