On June 7th, 1864, the Republican convention held at Baltimore, having re-nominated Mr. Lincoln, chose Mr. Johnson for the second place on their ticket. They were inaugurated March 4th, and April 14th the President was assassinated, and within three hours after Lincoln expired Andrew Johnson was president of the United States.

Soon after his inauguration as President of the United States, in the course of a speech on the condition of the country he declared, "the people must understand that treason is the blackest of crimes, and will surely be punished." Now follows the strangest scenes imaginable, coming from such a man as he had always, until now, proved himself to be. As this part of ex-President Johnson's life has been given great prominence, we forbear to speak further in relation to it. We are constrained, however, to say that it was sad to see a man, thus late in life, destroying in a few months a good character, as a citizen, and reputation as an able statesman, which he had been so many years building, and in which he had so eminently succeeded. In 1866 the University of North Carolina conferred upon him the degree of LL.D.

On the 31st of July, 1875, this wonderful man, who had risen from the tailor's bench, to the highest place within the gift of a great nation, then to be disgraced and vanquished at his own bidding, died a disappointed man.



JAMES A. GARFIELD.

Our country probably never produced a character more perfectly rounded, physically, intellectually and morally than that which is presented to us in the person of James A. Garfield, who was born in a log cabin in Cuyahoga county, Ohio, November 19th, 1831.

His childhood was passed in almost complete isolation from social influences, save those which proceeded from his mother. His father had died when James was only eighteen months old, and when old enough to be of any use he was put to work on the farm. The family was very poor, and his services were needed to help 'make both ends meet.' At school, as a little boy, he allowed no one to impose upon him. He is said to have never picked a quarrel, but was sure to resent any indignity with effect, no matter how large a boy the offender happened to be. He attended school during the cold months when it was impossible to be of value on the farm; summers he generally 'worked out,' at one time being a driver-boy on the canal.

He attended school at the Geauga Seminary, where he got through his first term on the absurdly small sum of seventeen dollars. When he returned to school the next term he had but a six pence in his pocket, and this he dropped into the contribution box the next day at church. He made an arrangement with a carpenter in the village to board with him, and have his washing, fuel and light furnished for one dollar and six cents per week. The carpenter was building a house, and Garfield engaged to help him nights and Saturdays. The first Saturday he planed fifty-one boards, and thereby made one dollar and two cents. So the term went, and he returned home, having earned his expenses and AND THREE DOLLARS OVER.

The following winter he taught school at $12 a month and 'boarded around.' In the spring he had $48, and when he returned to school he boarded himself at an expense of thirty-one cents a week. Heretofore, he had supposed a college course beyond him, but meeting a college graduate who explained that it was barely possible for a poor boy to graduate, if he worked and attended alternate years, he determined to try it. After careful calculation Garfield concluded he could get through school within TWELVE YEARS. He accordingly began to lay his plans to graduate. Think of such determination, dear reader, and then see if you can reasonably envy the position attained by Garfield. He appeared as a scholar at Hiram, a new school of his own denomination, in 1851. Here he studied all the harder, as he now had an object in life. Returning home he taught a school, then returned to college, and attended the spring term. During the summer he helped build a house in the village, he himself planning all the lumber for the siding, and shingling the roof. Garfield was now quite a scholar, especially in the languages, and upon his return to Hiram he was made a tutor, and thenceforward he worked both as a pupil and teacher, doing a tremendous amount of work to fit himself for college. When he came to Hiram he started on the preparatory course, to enter college, expecting it would take four years. Deciding now to enter some eastern institution, he wrote a letter to the president of each of the leading colleges in the east, telling them how far he had progressed. They all replied that he could enter the junior year, and thus graduate in two years from his entrance. He had accomplished the preparatory course, generally requiring four solid years, and had advanced two years on his college course. He had crowded six years into three, beside supporting himself. If ever a man was worthy of success Garfield was. He decided to enter Williams College, where he graduated in 1856, thus came that institution to grasp the honor of giving to the United States of America one of our most popular presidents. The grasp of the mind of Garfield, even at this early period, can be seen by glancing at the title of his essay, "The Seen and the Unseen." He next became a professor; later, principal of the college at Hiram.

In the old parties Garfield had little interest, but when the Republican party was formed he became deeply interested, and became somewhat noted as a stump orator for Fremont and Dayton. In 1860 he was sent to the State senate, and while there began preparation for the legal profession, and in 1861 was admitted to the bar. The war broke out about this time, which prevented his opening an office, and he was commissioned a colonel, finally a major-general. His career in the army was brief, but very brilliant, and he returned home to go to Congress. In Washington his legislative career was very successful. He proved to be an orator of no mean degree of ability, his splendid education made him an acknowledged scholar, and he soon became known as one of the ablest debaters in Congress, serving on some of the leading committees.

When Ohio sent her delegation to the Republican National Convention, of 1880, pledged for Sherman, Garfield was selected as spokesman. His speech, when he presented the name of John Sherman, coming, as it did, when all was feverish excitement, must be acknowledged as a master-piece of the scholarly oratory of which he was master. Conkling had just delivered one in favor of Grant, the effect of which was wonderful. The Grant delegates 'pooled' the flags, which marked their seats, marched around the aisles and cheered and yelled as if they were dwellers in Bedlam, just home after a long absence. Fully twenty minutes this went on, and Mr. Hoar, the president of the convention after vainly trying to restore order gave up in despair, sat down, and calmly allowed disorder to tire itself out.

At last it ceases, Ohio is called, a form arises near the center of the middle aisle, and moves toward the stage amid the clapping of thousands of hands, which increases as General Garfield mounts the same platform upon which Senator Conkling has so lately stood. In speaking he is not so restless as was Conkling, but speaking deliberately he appeals to the judgment of the masses, as follows:

"Mr. President: I have witnessed the extraordinary scenes of this convention with deep solicitude. No emotion touches my heart more quickly than a sentiment in honor of a great and noble character. But, as I sat on these seats and witnessed these demonstrations, it seemed to me you were a human ocean in a tempest. I have seen the sea lashed into a fury and tossed into a spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man. But I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea from which all heights and depths are measured. When the storm had passed and the hour of calm settles on the ocean, when sunlight bathes its smooth surface, then the astronomer and surveyor takes the level from which he measures all terrestrial heights and depths. Gentlemen of the convention, your present temper may not mark the healthful pulse of our people. When our enthusiasm has passed, when the emotions of this hour have subsided, we shall find the calm level of public opinion below the storm from which the thoughts of a mighty people are to be measured, and by which their final action will be determined. Not here, in this brilliant circle where fifteen thousand men and women are assembled, is the destiny of the Republic to be decreed; not here, where I see the enthusiastic faces of seven hundred and fifty-six delegates waiting to cast their votes into the urn and determine the choice of their party; but by four million Republican firesides, where the thoughtful fathers, with wives and children about them, with the calm thoughts inspired by love of home and love of country, with the history of the past, the hopes of the future, and the knowledge of the great men who have adorned and blessed our nation in days gone by—there God prepares the verdict that shall determine the wisdom of our work to-night. Not in Chicago in the heat of June, but in the sober quiet that comes between now and November, in the silence of deliberate judgment will this great question be settled. Let us aid them to-night.

