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

When Speaker Colfax made up his committees, he asked Garfield what he would like. Garfield replied that he would like to have a place which called for the study of finance. Justin S. Morrill, Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, also asked for him.

He was, accordingly, put upon that committee, and immediately began to study the subjects which were connected with its prospective work.

Conceiving that our financial condition was in some respects parallel to that of England at the close of the Napoleonic wars, he carefully investigated the conditions, policy, and progress of that Government from the time of Waterloo until the resumption of specie payments. The most remarkable periods of our own financial history were also studied, especially that wherein the great Alexander Hamilton appears the master mind.

These pursuits, and a wide-reaching knowledge of the existing conditions in our own country, were the foundations on which Garfield built the structure of a set of opinions which were then received as good, and which still withstand the test of time.

Garfield was a splendid lawyer. It is only because his course was pushed aside into the great lines of war and of politics that his history is not largely the story of great triumphs at the bar. When he was examined for admission to the bar of Ohio, the lawyers who examined him pronounced his legal knowledge phenomenal for a man to have acquired in the short time he had been reading.

But he never practiced in any court until 1866. In this place there can be mentioned only his first case, in which he argued before the United States Supreme Court. Afterwards he had about thirty cases in that court, and often appeared in State courts. At one time Judge Jeremiah S. Black, a lawyer of National reputation, offered him a partnership. Financially it would have been a good thing for Garfield, but fortunately for his constituents and for the country, he refused. Yet, in the language of Stanley Matthews, now of the U. S. Supreme Court, Mr. Garfield actually ranked “as one of the very best lawyers at the bar of the whole country.”

In 1864, L. P. Milligan, W. A. Bowles, and Stephen Horsey, three citizens of Indiana, were arrested in that State on charges of treason. There was no doubt that they were guilty of the crime. But, unfortunately, they were not tried according to law. No government can long hold such absolute powers as were given to our government during the rebellion, without developing in some degree a carelessness of the forms of law which is fatal to liberty. Indiana was not the scene of war. Her courts, and the United States courts there were open for the prosecution of criminals. Yet these men were arrested by the military department, tried by a military commission, and condemned to be hanged. Lincoln commuted their sentence to imprisonment for life, and they were sent to the State penitentiary. At this juncture a petition was presented to the U. S. Circuit Court for a writ of habeas corpus, to test the legality of these arbitrary proceedings. The judges of that court not agreeing, the points on which they disagreed were certified up to the Supreme Court. These points were:

“1. On the facts stated in said petition and exhibits, ought a writ of habeas corpus to be issued according to the prayer of said petition? 2. On the facts stated in said petition and exhibits, ought the petitioners to be discharged from custody, as in said petition prayed? 3. On the facts stated in said petition and exhibits, had the military commission mentioned therein jurisdiction legally to try and sentence said petitioners in manner and form as in said petition and exhibits is stated?”

This was the case. On March 6, 1866, it was to be argued. The eminent counsel engaged therein were: Hons. Joseph E. McDonald, Jere. S. Black, James A. Garfield, and David D. Field, for petitioners; Hons. Benjamin F. Butler, James Speed, and Henry Stanbery, for the Government.

Garfield had been invited to appear in this case by Mr. Black, who had observed that, although a patriotic friend of the Administration, Garfield had often sternly opposed its tendency to break all restraints of law in the exercise of its powers. So he expected,—and found it true,—that Garfield’s judgment would be with his side of the Milligan case. Of course that was the unpopular side. For Mr. Garfield to defend Milligan and his fellow-traitors would perhaps again endanger his reëlection; but he was not the man to hesitate when he saw himself in the right.