J/L li^ O^^ civOA^cXsLA. 6^ J^ THE LIFE AND CHARACTER JAMES A. GARFIELD, Prepared by B. A. HINSDALE, President of Hiram College. I . ' • Jas. Abiam Garfield was boru in the woods of Orange, Cu^-hoga County, Ohio, November .9, 1831, His lather and mother moved into that fores'; the year before, there to make for themselves an /tlieir children a home. Before the littl- strip oi land had been paid for, or even cleared or the trees, the hnsband and ta^Jier died. His last utterance was these pathetic words, addressed to his wife* "'I have planted four saplings in tiiese woods: I must now leave them to your care." The .youngest of •"the saplings' was James, then a year and a half old:. Before the father died the struggle for exist- ence was fierce enough now it became fiercer. The widowed mother strove to keep the children together, and to rear them to adult age. That fierce smuggle for very life was James A.'s first school. Most readers know enough of \);oneer life, from experience or tradition, to see at glance the main fcatiares or his exter- nal life. A log house, a small clearing in tne forest, plain food and coarse clothes, few books and papers, a pioneer district school, school house meetings, loggings, raisings, •bees,'' hard work, and pinching poverty. Young Garfield came through this pioneer period, and showed himself to have the making of a man. At the usual age. James Garfield entered the district school. Here he always stood at the head, or with the first as a scholar. By the time that he was eighteen he had learned all that the school could teach him. He now went two or three terms ^o the Geauga Seminary at Chester, and f^ien, in 1851. to t4ie Eclectic Institute (now Hiram College), at Hiram, Portage County, O. Herehe prepared for college. Now he moved on to "Williams College, Massachusetts, where he was gradua- ted, in 1856, with the highest honors of the class. In seven years he had passed over all the ground between an old fashioned district school and a first class New England College. He had done much more than this. He had taught district school himself. He had worked at the carpenters' trader While car- rying on his own sridies at Hiram, lie also did full work as a teaclier for two years. He bad earned nearly money enough to pay his own way ; only a small debt remained to be discharged. In iho school, as in the woods and the fallow, he had proved himself a man. In 1856 Mr. iarfieid was made teacher of the ancient ^anguagos in Hiram Institute. The next year he became its head. Here he re- mained until the autumn of 1861. As an ^ucator, he grew rajjidly in power and in public favor. As a te^icher, school adminis- trator, class lecturer, and popular lecturer, Ik- made rapid strides toward the head of the profession. As he was beginning to think seriously of leaving the work of education for the law, the war broke out and swept him into a new field of activity. August 16, 1861, Teacher Garfield, then not quite thirty years old, entered the army as a Lieutenant Colonel. Soon he was made a Colonel. In the winter of 1861 he cleared the Sandy Valley, Kentucky, of the rebels. January 10 he was made Brigadier General — the youngest in the army. He commanded a brigade on the red field of Shiloh. He was with Thomas at Chicka- mauga. "For gallant and meritorious service" at this battle he was made a Major General. He left the army soon after. He had served as a soldier two years and three months, and no volunteer officer in the whole war rendered more valuable or distinguished service. As early as 1856 Gen. Garfield had taken a great interest in politics. In 1859 he was elected a member of the OhioSenate,in which he served one term. He was the youngest Senator and one of the abkst and most use- ful. In 1862, while he was in the army, the Nineteenth Ohio Congressional District elected him to the House of Representatives. At the opening of the Thirty-eighth Congress, Pccember 5, 1863, he took his seat in that body. He was the youngest man in the Con- gress. It was this entry upon civil service that took him from the army. Gen. Garfield has been a member of the Na- tional House of Representatives since he en- tered it, in 1863. Nine times in succes-^ion has the Nineteenth Ohio District elected him itii Representative. In this office he has ren- dered the country most consjiicuous and val- uable service. He has been the Chairman of some of tlie most important and lalwrious committees. He has served with alile men. but years ago he becaif i'^e leader of his party in the House, and, it may be said, of the House itself. No member has been a more constant and thorotigh student of political questions. No member ha-s taken an abler or more influential part in the debates. No man in that forum has made so nuiny speeches that are so w;^!l worth reading. _ Noi member has been a more consistenti champion of the enlightened and pro-I gressive princip.es of the Republican' party. Three times he has been the Ciindidate of his party for the Speakership. He has f 4. ja t ,Kg.c, talten tin !