Chapter VIII: The Noontide (2)

The attack was first made by Mr. Blaine, in the course of a series of sharp thrusts between himself and Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania, who had charge of the bill. Finally the “plumed knight” rushed to the front and dealt his heavy blows. It was a terrible arraignment of the Confederate President, making him responsible for the savage cruelties practiced on Union prisoners. All the horrors of Andersonville and Libby prisons were described. He read the celebrated order “Number Thirteen,” directing rebel guns to be turned on the suffering thousands at Andersonville, on the approach of Sherman. Davis, he said, was a party to these proceedings, and the American people would not, should not sanction any act which made it possible for this man ever again to hold any honorable public position within the gift of his Southern friends.

After Blaine’s speech, the debate was continued by Mr. Cox. Then came Benjamin Hill, of Georgia, and James A. Garfield, of Ohio. Hill took up the charges of Blaine, parried them skillfully without answering them, made counter-charges against the Government in its treatment of rebel prisoners, and, in fine, _succeeded_ in his attempt to overcome the impression made by the Blaine attack. In this emergency, while the whole Democracy was exulting, and Hill was the hero of the hour, all eyes turned towards Garfield, for he promised a reply, and was known to be better able for that task than any other man.

On the next day, January 12, Mr. Garfield was given the floor, and began. After stating his regret that such an unpleasant discussion had arisen, he made a brief review of the situation, and proceeded thus:

“Let me say in the outset that, so far as I am personally concerned,
I have never voted against any proposition to grant amnesty to any
human being who has asked for it at the bar of the House.
Furthermore, I appeal to gentlemen on the other side who have been
with me in this hall many years, whether at any time they have found
me truculent in spirit, unkind in tone or feeling toward those who
fought against us in the late war. Twelve years ago this very month,
standing in this place, I said this: ‘I believe a truce could be
struck to-day between the rank and file of the hostile armies now in
the field. I believe they could meet and shake hands together,
joyful over returning peace, each respecting the courage and manhood
of the other, and each better able to live in amity than before the
war.’

“I am glad to repeat word for word what I said that day. For the
purposes of this speech I will not even claim the whole ground which
the Government assumed toward the late rebellion. For the sake of
the present argument, I will view the position of those who took up
arms against the Government in the light least offensive to them.

“Leaving out of sight for the moment the question of slavery, which
evoked so much passion, and which was the producing cause of the
late war, there were still two opposing political theories which met
in conflict. Most of the Southern statesmen believed that their
first obedience was due to their State. We believed that the
allegiance of an American citizen was due to the National
government, not by the way of a State capital, but in a direct line
from his own heart to the government of the Union. Now, that
question was submitted to the dreadful arbitrament of war, to the
court of last resort—a court from which there is no appeal, and to
which all other powers must bow. To that dread court the great
question was carried, and there the right of a State to secede was
put to rest forever. For the sake of peace and union, I am willing
to treat our late antagonists as I would treat litigants in other
courts, who, when they have made their appeal and final judgment is
rendered, pay the reasonable costs and bow to its mandates. Our
question to-day is not that, but is closely connected with it. When
we have made our argument and the court has rendered its judgment,
it may be that in the course of its proceedings the court has used
its discretion to disbar some of its counselors for malpractice, for
unprofessional conduct. In such a case a motion may be made to
restore the disbarred members. Applying this illustration to the
present case, there are seven hundred and fifty people who are yet
disbarred before the highest authority of the Republic—the
Constitution itself. The proposition is to offer again the
privileges of official station to these people; and we are all
agreed as to every human being of them save one.

“I do not object to Jefferson Davis because he was a conspicuous
leader. Whatever we may believe theologically, I do not believe in
the doctrine of vicarious atonement in politics. Jefferson Davis was
no more guilty for taking up arms than any other man who went into
the rebellion with equal intelligence. But this is the question: In
the high court of war did he practice according to its well-known
laws—the laws of nations? Did he, in appealing to war, obey the laws
of war; or did he so violate those laws, that justice to those who
suffered at his hands demands that he be not permitted to come back
to his old privileges in the Union? That is the whole question; and
it is as plain and fair a question for deliberation as was ever
debated in this House.”