"But now, gentlemen of the convention, what do we want? Bear with me a moment. Hear me for this cause, and, for a moment, be silent that you may hear. Twenty-five years ago this Republic was wearing a triple chain of bondage. Long familiarity with traffic in the bodies and souls of men had paralyzed the consciences of a majority of our people. The baleful doctrine of State sovereignty had shocked and weakened the noblest and most beneficent powers of the national government, and the grasping power of slavery was seizing the virgin territories of the West and dragging them into the den of eternal bondage. At that crisis the Republican party was born. It drew its first inspiration from that fire of liberty which God has lighted in every man's heart, and which all the powers of ignorance and tyranny can never wholly extinguish. The Republican party came to deliver and save the Republic. It entered the arena when the beleaguered and assailed territories were struggling for freedom, and drew around them the sacred circle of liberty which the demon of slavery has never dared to cross. It made them free forever. Strengthened by its victory on the frontier, the young party, under the leadership of that great man who, on this spot, twenty years ago, was made its leader, entered the national capitol and assumed the high duties of the government. The light which shone from its banner dispelled the darkness in which slavery had enshrouded the capitol, and melted the shackles of every slave, and consumed, in the fire of liberty, every slave-pen within the shadow of the capitol. Our national industries, by an impoverishing policy, were themselves prostrated, and the streams of revenue flowed in such feeble currents that the treasury itself was well-nigh empty. The money of the people was the wretched notes of two thousand uncontrolled and irresponsible State banking corporations, which were filling the country with a circulation that poisoned rather than sustained the life of business. The Republican party changed all this. It abolished the babel of confusion, and gave the country a currency as national as its flag, based upon the sacred faith of the people. It threw its protecting arm around our great industries, and they stood erect as with new life. It filled with the spirit of true nationality all the great functions of the government. It confronted a rebellion of unexampled magnitude, with slavery behind it, and, under God, fought the final battle of liberty until victory was won. Then, after the storms of battle, were heard the sweet, calm words of peace uttered by the conquering nation, and saying to the conquered foe that lay prostrate at its feet: 'This is our only refuge, that you join us in lifting to the serene firmament of the Constitution, to shine like stars for ever and ever, the immortal principles of truth and justice, that all men, white or black, shall be free and stand equal before the law.'

"Then came the question of reconstruction, the public debt, and the public faith. In the settlement of the questions the Republican party has completed its twenty-five years of glorious existence, and it has sent us here to prepare it for another lustrum of duty and victory. How shall we do this great work? We cannot do it, my friends, by assailing our Republican brethren. God forbid that I should say one word to cast a shadow upon any name on the roll of our heroes. This coming fight is our Thermopylae. We are standing upon a narrow isthmus. If our Spartan hosts are united, we can withstand all the Persians that the Xerxes of Democracy can bring against us. Let us hold our ground this one year, for the stars in their courses fight for us in the future. The census taken this year will bring re-enforcements and continued power. But in order to win this victory now, we want the vote of every Republican, of every Grant Republican, and every anti-Grant Republican in America, of every Blaine man and every anti-Blaine man. The vote of every follower of every candidate is needed to make our success certain; therefore, I say, gentlemen and brethren, we are here to take calm counsel together, and inquire what we shall do. We want a man whose life and opinions embody all the achievements of which I have spoken. We want a man who, standing on a mountain height, sees all the achievements of our past history, and carries in his heart the memory of all its glorious deeds, and who, looking forward, prepares to meet the labor and the dangers to come. We want one who will act in no spirit of unkindness toward those we lately met in battle. The Republican party offers to our brethren of the South the olive branch of peace, and wishes them to return to brotherhood, on this supreme condition, that it shall be admitted forever and forevermore, that, in the war for the Union, we were right and they were wrong. On that supreme condition we meet them as brethren, and on no other. We ask them to share with us the blessings and honors of this great republic.

"Now, gentlemen, not to weary you, I am about to present a name for your consideration—the name of a man who was the comrade and associate and friend of nearly all those noble dead whose faces look down upon us from these walls to-night, a man who began his career of public service twenty-five years ago, whose first duty was courageously done in the days of peril on the plains of Kansas, when the first red drops of that bloody shower began to fall, which finally swelled into the deluge of war. He bravely stood by young Kansas then, and, returning to his duty in the National Legislature, through all subsequent time his pathway has been marked by labors performed in every department of legislation. You ask for his monuments. I point you to twenty-five years of national statutes. Not one great beneficent statute has been placed in our statute books without his intelligent and powerful aid. He aided these men to formulate the laws that raised our great armies and carried us through the war. His hand was seen in the workmanship of those statutes that restored and brought back the unity and married calm of the States. His hand was in all that great legislation that created the war currency, and in a still greater work that redeemed the promises of the Government, and made the currency equal to gold. And when at last called from the halls of legislation into a high executive office, he displayed that experience, intelligence, firmness and poise of character which has carried us through a stormy period of three years. With one-half the public press crying 'crucify him,' and a hostile Congress seeking to prevent success, in all this he remained unmoved until victory crowned him. The great fiscal affairs of the nation, and the great business interests of the country he has guarded and preserved while executing the law of resumption and effecting its object without a jar and against the false prophecies of one-half of the press and all the Democracy of this continent. He has shown himself able to meet with calmness the great emergencies of the Government for twenty-five years. He has trodden the perilous heights of public duty, and against all the shafts of malice has borne his breast unharmed. He has stood in the blaze of 'that fierce light that beats against the throne,' but its fiercest ray has found no flaw in his armor, no stain on his shield. I do not present him as a better Republican or as better man than thousands of others we honor, but I present him for your deliberate consideration. I nominate John Sherman, of Ohio."

The speech was over, its effect was like oil upon troubled waters. When the balloting began a single delegate only voted for Garfield. The fight was between Grant, Blaine, Sherman and Edmunds; Windom and others were waiting the possibility of a compromise. Garfield managed Sherman's forces. He meant to keep his favorite in the field, in vain trying to win over Blaine's followers. On the thirty-fourth ballot the Wisconsin delegation determined to make a break, and hence put forth an effort in an entirely new direction, casting their entire seventeen votes for Garfield. The General arose and declined to receive the vote, but the chairman ruled otherwise, and on the next ballot the Indiana delegation swung over. On the thirty-sixth ballot he was nominated. Then followed his canvass and election.

Time flew, and he was about to join his old friends at Willams' College, when an assassin stealthily crept up and shot him from behind, as dastardly assassins and cowardly knaves generally do. The whole country was thrown into a feverish heat of excitement between this cowardly act and the president's death, which occurred two months later. Thus, after a struggle for recognition, which had won the admiration of the world, he was snatched from the pleasure of enjoying the fruits of his toil, and from the people who needed his service. Like Lincoln, he had come from the people, he belonged to the people, and by his own right hand had won the first place among fifty millions of people. Like Lincoln, he was stricken down when his country expected the most of him, stricken in the very prime of life. Like Lincoln, when that enjoyment for which he had labored was about to crown his efforts; and like Lincoln, it could not be said of him he lived in vain.



CHESTER A. ARTHUR.

Chester Allan Arthur's career, like that of thousands of other Americans, illustrates the truth that wealth, high social position and all the advantages with which fortune and affection can surround the young are not essential to their success and prosperity in professional, business or public life. In fact, too often they tend to enervate both mind and body, and thus prove in reality obstacles to attaining true and worthy manhood.

Mr. Arthur, like Lincoln, Grant, Garfield and others who preceded him in the presidential office, hewed his own way upward and onward from a discouraging beginning.

He was born in Fairfield, Franklin county, Vermont, October 5th, 1830. He was the eldest son of the Rev. William Arthur, a Baptist clergyman, having a large family and a modest income. The Rev. Mr. Arthur was born in Ireland, and came to this country when eighteen years of age. He is remembered as a man of great force of character, sturdy piety and a faithful and earnest Christian minister. He had few worldly benefits to bestow upon his children, but he implanted deep into their minds principles governing their actions which were never effaced.

As a lad, Mr. Arthur was trained in the public schools accessible to him, and by his father's aid, fitted himself for college, entering Union when fifteen years old, and graduating with high honors in 1848. The Hon. Frederick W. Seward, who was in the class next below young Arthur, says of his school days: "Chet, as we all called him, was the most popular boy in his class. He was always genial and cheerful, a good scholar, and apt in debate." To aid in defraying his expenses, Chester taught country schools during parts of two winters, but kept pace with his class while absent, showing his independence of spirit, and his zeal to acquire an education.