-nten?p;ent interest iri all the qnes- tioiis tliut, atlect the i)ublic good. To no other Representative for these many years past does the nation owe so niucii. Nor has the llouse of Representatives bounded his great activi- ties, lie has won a high place at the bar. Jle has done as much on the stump as any mai to instruct ami guide the people. Early in January lust he was elected to tlie national Senate l>y the unanimous vote of his party in the Ohio Legislature. And finally, June 8, 18.S0, in the great convention at Chicago, amid thunders of applause, the roar of ar- tillery, the waving of batiners, and the inspir- ing strains of music, he was made tlic Repub- lican candidate for the Presidency of the republic. The above is but a naked outline of a great life. The following testimonies will partly fill out the outline and partly round out the character; more, they will reveal the impres- sion that Gen. Garfield has made upon the minds of tiiose who know hir^ best. The compiler of this tract, in his "Repub- lican Text Book for the CampaiLm of 1S80," thus touches one phase of Garfield's work as a teacher: One of his most valuable offices was his morning lectures in chapel to all tbe scholars. In those days the term attendance at Hiram ranged from 180 to 300 students, covering a wide range of ability and educa- tion. He did not give a lecture every morning, but one or more series were expected every terra. He had brought back from Williams the best though/s of Dr. Mark Hopkins; in the fertile soil of hismind, these, as well as the thoughts gathered from other •sources, became the seeds of fresh thoughts innumerable, and he sowed the harvest again with unstinted hand. He ranged over the fields of Bible history, morals, education, teaching, science, literature, practical affairs, history, and life questions. These lectures may not have been finished ad miguem; but tliey abounded in fresh facts, striking illus- trations, and suggestive thoughts, and were warm with the breath of his own life. Occa- sionally he would give \is from manuscript a finished address, colored more warmly, perhaps, than his mature taste woukf •justify. In this exhilarating atmosphere, ethics and religion were not forgotten. Particular pains were taken to place before the students ideals of life and cliaracter nobly wrought, and instinct with courage, manliness, and truth. Though bounding with life and spirits himself, he was full of Aviiat L>r. Thomas Arnold called "moral thoughtful ness," and he strove to make his pupils temperate, morally serious, and rever- ent to truth. He thus touches the moral side of Garfield's character: The closer men have come into contact with him, the greater has been their faith in him. He has inspired confidence and respect in all large miiidc d and generous men, with- out regard to politics. Withal, he is a re- ligious man. As a boy, he was never the bully or swaggerer that fiction sometimes makes him, but strictly moral and serious. Althougli abundantly able and willing to de- fend to the utmost his own rights, or the rights of the weak and helpless, by physical force, if necessary, he was peaceable and self-contained. Before reaching his majoritv, he made public profession of religion, aiid has continued a member of the Church to this day. Like all men of h's thought and reading, he understands the diffiult religious questions that modern criticism and science have started; he, no doubt, thinks that the old theologies mnst be partially recenstrncted; but his native piety, his early training, and his own sober convictions, hold him fast to the great truths of revealed religion. Rev. Dr. Butler, a Lutheran minister of Washing- ton, says: "I have not un frequently seen him supporting his venerable mother upon his strong arm as they slowly walked together from the "house of God. He worships regularly in the humble Disciples' Church.'' Senator Hoar thus spoke in his Worcester eulogy: Just think for a moment of the various qualifications for this great office which this man combines! Do you want a statesman? Do you demand that your President shall be something more than a siiccesstVl soldier — tliat he shall have experience in civil affairs? No President of the United States since John Quincy Adams began to bring to the Presi- dential office, when he entered upon it, any- thing like the experience in statesmanship of James A. Garfield. Look out over the list. Grant and Jackson and Taylor brought great fame as soldiers; but of whom can you think since John Quincy Adams entered upon that great office who had, when ho took it, such a civil career to look back upon as that of Gen. Garfield? Since the year 18G4 you can not think of a question which has been debated in Con- gress, or discussed before the great tribunal of the great American people, in regard to which you will not find, if you wish instruction, the arguments on one side stated, and stated in almost every instance better than anybody else, in some speech made in the Llouse of Representatives, or on the liustings by Mr. Garfield." The (Christian Standard, of Cincinnati, just before the Chicago nomination spoke thus: We are glad to sny. however, that there .