From this point Mr. Garfield proceeded by a long argument, well supported by authorities, to show forth the real history of the atrocities mentioned, and to demonstrate the responsibility of Jefferson Davis for them. He ended this portion of the discussion in these words:

“It seems to me incontrovertible that the records I have adduced lay
at his door the charge of being himself the author, the conscious
author, through his own appointed instrument, of the terrible work
at Andersonville, for which the American people still hold him unfit
to be admitted among the legislators of this Nation.

* * * * *

“And now, Mr. Speaker, I close as I began. Toward those men who
gallantly fought us on the field I cherish the kindest feeling. I
feel a sincere reverence for the soldierly qualities they displayed
on many a well-fought battle-field. I hope the day will come when
their swords and ours will be crossed over many a doorway of our
children, who will remember the glory of their ancestors with pride.
The high qualities displayed in that conflict now belong to the
whole Nation. Let them be consecrated to the Union, and its future
peace and glory. I shall hail that consecration as a pledge and
symbol of our perpetuity.

“But there was a class of men referred to in the speech of the
gentleman yesterday for whom I have never yet gained the Christian
grace necessary to say the same thing. The gentleman said that, amid
the thunder of battle, through its dim smoke, and above its roar,
they heard a voice from this side saying, ‘Brothers, come!’ I do not
know whether he meant the same thing, but I heard that voice behind
us. I heard that voice, and I recollect that I sent one of those who
uttered it through our lines—a voice owned by Vallandigham. General
Scott said, in the early days of the war, ‘When this war is over, it
will require all the physical and moral power of the Government to
restrain the rage and fury of the non-combatants.’ It was that
non-combatant voice behind us that cried ‘Halloo!’ to the other
side; that always gave cheer and encouragement to the enemy in our
hour of darkness. I have never forgotten, and have not yet forgiven,
those Democrats of the North whose hearts were not warmed by the
grand inspirations of the Union, but who stood back, finding fault,
always crying disaster, rejoicing at our defeat, never glorying in
our victory. If these are the voices the gentleman heard, I am sorry
he is now united with those who uttered them.

“But to those most noble men, Democrats and Republicans, who
together fought for the Union, I commend all the lessons of charity
that the wisest and most beneficent men have taught.

“I join you all in every aspiration that you may express to stay in
this Union, to heal its wounds, to increase its glory, and to forget
the evils and bitterness of the past; but do not, for the sake of
the three hundred thousand heroic men who, maimed and bruised, drag
out their weary lives, many of them carrying in their hearts
horrible memories of what they suffered in the prison-pen—do not ask
us to vote to put back into power that man who was the cause of
their suffering—that man still unaneled, unshriven, unforgiven,
undefended.”

As the autumn of 1876 approached, it became evident that the Democratic party, already dominant in the House; would make a desperate struggle at the November elections to get complete control of the Government.

Before the long session of that hot summer ended, Mr. Lamar, of Mississippi, took occasion to deliver in the House a powerful campaign speech, attempting to prove that the Republican party did not deserve further support from the people, and that the Democracy was eminently worthy to rule in their stead. The next day, August 4, Mr. Garfield replied. A part of this reply is here given:

“_Mr. Chairman_: I regret that the speech of the gentleman from
Mississippi [Mr. Lamar] has not yet appeared in the _Record_, so
that I might have had its full and authentic text before offering my
own remarks in reply. But his propositions were so clearly and so
very ably stated, the doctrines that run through it were so
logically connected, it will be my own fault if I fail to understand
and appreciate the general scope and purpose of his speech.

“In the outset, I desire for myself and for a majority at least, of
those for whom I speak, to express my gratitude to the gentleman for
all that portion of his speech which had for its object the removal
of the prejudices and unkindly feelings that have arisen among
citizens of the Republic in consequence of the late war. Whatever
faults the speech may have, its author expresses an earnest desire
to make progress in the direction of a better understanding between
the North and the South; and in that it meets my most hearty
concurrence and approval.

“I will attempt to state briefly what I understand to be the logic
of the gentleman’s speech.