Mr. Arthur's preference turned toward the law, and after a course in Fowler's law school at Ballston, he went to New York city; became a law student in the office of Erastus D. Culver, and was admitted to the bar in 1852. Mr. Culver showed his confidence in his promising student by taking him into partnership. Mr. Culver was soon elected civil judge of Brooklyn, and the partnership was dissolved. Mr. Arthur then formed a partnership with Henry D. Gardiner, with a view to practicing in some growing Western city. The young lawyers went West and spent three months in prospecting for a locality to suit their taste, but not finding it, they returned to New York, hired an office, and before long had a good business. The most noted cases in which Mr. Arthur appeared in his early career as a lawyer, were the Lemmon slave case, and the suit of Lizzie Jennings, a fugitive slave, whose liberty he secured, and a colored lady, a superintendent of a Sunday-School for colored children, who was ejected from a Fourth Avenue horse-car, after her fare had been accepted by the conductor, because a white passenger objected to her presence.

In the first case he was largely instrumental in establishing a precedent, setting forth the theory that slaves brought into free territory, were at liberty. In the second case, he obtained a verdict of $500.00 damages in favor of the colored woman as against the company. The establishment of this precedent caused the street railroad companies of the city to issue an order that colored persons should be allowed to travel in their cars. Thus did Chester A. Arthur obtain equal civil rights for negroes in public vehicles.

In 1859 he married Miss Ellen Lewis Herndon, of Fredericksburg, Virginia; daughter of Captain William Lewis Herndon, United States Navy, who went bravely to his death in 1857, sinking with his ship, the Central America, refusing to leave his post of duty, though he helped secure the safety of others. Mrs. Arthur was a devoted wife, and a woman of many accomplishments. She died in January, 1880, and lies buried in the Albany Rural Cemetery.

Mr. Arthur took a lively interest in politics, and was first a Henry Clay Whig, but later helped to form the Republican party. He held several offices in the militia prior to 1860, and when Edwin D. Morgan became governor of the State in 1860, he made Mr. Arthur a member of his staff, promoting him from one position to another until he became quarter-master general. The duties of this post were most arduous and exacting. To promptly equip, supply and forward the thousands of troops sent to the front to defend the Union was a task demanding the highest executive ability and rare organizing skill, besides the greatest precision in receiving, disbursing and accounting for the public funds. Millions of dollars passed through his hands; he had the letting of enormous contracts, and opportunities, without number, by which he might have enriched himself. But he was true to himself and to his trust. So implicit was the confidence reposed in him that his accounts were audited at Washington without question or deduction, though the claims of many States were disallowed, to the extent of millions. He left the office poorer than when he entered it, but with the proud satisfaction of knowing that all the world esteemed him as an honest man.

From 1863 to 1871 General Arthur successfully engaged in the practice of law in New York. November 20th, 1871, he was appointed collector of the port of New York, and re-appointed in 1875. The second appointment was confirmed by the Senate without reference to a committee, the usual course, the fact being highly complimentary, and testifying to the high opinion held by the Senate regarding his official record. He was suspended by President Hayes, though no reflection upon his official conduct was made. He again returned to the practice of law, though taking an energetic part in politics, serving several years as chairman of the Republican State Committee. General Arthur, in the campaign of 1880, was an ardent supporter of Grant before the National Convention, being one of the famous "306" who voted for Grant to the last.

His nomination for Vice President was as much a surprise as that of Garfield for the first place on the ticket. He had not been mentioned as a candidate, and his own delegation had not thought of presenting his name until the roll was called in the Convention. When New York was reached in the call the delegation asked to be excused from voting for a time. Then General Stewart L. Woodford cast the vote for Arthur. The tide quickly turned. The Ohio men were disposed to be conciliatory, and swung over to Arthur, who was nominated on the first ballot. The incidents that followed the inauguration of Garfield and himself as President and Vice-President; the unhappy differences that led to the resignation of Senators Conkling and Platt; the strife over the election of their successors; the assassination and death of President Garfield, and the accession to the presidency of General Arthur. These form a chapter in our political history, with the details of which we are all familiar, and are not likely to soon be forgotten.

It was under the most unfavorable circumstances that Chester A. Arthur assumed the office of President; the people's passion over the death of the second President of the United States, to fall by an assassin's hand, was intense; factional feeling in his own party was bitter and apparently irreconcilable; when the popular mind was filled with dreadful forebodings as to the future; but he exhibited a gravity, a reticence, an affability, and a firmness which commanded the respect of conservative men of all parties. Not only was he the most successful—perhaps the only successful—Vice-President elevated to the Presidency by the death of the President, but he is worthy to be counted among the most serviceable of the Presidents.

Peace and prosperity were promoted by his administration. Ex-President Chester A. Arthur died at his residence in New York city, November 18th, 1886. He leaves as surviving members of his family two children, Chester Allan, a young man of twenty-two years, and Miss Nellie, just budding into womanhood. At the age of fifty-six, without elaborate display, he was quietly laid beside his wife in Rural Cemetery.



JOHN A. LOGAN.

"I entered the field to die, if need be, for this government and never expect to return to peaceful pursuits until the object of this war of preservation has become a fact established." Thus spoke John A. Logan in 1862, when asked to return home from the field and become a candidate for Congress.

General Logan was born February 9th, 1826, in Murphysboro, Illinois, and was the eldest of eleven children. He received his education in the common schools and in Shiloh Academy.

The Mexican war broke out when young Logan was but twenty years of age, and he at once enlisted and was made a lieutenant in one of the Illinois regiments. He returned home in 1848 with an excellent military record, and commenced the study of law in the office of his uncle, Alexander M. Jenkins, who had formerly been lieutenant-governor of the State.

In 1844, before he had completed his law course, he was elected clerk of Jackson county, and at the expiration of his term of office went to Louisville, Kentucky, where he attended law lectures, and was admitted to the bar in the spring of 1851. In the fall of the same year he was elected to represent Jackson and Franklin counties in the legislature, and from that time has been almost uninterruptedly in the public service, either civil or military.

He was twice elected to the legislature, and in 1854 was a Democratic presidential elector, and cast his vote for James Buchanan.

The year of 1860—the year of the great Lincoln campaign—saw Logan serving his second term in Congress as the representative of the Ninth Illinois Congressional District. Mr. Logan was then a Democrat and an ardent supporter of Stephen A. Douglas, Mr. Lincoln's opponent. On the floor of Congress he several times in 1860 and 1861 attacked the course of the Southern members.

The war came at last, and Logan was one of the first to enter the Union army. He resigned his seat in Congress in July, 1861, for that purpose, and took a brave part in the first battle of Bull Run. He personally raised the Thirty-first Illinois Regiment of Infantry, and was elected its colonel. The regiment was mustered into service on September 13th, 1861, was attached to General M'Clernand's brigade, and seven weeks later was under a hot fire at Belmont. During this fight Logan had a horse shot from under him, and was conspicuous in his gallantry in a fierce bayonet charge which he personally led. The Thirty-first, under Logan, quickly became known as a fighting regiment, and distinguished itself at the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson. In this last engagement Logan was severely wounded, and for many weeks unfitted for duty. During his confinement in the hospital his brave wife, with great tact and energy, got through the lines to his bedside, and nursed him until he was able to take the field once more.

"Logan was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General of Volunteers soon after reporting for duty. This was in March, 1862, and he was soon after hotly engaged in Grant's Mississippi campaign. In the following year he was asked to return home and go to congress again, but declined with an emphatic statement that he was in the war to stay until he was either disabled or peace was established. Eight months after his promotion to the rank of Brigadier-General he was made a Major-General for exceptional bravery and skill, and was put in command of the Third Division of the Seventeenth Army Corps, under General M'Pherson. After passing through the hot fights of Raymond and Port Gibson, he led the center of General M'Pherson's command at the siege of Vicksburg, and his column was the first to enter the city after the surrender. He was made the Military Governor of the captured city, and his popularity with the Seventeenth Corps was so great that a gold medal was given to him as a testimonial of the attachment felt for him by the men he led.

"In the following year he led the Army of the Tennessee on the right of Sherman's great march to the sea. He was in the battles of Resaca and the Little Kenesaw Mountain, and in the desperate engagement of Peach Tree Creek where General M'Pherson fell. The death of M'Pherson threw the command upon Logan, and the close of the bitter engagement which ensued saw 8,000 dead Confederates on the field, while the havoc in the Union lines had been correspondingly great.

