It was to these points that Mr. Garfield addressed himself. The Camden and Amboy Company he named as a sweeping and complete monopoly, made so by the State of New Jersey. The State’s right to create corporations was undoubted. But it could have no sovereignty sufficient to destroy the power of the United States, and especially so outside of the State limits. Equal rights with this monopoly should be given to the Raritan and Delaware Bay Company at any time on petition, and certainly now when the facilities for transportation were not equal to the needs of the Government.
Surely the Government, at such a time as this, had paramount authority to provide for its own necessities.
On the 8th of April, 1864, the House of Representatives resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole upon the State of the Union, whereupon Mr. Alexander Long, of Cincinnati, Ohio, took the floor, and, in a speech of much bitterness, arraigned the administration, not for its conduct of the war, but for carrying on the war at all. “An unconstitutional war can only be carried on in an unconstitutional manner,” said Mr. Long. His demand now was for peace. This was the first sound of Democratic preparation for the Presidential election, the key-note of their campaign.
Mr. Long said:
“Mr. Chairman, I speak to-day for the preservation of the Government. In the independence of a representative of the people I intend to proclaim the deliberate convictions of my judgment in this fearful hour of the country’s peril.
“The brief period of three short years has produced a fearful change in this free, happy, and prosperous government,—so pure in its restrainments upon personal liberty, and so gentle in its demands upon the resources of the people, that the celebrated Humboldt, after traveling through the country, on his return to Europe said, ‘The American people have a government which you neither see nor feel.’ So different is it now, and so great the change, that the inquiry might well be made to-day, ‘Are we not in Constantinople, in St. Petersburg, in Vienna, in Rome, or in Paris?’ Military governors and their provost marshals override the laws, and the echo of the armed heel rings forth as clearly now in America as in France or Austria; and the President sits to-day guarded by armed soldiers at every approach leading to the Executive Mansion. So far from crushing the rebellion, three years have passed away, and from the day on which the conflict began, up to the present hour, the Confederate army has not been forced beyond the sound of their guns from the dome of the Capitol in which we are assembled.”
The remainder of the speech continued in the same spirit. The war could not be put down. Moreover, it was wrong and ought not to be put down:
“Can the Union he restored by war? I answer most unhesitatingly and deliberately: No, never. War is final and eternal separation. My first and highest ground against its further prosecution is, that it is wrong. It is a violation of the Constitution and of the fundamental principles on which this Union was founded. My second objection is, that as a policy, it is not reconstructive, but destructive, and will, if continued, result speedily in the destruction of the Government and the loss of civil liberty, to both the North and the South, and it ought therefore to immediately cease....”
These were the sentiments of a Democratic politician in Congress; they would be scattered broadcast over the whole land. Some of the arguments were specious; they would be echoed from a thousand platforms during the summer. It was incumbent on the opposition to furnish a speedy and strong reply. When Mr. Long took his seat, Mr. Garfield arose and said:
“Mr. Chairman: I should be obliged to you if you would direct the sergeant-at-arms to bring a white flag and plant it in the aisle between myself and my colleague who has just addressed you.