-ire men who rise above this turmoil, and stand in calm poise and grandeur far above such methods and such men, and it is with the ut- most pleasure that we recognize among them, pre-eminent, J. A, Garfield, to whom it was committed to name to the convention one of the principal candidates. His sjieech will stand as a model, apart by itself, as the one gem of the occasion. It is no wonder that among the spectators there was developed a strong sentiment that he himself was the man for the hour. At every crisis in the convention his voice is heard, for princi- ple, for sobriety, for prudence, and honor. We regret that we have not the space to rersonal friendship existing between us, we are already besieged with questions touching every rumor put in circulation by his politi- cal opponents to his injury. Ours is not a ])o- litical paper, and we have nothing to say in these columns touching the party issues be- tween Republicans and Democrats. But as touching the character of James A. Gar- field as an honest man, a Ciiristian gentle- man, art upright, loyal and faithful citizen, and a statesman of great ability, of high in- tegrity, and of pure morals, we are free to say. as the result of a long and intimate personax M Cxehaofe ^M^-- acquaintarxre, that we have in him, and have always had, unbounded confidence — a confi- dence that has never trembled for a moment. In a letter received from Bro. F. D. Power, for many years our preacher in Washiri>2;ton, and who has occasion to know him well, he says of Gen. Garfield: "He is a good, pure man, and we lovehira." Let tliis suffice. "We hope the Democrats will give us a ca.iaioate equally able and worthy, and that the campaign will be conducted with reference to principles rather than persons, and be free from personal warfare. Geo. Alfred Townsend, the well known "Gath" of the newspapers, says ot Gen. Gar- field: He is the most serious and instructive man on the stump. And Judge Stanley Matthews: He ranks to-day among the very best law- yers at the bar of the whole country. The American Christian Review, of June 22, contained the following: Gen. James A. Garfield, recently nomi- nated by the Chicago Republican Convention for the Presidency of the United States, is a member of the Church of Christ, and has been for about thirty years. He will soon be fifty years of age. We are glad to record the fact that, besides being a statesman of ac- knowledged ability, his private life has been pure, and that his Christian character is without a stain. If the Democratic party shall nominate a man for the same exalted position, bearing as clean a record in morals and sobriety as that of Garfield, the nation may well have cause to rejoice. We have known Brother Garfield personally for twenty-five years, and during all that time have known him as an humble Christian, un- pretentioi;s in his profession, magnanimous and liberal hearted, honest, faithful, and philanthropic, with a head and heart ready to serve in the hitmblest cause of humanity. The last time we were in W^ashington City we found him teaching a Bible class in the Sun- day school of a very oli.scure cliurch. He is one of the biggest hearted Christian men we ever met. We have spoken these few words iu praise of Bro. Garfield as a Christian citi- zen, and not as a politician, because we think our brethren at large feel pleased that so dis- tinguished an honor has been conferred on one of our brethren. It does not belong to the character of the Review to speakgpf his politics, or of his political creed, 'fnat in- formation must be found in political or- gans. The following is cut from the Evangelist, of Chicago, for June 17: The nomination of Gen. James A. Garfield by the Republican Convention for President is one which will be regarded with great satis- faction by all the friends of purer morals in j>olitics. The Evangelist is in no sense a parti- san paper, but it can not but feel a deep in- terest in the welfare of a nation of 50,000,000 of people, and it has feared that a tide of cor- ruption, disregard of the popular will and of tlie precedents of the early history of the re- public was setting in, which would result in the gravest evils. It has hoped that both of the great parties would -rise above the murky atmosphere of rings and office seekers, and nominate men of lofty character, whose repu- tation would guarantee a continuance of the purity which has characterized the adminis- tration of President Hayes. One of the great parties has now fulfilled that hope. Our readers are generally aware that Gen. Garfield is a faitliful member of fhc Christian Church. On both Lord.'^days that lie pas.sed in this city he has been found in liis place iu the house of God. On Sunday. June 6. only ninety-five delegates out of nearly 800 at- tended church, and nearly all the leaders spent the entire day in bargaining, wire ])ull- ing, banqueting, and in other ways seeking to promote their political objects. " Of all the great men in attendance (iarlield is the on'y one of whom we know who observed the day as a Christian. This is his uniform course. Wherever lie goes he finds out the Christian Church, however obscure, and attends its meeting^!. In the city of Washington he is one ol the most faithful at- tendants upon the services conducted by Bro. Power. Before the war. while acting as Pres- ident of Hiram College. Ohio, he preached regularly for the churches, and he still often speaks in the house of God. He declines to enter the pHlj.it as a preacher, but will arise in his place-and speak Avith great power and fervor. Sitch a man in the White House will give a miglity impulse to the morals and re- ligion of our country. His example will be felt to the remotest corners of the nation. The Christian Union, of !New York, June 16, bore this testimony: Gen. Garfield is an earnest Christian man; a member of the Disciples (Campbellites). a denomination very numerous in the West aTul Southwest' has never been ashame