"After the fall of Atlanta, which occurred on the 2nd of September, General Logan returned to the North, and took a vigorous part in the Western States in the campaign which resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln for the second time to the presidency. He rejoined his command at Savannah, and was with it until the surrender of Johnson, after which he went with the army to Washington.

"His military career ended with his nomination in 1866 by the Republicans of Illinois to represent the State as Congressman at-large in the Fortieth Congress. He was elected by 60,000 majority. He was one of the managers on the part of the House of Representatives in the impeachment proceedings which were instituted against Johnson. In 1868 and 1870 he was re-elected to the House, but before he had finished his term under the last election he was elected to the United States Senate to succeed Senator Yates. The last term for which he was elected expires in 1891.

"He took an active part in the last presidential campaign, when he and Mr. Blaine were the candidates on the presidential ticket, and had a strong influence in holding the soldier vote fast in the Republican ranks."

Mr. Logan's views in regard to the immortality of the soul was clearly expressed in a speech delivered at the tomb of General Grant on Memorial Day, 1886:

"Was any American soldier immolated upon a blind law of his country? Not one! Every soldier in the Union ranks, whether in the regular army or not, was in the fullest sense a member of the great, the imperishable, the immortal army of American volunteers. These gallant spirits now lie in untimely sepulcher. No more will they respond to the fierce blast of the bugle or the call to arms. But let us believe that they are not dead, but sleeping! Look at the patient caterpillar as he crawls on the ground, liable to be crushed by every careless foot that passes. He heeds no menace, and turns from no dangers. Regardless of circumstances, he treads his daily round, avoided by the little child sporting upon the sward. He has work, earnest work, to perform, from which he will not be turned, even at the forfeit of his life. Reaching his appointed place, he ceases even to eat, and begins to spin those delicate fibres which, woven into fabrics of beauty and utility, contribute to the comfort and adornment of a superior race. His work done, he lies down to the sleep from which he never wakes in the old form. But that silent, motionless body is not dead; an astonishing metamorphosis is taking place. The gross digestive apparatus dwindles away; the three pairs of legs, which served the creature to crawl upon the ground, are exchanged for six pairs suited to a different purpose; the skin is cast; the form is changed; a pair of wings, painted like the morning flowers, spring out, and presently the ugly worm that trailed its slow length through the dust is transformed into the beautiful butterfly, basking in the bright sunshine, the envy of the child and the admiration of the man. Is there no appeal in this wonderful and enchanting fact to man's highest reason? Does it contain no suggestion that man, representing the highest pinnacle of created life upon the globe, must undergo a final metamorphosis, as supremely more marvelous and more spiritual, as man is greater in physical conformation, and far removed in mental construction from the humble worm that at the call of nature straightway leaves the ground, and soars upon the gleeful air? Is the fact not a thousand-fold more convincing than the assurance of the poet:

"It must be so; Plato, thou reasonest well; Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality? Or whence this dread secret and inward horror Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us; 'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man, Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought."

"On December 26th, 1886, the strong man succumbed to rheumatism. His death was a great shock to his numerous friends throughout the Union, and he was mourned by a great and mighty nation. From the lowly ranks to whom he belonged by birth, to the most exalted circles, the sympathy for the bereaved was genuine."



JAMES G. BLAINE.

Few men are more prominently placed before the vision of a mighty nation to-day than James G. Blaine. Born in obscurity, he possesses traits of character which are peculiar to himself; they differ widely from that of any statesman who ever spoke in the legislative halls at Washington.

Colleges, of themselves, make no man great. An 'educated idiot' will never make a statesman, notwithstanding the too prevalent notion that the possession of a diploma should entitle any one to a place in our social aristocracy. The great, active, relentless, human world gives a man a place of real influence, and crowns him as truly great for what he really is; and will not care a fig for any college certificate. If the young man is determined to succeed in the world then a college is a help. The trouble is not in the college, but in the man. He should regard the college as a means to attain a result, not the result of itself. The question the great busy world asks the claimant is: What can he do? If the claimant enter school determined to succeed, even if he sleeps but four to six hours out of the twenty-four, he will be benefited. However, study like that of Webster, by New Hampshire pine knots; and like Garfield's, by a wood-pile; generally proves valuable. Blaine's life is thus beautifully described by his biographer:—

"James Gillespie Blaine, the subject of this biography, was born January 31st, 1830. His father, Ephraim L. Blaine, and his mother, Maria Gillespie, still lived in their two-story house on the banks of the Monongahela. No portentious events, either in nature or public affairs, marked his advent. A few neighbors with generous interest and sympathy extended their aid and congratulations. The tops of the hills and the distant Alleghanies were white with snow, but the valley was bare and brown, and the swollen river swept the busy ferry-boat from shore to shore with marked emphasis, as old acquaintances repeated the news of the day, 'Blaine has another son.'"

Another soul clothed in humanity; another cry; increased care in one little home. That was all. It seems so sad in this, the day of his fame and power, that the mother who, with such pain and misgiving, prayer and noble resolutions, saw his face for the first time should now be sleeping in the church-yard. In the path that now leads by her grave, she had often paused before entering the shadowy gates of the weather-beaten Catholic church, and calmed her anxious fears that she might devoutly worship God and secure the answer to her prayer for her child.

It seems strange now, in the light of other experiences, that no tradition or record of a mother's prophecy concerning the future greatness of her son comes down to us from that birthday, or from his earliest years. But the old European customs and prejudices of her Irish and Scottish ancestry seem to have lingered with sufficient force to still give the place of social honor and to found the parent's hopes on the first-born. To all concerned it was a birth of no special significance. Outside of the family it was a matter of no moment. Births were frequent. The Brownsville people heard of it, and passed on to forget, as a ripple in the Monongahela flashes on the careless sight for a moment, then the river rolls on as before. Ephraim Blaine was proud of another son; the little brother and the smaller sister hailed a new brother. The mother, with a deep joy which escaped not in words, looked onward and tried to read the future when the flood of years should have carried her new treasure from her arms. That flood has swept over her now, and all her highest hopes and ambition is filled, but she seems not to hear the church bells that ring nor the cannon that bellow at the sound of his name.

"All his early childhood years were spent about his home playing in the well-kept yard gazing at the numerous boats that so frequently went puffing by. For a short time the family moved to the old Gillespie House further up the river, and some of the inhabitants say that at one time, while some repairs were going on, they resided at the old homestead of Neal Gillespie, back from the river, on Indian Hill."

At seventeen he graduated from school and, his father, losing what little property he did have, young Blaine was thrown upon his own resources. But it is often the best thing possible for a young man to be thus tossed over-board, and be compelled to sink or swim. It develops a self-reliant nature. He secured employment as a teacher, and into this calling he threw his whole soul. Thus he became a success as an educator at Blue Lick Springs. He next went to Philadelphia, and for two years was the principal teacher of the boys in the Philadelphia Institution for instruction of the blind. When he left that institution he left behind him a universal regret at a serious loss incurred, but an impression of his personal force upon the work of that institution which it is stated, on good authority, is felt to this day. Mr. Chapin, the principal, one day said, as he took from a desk in the corner of the school-room a thick quarto manuscript book, bound in dark leather and marked 'Journal:' "Now, I will show you something that illustrates how thoroughly Mr. Blaine mastered anything he took hold of. This book Mr. Blaine compiled with great labor from the minute-books of the Board of Managers. It is a historical view of the institution from the time of its foundation, up to the time of Mr. Blaine's departure. He did all the work in his own room, telling no one of it till he left. Then he presented it, through me, to the Board of Managers who were both surprised and gratified. I believe they made him a present of $100 as a thank-offering for an invaluable work." The book illustrates one great feature in the success of Mr. Blaine. It is clear, and indicates his mastery of facts in whatever he undertook, and his orderly presentation of facts in detail. The fact that no one knew of it until the proper time, when its effect would be greatest, shows that he naturally possesses a quality that is almost indispensable to the highest attainment of success.