* * * * *

“Now I have stated—of course very briefly, but I hope with entire
fairness—the scope of the very able speech to which we listened. In
a word, it is this: The Republican party is oppressing the South;
negro suffrage is a grievous evil; there are serious corruptions in
public affairs in the national legislation and administration; the
civil service of the country especially needs great and radical
reform; and, therefore, the Democratic party ought to be placed in
control of the Government at this time.

“It has not been my habit, and it is not my desire, to discuss mere
party politics in this great legislative forum. And I shall do so
now only in so far as a fair review of the gentleman’s speech
requires. My remarks shall be responsive to his; and I shall discuss
party history and party policy only as the logic of his speech leads
into that domain.

“From most of the premises of the gentleman, as matters of fact and
history, I dissent; some of them are undoubtedly correct. But, for
the sake of argument only, admitting that all his premises are
correct, I deny that his conclusion is warranted by his premises;
and, before I close, I shall attempt to show that the good he seeks
can not be secured by the ascendency of the Democratic party at this
time.

“Before entering upon that field, however, I must notice this
remarkable omission in the logic of his speech. Although he did
state that the country might consider itself free from some of the
dangers which are apprehended as the result of Democratic
ascendency, he did not, as I remember, by any word attempt to prove
the fitness of the Democracy as a political organization to
accomplish the reforms which he so much desires; and without that
affirmative proof of fitness his argument is necessarily an absolute
failure.

“It is precisely that fear which has not only made the ascendency of
the Democratic party so long impossible, but has made it incompetent
to render that service so necessary to good government—the service
of maintaining the position of a wise and honorable opposition to
the dominant party. Often the blunders and faults of the Republican
party have been condoned by the people because of the violent,
reactionary, and disloyal spirit of the Democracy.

“He tells us that it is one of the well-known lessons of political
history and philosophy, that the opposition party comes in to
preserve and crystallize the measures which their antagonists
inaugurated; and that a conservative opposition party is better
fitted to accomplish such a work than an aggressive radical party,
who roughly pioneered the way and brought in the changes. And to
apply this maxim to our own situation, he tells us that the
differences between the Republican and the Democratic parties upon
the issues which led to the war, and those which grew out of it,
were rather differences of time than of substance; that the
Democracy followed more slowly in the Republican path, but have at
last arrived, by prudent and constitutional methods, at the same
results; and hence they will be sure to guard securely and cherish
faithfully what the Republicans gained by reckless and turbulent
methods. There is some truth in these ‘glittering generalities,’
but, as applied to our present situation, they are entitled only to
the consideration which we give to the bright but fantastic pictures
of a Utopian dream.

“I share all that gentleman’s aspirations for peace, for good
government at the South; and I believe I can safely assure him that
the great majority of the nation shares the same aspirations. But he
will allow me to say that he has not fully stated the elements of
the great problem to be solved by the statesmanship of to-day. The
actual field is much broader than the view he has taken. And before
we can agree that the remedy he proposes is an adequate one, we must
take in the whole field, comprehend all the conditions of the
problem, and then see if his remedy is sufficient. The change he
proposes is not like the ordinary change of a ministry in England
when the government is defeated on a tax-bill or some routine
measure of legislation. He proposes to turn over the custody and
management of the Government to a party which has persistently, and
with the greatest bitterness, resisted all the great changes of the
last fifteen years; changes which were the necessary results of a
vast revolution—a revolution in national policy, in social and
political ideas—a revolution whose causes were not the work of a day
nor a year, but of generations and centuries. The scope and
character of that mighty revolution must form the basis of our
judgment when we inquire whether such a change as he proposes is
safe and wise.

“In discussing his proposition we must not forget that, as the
result of this revolution, the South, after the great devastations
of war, the great loss of life and treasure, the overthrow of its
social and industrial system, was called upon to confront the new
and difficult problem of two races—one just relieved from centuries
of slavery, and the other a cultivated, brave, proud, imperious
race—to be brought together on terms of equality before the law.
New, difficult, delicate, and dangerous questions bristle out from
every point of that problem.