He left Philadelphia for Augusta, Maine, where he became editor of the Kennebec Journal. While editor and member of his State legislature, he laid the foundation which prepared him to step at once to the front, when in 1862 he was sent to the National Congress, when the country was greatly agitated over the Five-twenty bonds, and how they should be redeemed. Mr. Blaine spoke as follows:

"But, now, Mr. Speaker, suppose for the sake of argument, we admit that the Government may fairly and legally pay the Five-twenty bonds in paper currency, what then? I ask the gentleman from Massachusetts to tell us, what then? It is easy, I know, to issue as many greenbacks as will pay the maturing bonds, regardless of the effect upon the inflation of prices, and the general derangement of business. Five hundred millions of Five-twenties are now payable, and according to the easy mode suggested, all we have to do is set the printing-presses in motion, and 'so long as rags and lampblack hold out' we need have no embarrassment about paying our National Debt. But the ugly question recurs, what are you going to do with the greenbacks thus put afloat? Five hundred millions this year, and eleven hundred millions more on this theory of payment by the year 1872; so that within the period of four or five years we would have added to our paper money the thrilling inflation of sixteen hundred millions of dollars. We should all have splendid times doubtless! Wheat, under the new dispensation, ought to bring twenty dollars a bushel, and boots would not be worth more than two hundred dollars a pair, and the farmers of our country would be as well off as Santa Anna's rabble of Mexican soldiers, who were allowed ten dollars a day for their services and charged eleven for their rations and clothing. The sixteen hundred millions of greenbacks added to the amount already issued would give us some twenty-three hundred millions of paper money, and I suppose the theory of the new doctrine would leave this mass permanently in circulation, for it would hardly be consistent to advocate the redemption of the greenbacks in gold after having repudiated and foresworn our obligation on the bonds.

"But if it be intended to redeem the legal tenders in gold, what will have been the net gain to the Government in the whole transaction? If any gentleman will tell me, I shall be glad to learn how it will be easier to pay sixteen hundred millions in gold in the redemption of greenbacks, than to pay the same amount in the redemption of Five-twenty bonds? The policy advocated, it seems to me, has only two alternatives—the one to ruinously inflate the currency and leave it so, reckless of results; the other to ruinously inflate the currency at the outset, only to render redemption in gold far more burdensome in the end.

"I know it may be claimed, that the means necessary to redeem the Five-twenties in greenbacks may be realized by a new issue of currency bonds to be placed on the market. Of results in the future every gentleman has the right to his own opinion, and all may alike indulge in speculation. But it does seem to me that the Government would be placed in awkward attitude when it should enter the market to negotiate the loan, the avails of which were to be devoted to breaking faith with those who already held its most sacred obligations! What possible security would the new class of creditors have, that when their debts were matured some new form of evasion would be resorted to by which they in turn would be deprived of their just and honest dues?

"Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus would supply the ready form of protest against trusting a Government with a new loan when it had just ignored its plain obligation on an old one.

"Payment of the Five-twenty bonds in paper currency involves therefore a limitless issue of greenbacks, with attendant evils of gigantic magnitude and far-reaching consequence. And the worse evil of the whole is the delusion which calls this a payment at all. It is no payment in any proper sense, for it neither gives the creditor what he is entitled to, nor does it release the debtor from subsequent responsibility. You may get rid of the Five-twenty by issuing the greenback, but how will you get rid of the greenback except by paying gold? The only escape from ultimate payment of gold is to declare that as a nation we permanently and finally renounce all idea of ever attaining a specie standard—that we launch ourselves on an ocean of paper money without shore or sounding, with no rudder to guide us and no compass to steer by. And this is precisely what is involved if we adopt this mischievous suggestion of 'a new way to pay old debts.' Our fate in attempting such a course may be easily read in the history of similar follies both in Europe and in our own country. Prostration of credit, financial disaster, widespread distress among all classes of the community, would form the closing scenes in our career of gratuitous folly and national dishonor. And from such an abyss of sorrow and humiliation, it would be a painful and toilsome effort to regain as sound a position in our finances as we are asked voluntarily to abandon to-day.

"The remedy for our financial troubles, Mr. Speaker, will not be found in a superabundance of depreciated paper currency. It lies in the opposite direction—and the sooner the nation finds itself on a specie basis, the sooner will the public treasury be freed from embarrassment, and private business relieved from discouragement. Instead, therefore, of entering upon a reckless and boundless issue of legal tenders, with their consequent depression if not destruction of value, let us set resolutely to work and make those already in circulation equal to so many gold dollars. When that result shall be accomplished, we can proceed to pay our Five-twenties either in coin or paper, for the one would be equivalent to the other. But to proceed deliberately on a scheme of depreciating our legal tenders and then forcing the holders of Government bonds to accept them in payment, would resemble in point of honor, the policy of a merchant who, with abundant resources and prosperous business, should devise a plan for throwing discredit on his own notes with the view of having them bought up at a discount, ruinous to the holders and immensely profitable to his own knavish pocket. This comparison may faintly illustrate the wrongfulness of the policy, but not its consummate folly—for in the case of the Government, unlike the merchant, the stern necessity would recur of making good in the end, by the payment of hard coin, all the discount that might be gained by the temporary substitution of paper.

"Discarding all such schemes as at once unworthy and unprofitable, let us direct our policy steadily, but not rashly, toward the resumption of specie payment. And when we have attained that end—easily attainable at no distant day if the proper policy be pursued—we can all unite on some honorable plan for the redemption of the Five-twenty bonds, and the issuing instead thereof, a new series of bonds which can be more favorably placed at a low rate of interest. When we shall have reached the specie basis, the value of United States securities will be so high in the money market of the world, that we can command our own terms. We can then call in our Five-twenties according to the very letter and spirit of the bond, and adjust a new loan that will be eagerly sought for by capitalists, and will be free from those elements of discontent that in some measure surround the existing Funded debt of the country.

"As to the particular measures of legislation requisite to hasten the resumption of specie payment, gentlemen equally entitled to respect may widely differ; but there is one line of policy conducive thereto on which we all ought to agree; and that is on a serious reduction of the government expenses and a consequent lightening of the burdens of taxation. The interest-bearing debt of the United States, when permanently funded, will not exceed twenty-one hundred millions of dollars, imposing an annual interest of about one hundred and twenty-five millions. Our other expenses, including War, Navy, the Pension list, and the Civil list, ought not to exceed one hundred millions; so that if we raise two hundred and fifty millions from Customs and Internal Revenue combined, we should have twenty-five millions annual surplus to apply to the reduction of the Public debt. But to attain this end we must mend our ways, and practice an economy far more consistent and severe than any we have attempted in the past. Our Military peace establishment must be reduced one-half at least, and our Naval appropriations correspondingly curtailed; and innumerable leaks and gaps and loose ends, that have so long attended our government expenditure, must be taken up and stopped. If such a policy be pursued by Congress, neither the principal of the debt, nor the interest of the debt, nor the annual expenses of government, will be burdensome to the people. We can raise two hundred and fifty millions of revenue on the gold basis, and at the same time have a vast reduction in our taxes. And we can do this without repudiation in any form, either open or covert, avowed or indirect, but with every obligation of the government fulfilled and discharged in its exact letter and in its generous spirit.

"And this, Mr. Speaker, we shall do. Our national honor demands it; our national interest equally demands it. We have vindicated our claim to the highest heroism on a hundred bloody battle-fields, and have stopped at no sacrifice of life needful to the maintenance of our national integrity. I am sure that in the peace which our arms have conquered, we shall not dishonor ourselves by withholding from any public creditor a dollar that we promised to pay him, nor seek, by cunning construction and clever afterthought, to evade or escape the full responsibility of our national indebtedness. It will doubtless cost us a vast sum to pay that indebtedness—but it would cost us incalculably more not to pay it."

This speech, here referred to, occurring, as it did when the ablest speakers were interested, was pronounced as a marvel. The great rows of figures which he gave, but which space will not allow us to give, illustrates the man, and his thorough mastery of all great public questions. He never enters a debate unless fully prepared; if not already prepared, he prepares himself. His reserve power is wonderful. What a feature of success is reserve power.

In 1876 occurred one of the most remarkable contests ever known in Congress. The debate began upon the proposition to grant a general amnesty to all those who had engaged in the Southern war on the side of the Confederacy; of course this would include Mr. Davis. Hon. Benjamin H. Hill, of Georgia, one of the ablest Congressmen in the South, met Mr. Blaine on the question. As space will not permit us to go into detail at all as we would like to, we give simply an extract from one of Mr. Blaine's replies:

"I am very frank to say that in regard to all these gentlemen, save one, I do not know of any reason why amnesty should not be granted to them as it has been to many others of the same class. I am not here to argue against it. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Kasson) suggests 'on their application.' I am coming to that. But as I have said, seeing in this list, as I have examined it with some care, no gentleman to whom I think there would be any objection, since amnesty has already become so general—and I am not going back of that question to argue it—I am in favor of granting it to them. But in the absence of this respectful form of application which, since May 22d, 1872, has become a sort of common law as preliminary to amnesty, I simply wish to put in that they shall go before a United States Court, and in open court, with uplifted hand, swear that they mean to conduct themselves as good citizens of the United States. That is all.

"Now, gentlemen may say that this is a foolish exaction. Possibly it is. But somehow or other I have a prejudice in favor of it. And there are some petty points in it that appeal as well to prejudice as to conviction. For one, I do not want to impose citizenship on any gentlemen. If I am correctly informed, and I state it only on rumor, there are some gentlemen in this list who have spoken contemptuously of the idea of their taking citizenship, and have spoken still more contemptuously of the idea of their applying for citizenship. I may state it wrongly, and if I do, I am willing to be corrected, but I understand that Mr. Robert Toombs has, on several occasions, at watering-places, both in this country and in Europe, stated that he would not ask the United States for citizenship.

"Very well; we can stand it about as well as Mr. Robert Toombs can. And if Mr. Robert Toombs is not prepared to go into a court of the United States and swear that he means to be a good citizen, let him stay out. I do not think that the two Houses of Congress should convert themselves into a joint convention for the purpose of embracing Mr. Robert Toombs, and gushingly request him to favor us by coming back to accept of all the honors of citizenship. That is the whole. All I ask is that each of these gentlemen shall show his good faith by coming forward and taking the oath which you on that side of the House, and we on this side of the House, and all of us take, and gladly take. It is a very small exaction to make as a preliminary to full restoration to all the rights of citizenship.

"In my amendment, Mr. Speaker, I have excepted Jefferson Davis from its operation. Now, I do not place it on the ground that Mr. Davis was, as he has been commonly called, the head and front of the rebellion, because, on that ground, I do not think the exception would be tenable. Mr. Davis was just as guilty, no more so, no less so, than thousands of others who have already received the benefit and grace of amnesty. Probably he was far less efficient as an enemy of the United States: probably he was far more useful as a disturber of the councils of the Confederacy than many who have already received amnesty. It is not because of any particular and special damage that he, above others, did to the Union, or because he was personally or especially of consequence, that I except him. But I except him on this ground; that he was the author, knowingly, deliberately, guiltily, and willfully, of the gigantic murders and crimes at Andersonville. * * * *

"Mr. Speaker, this is not a proposition to punish Jefferson Davis. There is nobody attempting that. I will very frankly say that I myself thought the indictment of Mr. Davis at Richmond, under the administration of Mr. Johnson, was a weak attempt, for he was indicted only for that of which he was guilty in common with all others who went into the Confederate movement. Therefore, there was no particular reason for it. But I will undertake to say this, and as it may be considered an extreme speech, I want to say it with great deliberation, that there is not a government, a civilized government, on the face of the globe—I am very sure there is not a European government—that would not have arrested Mr. Davis, and when they had him in their power would not have tried him for maltreatment of the prisoners of war and shot him within thirty days. France, Russia, England, Germany, Austria, any one of them would have done it. The poor victim Wirz deserved his death for brutal treatment, and murder of many victims, but I always thought it was a weak movement on the part of our government to allow Jefferson Davis to go at large, and hang Wirz. I confess I do. Wirz was nothing in the world but a mere subordinate, a tool, and there was no special reason for singling him out for death. I do not say he did not deserve it—he did, richly, amply, fully. He deserved no mercy, but at the same time, as I have often said, it seemed like skipping over the president, superintendent, and board of directors in the case of a great railroad accident, and hanging the brakeman of the rear car.

"There is no proposition here to punish Jefferson Davis. Nobody is seeking to do it. That time has gone by. The statute of limitation, common feelings of humanity, will supervene for his benefit. But what you ask us to do is to declare by a vote of two-thirds of both branches of Congress, that we consider Mr. Davis worthy to fill the highest offices in the United States if he can get a constituency to indorse him. He is a voter; he can buy and he can sell; he can go and he can come. He is as free as any man in the United States. There is a large list of subordinate offices to which he is eligible. This bill proposes, in view of that record, that Mr. Davis, by a two-thirds vote of the Senate and a two-thirds vote of the House, be declared eligible and worthy to fill any office up to the Presidency of the United States. For one, upon full deliberation, I will not do it."

These two speeches illustrates the scope of Blaine in debate. These speeches also clearly show why he is so dearly beloved, or so bitterly hated. But that Mr. Blaine is an orator of the first order cannot be gainsaid. The preceding speeches represent the highest attainment of one ideal of an orator, and in a role in which Mr. Blaine is almost without parallel. In his Memorial address on Garfield, delivered in the hall of the House of Representatives, he presents the lofty style which is the beau ideal of oratory. He spoke something as follows:

"Mr. President: For the second time in this generation the great departments of the government of the United States are assembled in the Hall of Representatives to do honor to the memory of a murdered president. Lincoln fell at the close of a mighty struggle in which the passions of men had been deeply stirred. The tragical termination of his great life added but another to the lengthened succession of horrors which had marked so many lintels with the blood of the first-born. Garfield was slain in a day of peace, when brother had been reconciled to brother, and when anger and hate had been banished from the land. 'Whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited where such example was last to have been looked for, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate. Let him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon; not so much an example of human nature in its depravity and in its paroxisms of crime, as an infernal being, a fiend in the ordinary display and development of his character." * * * *

"His father dying before he was two years old, Garfield's early life was one of privation, but its poverty has been made indelicately and unjustly prominent. Thousands of readers have imagined him as the ragged, starving child, whose reality too often greets the eye in the squalid sections of our large cities. General Garfield's infancy and youth had none of this destitution, none of these pitiful features appealing to the tender heart, and to the open hand of charity. He was a poor boy in the same sense in which Henry Clay was a poor boy; in which Andrew Jackson was a poor boy; in which Daniel Webster was a poor boy; in the sense in which a large majority of the eminent men of America in all generations have been poor boys. Before a great multitude, in a public speech, Mr. Webster bore this testimony:

"'It did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin, but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin raised amid the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early that when the smoke rose first from its rude chimney and curled over the frozen hills there was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my children to it to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them. I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the touching narratives and incidents which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode.'

"With the requisite change of scene the same words would aptly portray the early days of Garfield. The poverty of the frontier, where all are engaged in a common struggle, and where a common sympathy and hearty co-operation lighten the burdens of each, is a very different poverty, different in kind, different in influence and effect, from that conscious and humiliating indigence which is every day forced to contrast itself with neighboring wealth on which it feels a sense of grinding dependence. The poverty of the frontier is indeed no poverty. It is but the beginning of wealth, and has the boundless possibilities of the future always opening before it. No man ever grew up in the agricultural regions of the West, where a house-raising, or even a corn-husking, is matter of common interest and helpfulness, with any other feeling than that of broad-minded, generous independence. This honorable independence marked the youth of Garfield, as it marks the youth of millions of the best blood and brain now training for the future citizenship and future government of the Republic. Garfield was born heir to land, to the title of free-holder, which has been the patent and passport of self-respect with the Anglo-Saxon race ever since Hengist and Horsa landed on the shores of England. His adventure on the canal—an alternative between that and the deck of a Lake Erie schooner—was a farmer boy's device for earning money, just as the New England lad begins a possibly great career by sailing before the mast on a coasting vessel, or on a merchantman bound to the farther India or to the China seas.