“But that is not all of the situation. On the other hand, we see the
North, after leaving its 350,000 dead upon the field of battle and
bringing home its 500,000 maimed and wounded to be cared for,
crippled in its industries, staggering under the tremendous burden
of public and private debt, and both North and South weighted with
unparalleled burdens and losses—the whole nation suffering from that
loosening of the bonds of social order which always follows a great
war, and from the resulting corruption both in the public and the
private life of the people. These, Mr. Chairman, constitute the vast
field which we must survey in order to find the path which will
soonest lead our beloved country to the highway of peace, of liberty
and prosperity. Peace from the shock of battle; the higher peace of
our streets, of our homes, of our equal rights, we must make secure
by making the conquering ideas of the war every-where dominant and
permanent.

“With all my heart I join with the gentleman in rejoicing that—

“‘The war-drums throb no longer, and the battle-flags are furled’—

and I look forward with joy and hope to the day when our brave
people, one in heart, one in their aspirations for freedom and
peace, shall see that the darkness through which we have traveled
was a part of that stern but beneficent discipline by which the
Great Disposer of events has been leading us on to a higher and
nobler national life.

“But such a result can be reached only by comprehending the whole
meaning of the revolution through which we have passed and are still
passing. I say still passing; for I remember that after the battle
of arms comes the battle of history. The cause that triumphs in the
field does not always triumph in history. And those who carried the
war for union and equal and universal freedom to a victorious issue
can never safely relax their vigilance until the ideas for which
they fought have become embodied in the enduring forms of individual
and national life.

“Has this been done? Not yet.

“I ask the gentleman in all plainness of speech, and yet in all
kindness, is he correct in his statement that the conquered party
accept the results of the war? Even if they do, I remind the
gentleman that _accept_ is not a very strong word. I go further. I
ask him if the Democratic party have _adopted_ the results of the
war? Is it not asking too much of human nature to expect such
unparalleled changes to be not only accepted, but, in so short a
time, adopted by men of strong and independent opinions?

“The antagonisms which gave rise to the war and grew out of it were
not born in a day, nor can they vanish in a night.

“Mr. Chairman, great ideas travel slowly, and for a time
noiselessly, as the gods, whose feet were shod with wool. Our war of
independence was a war of ideas, of ideas evolved out of two hundred
years of slow and silent growth. When, one hundred years ago, our
fathers announced as self-evident truths the declaration that all
men are created equal, and the only just power of governments is
derived from the consent of the governed, they uttered a doctrine
that no nation had ever adopted, that not one kingdom on the earth
then believed. Yet to our fathers it was so plain that they would
not debate it. They announced it as a truth ‘self-evident.’

“Whence came the immortal truths of the Declaration? To me this was
for years the riddle of our history. I have searched long and
patiently through the books of the _doctrinaires_ to find the germs
from which the Declaration of Independence sprang. I found hints in
Locke, in Hobbes, in Rousseau, and Fénelon; but they were only the
hints of dreamers and philosophers. The great doctrines of the
Declaration germinated in the hearts of our fathers, and were
developed under the new influences of this wilderness world, by the
same subtle mystery which brings forth the rose from the germ of the
rose-tree. Unconsciously to themselves, the great truths were
growing under the new conditions until, like the century-plant, they
blossomed into the matchless beauty of the Declaration of
Independence, whose fruitage, increased and increasing, we enjoy
to-day.

“It will not do, Mr. Chairman, to speak of the gigantic revolution
through which we have lately passed as a thing to be adjusted and
settled by a change of administration. It was cyclical, epochal,
century-wide, and to be studied in its broad and grand perspective—a
revolution of even wider scope, so far as time is concerned, than
the Revolution of 1776. We have been dealing with elements and
forces which have been at work on this continent more than two
hundred and fifty years. I trust I shall be excused if I take a few
moments to trace some of the leading phases of the great struggle.
And, in doing so, I beg gentlemen to see that the subject itself
lifts us into a region where the individual sinks out of sight and
is absorbed in the mighty current of great events. It is not the
occasion to award praise or pronounce condemnation. In such a
revolution men are like insects that fret and toss in the storm, but
are swept onward by the resistless movements of elements beyond
their control. I speak of this revolution not to praise the men who
aided it, or to censure the men who resisted it, but as a force to
be studied, as a mandate to be obeyed.

“In the year 1620 there were planted upon this continent two ideas
irreconcilably hostile to each other. Ideas are the great warriors
of the world; and a war that has no ideas behind it is simply
brutality. The two ideas were landed, one at Plymouth Rock from the
_Mayflower_, and the other from a Dutch brig at Jamestown, Virginia.
One was the old doctrine of Luther, that private judgment in
politics as well as religion, is the right and duty of every man;
and the other that capital should own labor, that the negro had no
rights of manhood, and the white man might justly buy, own, and sell
him and his offspring forever. Thus freedom and equality on the one
hand, and on the other the slavery of one race and the domination of
another, were the two germs planted on this continent. In our vast
expanse of wilderness, for a long time, there was room for both; and
their advocates began the race across the continent, each developing
the social and political institutions of their choice. Both had vast
interests in common; and for a long time neither was conscious of
the fatal antagonisms that were developing.

“For nearly two centuries there was no serious collision; but when
the continent began to fill up, and the people began to jostle
against each other; when the Roundhead and the Cavalier came near
enough to measure opinions, the irreconcilable character of the two
doctrines began to appear. Many conscientious men studied the
subject, and came to the belief that slavery was a crime, a sin, or
as Wesley said, ‘the sum of all villainies.’ This belief dwelt in
small minorities for a long time. It lived in the churches and
vestries, but later found its way into the civil and political
organizations of the country, and finally found its way into this
chamber. A few brave, clear-sighted, far-seeing men announced it
here, a little more than a generation ago. A predecessor of mine,
Joshua R. Giddings, following the lead of John Quincy Adams, of
Massachusetts, almost alone held up the banner on this floor, and
from year to year comrades came to his side. Through evil and
through good report he pressed the question upon the conscience of
the nation.

“And so the contest continued; the supporters of slavery believing
honestly and sincerely that slavery was a divine institution; that
it found its high sanctions in the living oracles of God and in a
wise political philosophy; that it was justified by the necessities
of their situation; and that slave-holders were missionaries to the
dark sons of Africa, to elevate and bless them. We are so far past
the passions of that early time that we can now study the progress
of the struggle as a great and inevitable development, without
sharing in the crimination and recrimination that attended it. If
both sides could have seen that it was a contest beyond their
control; if both parties could have realized the truth that
‘unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of nations,’ much
less for the fate of political parties, the bitterness, the sorrow,
the tears, and the blood might have been avoided. But we walked in
the darkness, our paths obscured by the smoke of the conflict, each
following his own convictions through ever-increasing fierceness,
until the debate culminated in ‘the last argument to which kings
resort.’

“This conflict of opinion was not merely one of sentimental feeling;
it involved our whole political system; it gave rise to two
radically different theories of the nature of our Government: the
North believing and holding that we were a Nation, the South
insisting that we were only a confederation of sovereign States, and
insisting that each State had the right, at its own discretion, to
break the Union, and constantly threatening secession where the full
rights of slavery were not acknowledged.

“Thus the defense and aggrandizement of slavery, and the hatred of
Abolitionism, became not only the central idea of the Democratic
party, but its master-passion—a passion intensified and inflamed by
twenty-five years of fierce political contest, which had not only
driven from its ranks all those who preferred freedom to slavery,
but had absorbed all the extreme pro-slavery elements of the fallen
Whig party. Over against this was arrayed the Republican party,
asserting the broad doctrines of nationality and loyalty, insisting
that no State had a right to secede, that secession was treason, and
demanding that the institution of slavery should be restricted to
the limits of the States where it already existed. But here and
there, many bolder and more radical thinkers declared, with Wendell
Phillips, that there never could be union and peace, freedom and
prosperity, until we were willing to see John Hancock under a black
skin.

* * * * *

“Mr. Chairman, after the facts I have cited, am I not warranted in
raising a grave doubt whether the transformation occurred at all
except in a few patriotic and philosophic minds? The light gleams
first on the mountain peaks; but shadows and darkness linger in the
valley. It is in the valley masses of those lately in rebellion that
the light of this beautiful philosophy, which I honor, has not
penetrated. It is safer to withhold from them the custody and
supreme control of the precious treasures of the Republic until the
midday sun of liberty, justice, and equal laws shall shine upon them
with unclouded ray.