"No manly man feels anything of shame in looking back to early struggles with adverse circumstances, and no man feels a worthier pride than when he has conquered the obstacles to his progress. But no one of noble mould desires to be looked upon as having occupied a menial position, as having been repressed by a feeling of inferiority, or as having suffered the evils of poverty until relief was found at the hand of charity. General Garfield's youth presented no hardships which family love and family energy did not overcome, subjected him to no privations which he did not cheerfully accept, and left no memories save those which were recalled with delight, and transmitted with profit and with pride.

"Garfield's early opportunities for securing an education were extremely limited, and yet were sufficient to develop in him an intense desire to learn. He could read at three years of age, and each winter he had the advantage of the district school. He read all the books to be found within the circle of his acquaintance; some of them he got by heart. While yet in childhood he was a constant student of the Bible, and became familiar with its literature. The dignity and earnestness of his speech in his maturer life gave evidence of this early training. At eighteen years of age he was able to teach school, and thenceforward his ambition was to obtain a college education. To this end he bent all efforts, working in the harvest field, at the carpenter's bench, and in the winter season, teaching the common schools of the neighborhood. While thus laboriously occupied he found time to prosecute his studies, and was so successful that at twenty-two years of age he was able to enter the junior class at Williams College, then under the presidency of the venerable and honored Mark Hopkins, who, in the fullness of his powers, survives the eminent pupil to whom he was of inestimable service.

"The history of Garfield's life to this period presents no novel features. He had undoubtedly shown perseverance, self-reliance, self-sacrifice, and ambition—qualities which, be it said for the honor of our country, are everywhere to be found among the young men of America. But from his graduation at Williams, onward to the hour of his tragical death, Garfield's career was eminent and exceptional. Slowly working through his educational period, receiving his diploma when twenty-four years of age, he seemed at one bound to spring into conspicuous and brilliant success. Within six years he was successively President of a College, State Senator of Ohio, Major-General of the Army of the United States and Representative-elect to the National Congress. A combination of honors so varied, so elevated, within a period so brief and to a man so young, is without precedent or parallel in the history of the country.

"Garfield's army life was begun with no other military knowledge than such as he had hastily gained from books in the few months preceding his march to the field. Stepping from civil life to the head of a regiment, the first order he received when ready to cross the Ohio was to assume command of a brigade, and to operate as an independent force in eastern Kentucky. His immediate duty was to check the advance of Humphrey Marshall, who was marching down the Big Sandy with the intention of occupying, in connection with other Confederate forces, the entire territory of Kentucky, and of precipitating the State into secession. This was at the close of the year 1861. Seldom, if ever, has a young college professor been thrown into a more embarrassing and discouraging position. He knew just enough of military science, as he expressed it himself, to measure the extent of his ignorance, and with a handful of men he was marching, in rough winter weather, into a strange country, among a hostile population, to confront a largely superior force under the command of a distinguished graduate of West Point, who had seen active and important service in two preceding wars.

"The result of the campaign is matter of history. The skill, the endurance, the extraordinary energy shown by Garfield, the courage he imparted to his men, raw and untried as himself, the measures he adopted to increase his force, and to create in the enemy's mind exaggerated estimates of his numbers, bore perfect fruit in the routing of Marshall, the capture of his camp, the dispersion of his force, and the emancipation of an important territory from the control of the rebellion. Coming at the close of a long series of disasters to the Union arms, Garfield's victory had an unusual and extraneous importance, and in the popular judgment elevated the young commander to the rank of a military hero. With less than two thousand men in his entire command, with a mobilized force of only eleven hundred, without cannon, he had met an army of five thousand and defeated them, driving Marshall's forces successively from two strongholds of their own selection, fortified with abundant artillery. Major-General Buell, commanding the Department of the Ohio, an experienced and able soldier of the Regular Army, published an order of thanks and congratulation on the brilliant result of the Big Sandy Campaign, which would have turned the head of a less cool and sensible man than Garfield. Buell declared that his services had called into action the highest qualities of a soldier, and President Lincoln supplemented these words of praise by the more substantial reward of a Brigadier-General's Commission, to bear date from the day of his decisive victory over Marshall.

"The subsequent military career of Garfield fully sustained its brilliant beginning. With his new commission he was assigned to the command of a brigade in the Army of the Ohio, and took part in the second and decisive day's fight on the bloody field of Shiloh. The remainder of the year 1862 was not especially eventful to Garfield, as it was not to the armies with which he was serving. His practical sense was called into exercise in completing the task, assigned him by General Buell, of reconstructing bridges and re-establishing lines of railway communication for the army. His occupation in this useful but not brilliant field was varied by service on courts-martial of importance, in which department of duty he won a valuable reputation, attracting the notice and securing the approval of the able and eminent Judge Advocate General of the army. This of itself was warrant to honorable fame; for among the great men who in those trying days gave themselves, with entire devotion, to the service of their country, one who brought to that service the ripest learning, the most fervid eloquence, the most varied attainments, who labored with modesty and shunned applause, who, in the day of triumph, sat reserved and silent and grateful—as Francis Deak in the hour of Hungary's deliverance—was Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, who, in his honorable retirement, enjoys the respect and veneration of all who love the Union of the States.

"Early in 1863 Garfield was assigned to the highly important and responsible post of Chief of Staff to General Rosecrans, then at the head of the Army of the Cumberland. Perhaps in a great military campaign no subordinate officer requires sounder judgment and quicker knowledge of men than the Chief of Staff to the Commanding General. An indiscrete man in such a position can sow more discord, breed more jealousy, and disseminate more strife than any other officer in the entire organization. When General Garfield assumed his new duties he found various troubles already well developed and seriously affecting the value and efficiency of the Army of the Cumberland. The energy, the impartiality, and the tact with which he sought to allay these dissensions, and to discharge the duties, of his new and trying position, will always remain one of the most striking proofs of his great versatility. His military duties closed on the memorable field of Chickamauga, a field which, however disastrous to the Union arms, gave to him the occasion of winning imperishable laurels. The very rare distinction was accorded him of a great promotion for bravery on a field that was lost. President Lincoln appointed him a Major-General in the Army of the United States, for gallant and meritorious conduct in the battle of Chickamauga.

"The Army of the Cumberland was reorganized under the command of General Thomas, who promptly offered Garfield one of its divisions. He was extremely desirous to accept the position, but was embarrassed by the fact that he had, a year before, been elected to Congress, and the time when he must take his seat was drawing near. He preferred to remain in the military service, and had within his own breast the largest confidence of success in the wider field which his new rank opened to him. Balancing the arguments on the one side and the other, anxious to determine what was for the best, desirous above all things to do his patriotic duty, he was decisively influenced by the advice of President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton, both of whom assured him that he could, at that time, be of especial value in the House of Representatives. He resigned his commission of major-general on the 5th day of December, 1863, and took his seat in the House of Representatives on the 7th. He had served two years and four months in the army, and had just completed his thirty-second year.

"The Thirty-eighth Congress is pre-eminently entitled in history to the designation of the War Congress. It was elected while the war was flagrant, and every member was chosen upon the issues involved in the continuance of the struggle. The Thirty-seventh Congress had, indeed, legislated to a large extent on war measures, but it was chosen before any one believed that secession of the States would be actually attempted. The magnitude of the work which fell upon its successor was unprecedented, both in respect to the vast sums of money raised for the support of the army and navy, and of the new and extraordinary powers of legislation which it was forced to exercise. Only twenty-four States were represented, and one hundred and eighty-two members were upon its roll. Among these were many distinguished party leaders on both sides, veterans in the public service, with established reputations for ability, and with that skill which comes only from parliamentary experience. Into this assemblage of men Garfield entered without special preparation, and, it might almost be said, unexpectedly. The question of taking command of a division of troops under General Thomas, or taking his seat in Congress, was kept open till the last moment, so late, indeed, that the resignation of his military commission and his appearance in the House were almost contemporaneous. He wore the uniform of a major-general of the United States Army on Saturday, and on Monday, in civilian's dress, he answered to roll-call as a Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio.