“In view of all the facts, considering the centuries of influence
that brought on the great struggle, is it not reasonable to suppose
that it will require yet more time to effect the great
transformation? Did not the distinguished gentleman from
Massachusetts [Mr. George F. Hoar] sum up the case fairly and
truthfully when he said of the South, in his Louisiana report of
1874: ‘They submitted to the national authority, not because they
would, but because they must. They abandoned the doctrine of State
sovereignty, which they had claimed made their duty to the States
paramount to that due to the nation in case of conflict, not because
they would, but because they must. They submitted to the
constitutional amendments which rendered their former slaves their
equals in all political rights, not because they would, but because
they must. The passions which led to the war, the passions which the
war excited, were left untamed and unchecked, except so far as their
exhibition was restrained by the arm of power.’

“Mr. Chairman, it is now time to inquire as to the fitness of this
Democratic party to take control of our great nation and its vast
and important interests for the next four years. I put the question
to the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Lamar], what has the
Democratic party done to merit that great trust? He tried to show in
what respects it would not be dangerous. I ask him to show in what
it would be safe. I affirm, and I believe I do not misrepresent the
great Democratic party, that in the last sixteen years they have not
advanced one great national idea that is not to-day exploded and as
dead as Julius Cæsar. And if any Democrat here will rise and name a
great national doctrine his party has advanced, within that time,
that is now alive and believed in, I will yield to hear him. [A
pause.] In default of an answer, I will attempt to prove my
negative.

“What were the great central doctrines of the Democratic party in
the presidential struggle of 1860? The followers of Breckinridge
said slavery had a right to go wherever the Constitution goes. Do
you believe that to-day? Is there a man on this continent that holds
that doctrine to-day? Not one. That doctrine is dead and buried. The
other wing of the Democracy held that slavery might be established
in the territories if the people wanted it. Does any body hold that
doctrine to-day? Dead, absolutely dead!

“Come down to 1864. Your party, under the lead of Tilden and
Vallandigham, declared the experiment of war to save the Union was a
failure. Do you believe that doctrine to-day? That doctrine was shot
to death by the guns of Farragut at Mobile, and driven, in a tempest
of fire, from the valley of the Shenandoah by Sheridan less than a
month after its birth at Chicago.

“Come down to 1868. You declared the Constitutional Amendments
revolutionary and void. Does any man on this floor say so to-day? If
so, let him rise and declare it.

“Do you believe in the doctrine of the Broadhead letter of 1868,
that the so-called Constitutional Amendments should be disregarded?
No; the gentleman from Mississippi accepts the results of the war!
The Democratic doctrine of 1868 is dead!

“I walk across that Democratic camping-ground as in a graveyard.
Under my feet resound the hollow echoes of the dead. There lies
slavery, a black marble column at the head of its grave, on which
I read: Died in the flames of the Civil War; loved in its life;
lamented in its death; followed to its bier by its only mourner,
the Democratic party, but dead! And here is a double grave: Sacred
to the memory of Squatter Sovereignty. Died in the campaign of
1860. On the reverse side: Sacred to the memory of the Dred
Scott-Breckinridge doctrine. Both died at the hands of Abraham
Lincoln! And here a monument of brimstone: Sacred to the memory of
the Rebellion; the war against it is a failure; _Tilden et
Vallandigham fecerunt_, A. D. 1864. Dead on the field of battle;
shot to death by the million guns of the Republic. The doctrine of
Secession; of State Sovereignty. Dead. Expired in the flames of
civil war, amidst the blazing rafters of the Confederacy, except
that the modern Æneas, fleeing out of the flames of that ruin,
bears on his back another Anchises of State Sovereignty, and
brings it here in the person of the honorable gentleman from the
Appomattox district of Virginia [Mr. Tucker]. [Laughter.] All else
is dead.

“Now, gentlemen, are you sad, are you sorry for these deaths? Are
you not glad that Secession is dead? that slavery is dead? that
Squatter Sovereignty is dead? that the doctrine of the failure of
the war is dead? Then you are glad that you were out-voted in 1860,
in 1864, in 1868, and in 1872. If you have tears to shed over these
losses, shed them in the graveyard, but not in this House of living
men. I know that many a Southern man rejoices that these issues are
dead. The gentleman from Mississippi has clothed his joy with
eloquence.