"He was especially fortunate in the constituency which elected him. Descended almost entirely from New England stock, the men of the Ashtabula district were intensely radical on all questions relating to human rights. Well educated, thrifty, thoroughly intelligent in affairs, acutely discerning of character, not quick to bestow confidence, and slow to withdraw it, they were at once the most helpful and most exacting of supporters. Their tenacious trust in men in whom they have once confided is illustrated by the unparalleled fact that Elisha Whittlesey, Joshua R. Giddings, and James A. Garfield represented the district for fifty-four years.

"There is no test of a man's ability in any department of public life more severe than service in the House of Representatives; there is no place where so little deference is paid to reputation previously acquired, or to eminence won outside; no place where so little consideration is shown for the feelings or the failures of beginners. What a man gains in the House he gains by sheer force of his own character, and if he loses and falls back he must expect no mercy, and will receive no sympathy. It is a field in which the survival of the strongest is the recognized rule, and where no pretense can deceive and no glamour can mislead. The real man is discovered, his worth is impartially weighed, his rank is irreversibly decreed.

"With possibly a single exception, Garfield was the youngest member in the House when he entered, and was but seven years from his college graduation. But he had not been in his seat sixty days before his ability was recognized and his place conceded. He stepped to the front with the confidence of one who belonged there. The House was crowded with strong men of both parties; nineteen of them have since been transferred to the Senate, and many of them have served with distinction in the gubernatorial chairs of their respective States, and on foreign missions of great consequence; but among them all none grew so rapidly, none so firmly, as Garfield. As is said by Trevelyan, of his parliamentary hero, Garfield succeeded 'because all the world in concert could not have kept him in the back-ground, and because when once in the front he played his part with a prompt intrepidity and a commanding ease that were but the outward symptoms of the immense reserves of energy on which it was in his power to draw.' Indeed, the apparently reserved force which Garfield possessed was one of his great characteristics. He never did so well but that it seemed he could easily have done better. He never expended so much strength but that he appeared to be holding additional power at call. This is one of the happiest and rarest distinctions of an effective debater, and often counts for as much, in persuading an assembly, as the eloquent and elaborate argument.

"The great measure of Garfield's fame was filled by his service in the House of Representatives. His military life, illustrated by honorable performance, and rich in promise, was, as he himself felt, prematurely terminated, and necessarily incomplete. Speculation as to what he might have done in a field where the great prizes are so few, cannot be profitable. It is sufficient to say that as a soldier he did his duty bravely; he did it intelligently; he won an enviable fame, and he retired from the service without blot or breath against him. As a lawyer, though admirably equipped for the profession, he can scarcely be said to have entered on its practice. The few efforts he made at the bar were distinguished by the same high order of talent which he exhibited on every field where he was put to the test; and, if a man may be accepted as a competent judge of his own capacities and adaptations, the law was the profession to which Garfield should have devoted himself. But fate ordained otherwise, and his reputation in history will rest largely upon his service in the House of Representatives. That service was exceptionally long. He was nine times consecutively chosen to the House, an honor enjoyed probably by not twenty other Representatives of the more than five thousand who have been elected, from the organization of the government, to this hour.

"As a parliamentary orator, as a debater on an issue squarely joined, where the position had been chosen and the ground laid out, Garfield must be assigned a very high rank. More, perhaps, than any man with whom he was associated in public life, he gave careful and systematic study to public questions, and he came to every discussion in which he took part with elaborate and complete preparation. He was a steady and indefatigable worker. Those who imagine that talent or genius can supply the place or achieve the results of labor will find no encouragement in Garfield's life. In preliminary work he was apt, rapid and skillful. He possessed in a high degree the power of readily absorbing ideas and facts, and, like Dr. Johnson, had the art of getting from a book all that was of value in it by a reading apparently so quick and cursory that it seemed like a mere glance at the table of contents. He was a pre-eminently fair and candid man in debate, took no petty advantage, stooped to no unworthy methods, avoided personal allusions, rarely appealed to prejudice, did not seek to inflame passion. He had a quicker eye for the strong point of his adversary than for his weak point, and on his own side he so marshalled his weighty arguments as to make his hearers forget any possible lack in the complete strength of his position. He had a habit of stating his opponent's side with such amplitude of fairness and such liberality of concession that his followers often complained that he was giving his case away. But never in his prolonged participation in the proceedings of the House did he give his case away, or fail in the judgment of competent and impartial listeners to gain the mastery.

"These characteristics, which marked Garfield as a great debater, did not, however, make him a great parliamentary leader. A parliamentary leader, as that term is understood wherever free representative government exists, is necessarily and very strictly the organ of his party. An ardent American defined the instinctive warmth of patriotism when he offered the toast, 'Our country, always right; but right or wrong, our country.' The parliamentary leader who has a body of followers that will do and dare and die for the cause, is one who believes his party always right, but right or wrong, is for his party. No more important or exacting duty devolves upon him than the selection of the field and the time for contest. He must know not merely how to strike, but where to strike and when to strike. He often skillfully avoids the strength of his opponent's position, and scatters confusion in his ranks by attacking an exposed point when really the righteousness of the cause and the strength of logical intrenchment are against him. He conquers often both against the right and the heavy battalions; as when young Charles Fox, in the days of his Toryism, carried the House of Commons against justice, against its immemorial rights, against his own convictions, if, indeed, at that period Fox had convictions, and, in the interest of a corrupt administration, in obedience to a tyrannical sovereign, drove Wilkes from the seat to which the electors of Middlesex had chosen him, and installed Luttrell, in defiance not merely of law but of public decency. For an achievement of that kind Garfield was disqualified—disqualified by the texture of his mind, by the honesty of his heart, by his conscience, and by every instinct and aspiration of his nature.

"The three most distinguished parliamentary leaders hitherto developed in this country are Mr. Clay, Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Thaddeus Stevens. They were all men of consummate ability, of great earnestness, of intense personality, differing widely each from the others, and yet with a signal trait in common—the power to command. In the give-and-take of daily discussion, in the art of controlling and consolidating reluctant and refractory followers, in the skill to overcome all forms of opposition, and to meet with competency and courage the varying phases of unlooked-for assault or unsuspected defection, it would be difficult to rank with these a fourth name in all our Congressional history. But of these Mr. Clay was the greatest. It would, perhaps, be impossible to find in the parliamental annals of the world a parallel to Mr. Clay, in 1841, when at sixty-four years of age he took the control of the Whig party from the President who had received their suffrages, against the power of Webster in the Cabinet, against the eloquence of Choate in the Senate, against the herculean efforts of Caleb Cushing and Henry A. Wise in the House. In unshared leadership, in the pride and plentitude of power, he hurled against John Tyler, with deepest scorn the mass of that conquering column which had swept over the land in 1840, and drove his administration to seek shelter behind the lines of its political foes. Mr. Douglas achieved a victory scarcely less wonderful, when in 1854, against the secret desires of a strong administration, against the wise counsel of the older chiefs, against the conservative instincts, and even the moral sense of the country, he forced a reluctant Congress into a repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Mr. Stevens, in his contests from 1865 to 1868, actually advanced his parliamentary leadership until Congress tied the hands of the President and governed the country by its own will, leaving only perfunctory duties to be discharged by the Executive. With two hundred millions of patronage in his hands at the opening of the contest, aided by the active force of Seward in the Cabinet, and the moral power of Chase on the bench, Andrew Johnson could not command the support of one-third in either House against the parliamentary uprising of which Thaddeus Stevens was the animating spirit and the unquestioned leader.