“Now, gentlemen, if you yourselves are glad that you have suffered
defeat during the last sixteen years, will you not be equally glad
when you suffer defeat next November? [Laughter.] But pardon that
remark; I regret it; I would use no bravado.

“Now, gentlemen, come with me for a moment into the camp of the
Republican party and review its career. Our central doctrine in 1860
was that slavery should never extend itself over another foot of
American soil. Is that doctrine dead? It is folded away like a
victorious banner; its truth is alive for evermore on this
continent. In 1864 we declared that we would put down the Rebellion
and Secession. And that doctrine lives, and will live when the
second Centennial has arrived! Freedom, national, universal, and
perpetual—our great Constitutional Amendments, are they alive or
dead? Alive, thank the God that shields both liberty and Union. And
our national credit, saved from the assaults of Pendleton; saved
from the assaults of those who struck it later, rising higher and
higher at home and abroad; and only now in doubt lest its chief, its
only enemy, the Democracy, should triumph in November.

“Mr. Chairman, ought the Republican party to surrender its truncheon
of command to the Democracy? The gentleman from Mississippi says, if
this were England, the ministry would go out in twenty-four hours
with such a state of things as we have here. Ah, yes! that is an
ordinary case of change of administration. But if this were England,
what would she have done at the end of the war? England made one
such mistake as the gentleman asks this country to make, when she
threw away the achievements of the grandest man that ever trod her
highway of power. Oliver Cromwell had overturned the throne of
despotic power, and had lifted his country to a place of masterful
greatness among the nations of the earth; and when, after his death,
his great scepter was transferred to a weak though not unlineal
hand, his country, in a moment of reactionary blindness, brought
back the Stuarts. England did not recover from that folly until, in
1689, the Prince of Orange drove from her island the last of that
weak and wicked line. Did she afterward repeat the blunder?

“For more than fifty years pretenders were seeking the throne; and
the wars on her coast, in Scotland and in Ireland, threatened the
overthrow of the new dynasty and the disruption of the empire. But
the solid phlegm, the magnificent pluck, the roundabout common-sense
of Englishmen steadied the throne till the cause of the Stuarts was
dead. They did not change as soon as the battle was over and let the
Stuarts come back to power.

“And how was it in our own country, when our fathers had triumphed
in the war of the Revolution? When the victory was won, did they
open their arms to the Loyalists, as they called themselves, or
Tories, as our fathers called them? Did they invite them back? Not
one. They confiscated their lands. The States passed decrees that no
Tory should live on our soil. And when they were too poor to take
themselves away, our fathers, burdened as the young nation was with
debt, raised the money to transport the Tories beyond seas or across
the Canada border. They went to England, to France, to Nova Scotia,
to New Brunswick, and especially to Halifax; and that town was such
a resort for them, that it became the swear-word of our boyhood. ‘Go
to Halifax!’ was a substitute for a more impious, but not more
opprobrious expression. The presence of Tories made it opprobrious.

“Now, I do not refer to this as an example which we ought to follow.
Oh, no. We live in a milder era, in an age softened by the more
genial influence of Christian civilization. Witness the sixty-one
men who fought against us in the late war, and who are now sitting
in this and the other chamber of Congress. Every one of them is here
because a magnanimous nation freely voted that they might come; and
they are welcome. Only please do not say that you are just now
especially fitted to rule the Republic, and to be the apostles of
liberty and of blessings to the colored race.

“Gentlemen, the North has been asked these many years to regard the
sensibilities of the South. We have been told that you were brave
and sensitive men, and that we ought not to throw firebrands among
you. Most of our people have treated you with justice and
magnanimity. In some things we have given you just cause for
complaint; but I want to remind you that the North also has
sensibilities to be regarded. The ideas which they cherished, and
for which they fought, triumphed in the highest court, the court of
last resort, the field of battle. Our people intend to abide by that
verdict and to enforce the mandate. They rejoice at every evidence
of acquiescence. They look forward to the day when the distinctions
of North and South shall have melted away in the grander sentiment
of nationality. But they do not think it is yet safe to place the
control of this great work in your hands. In the hands of some of
you they would be safe, perfectly safe; but into the hands of the
united South, joined with the most reactionary elements of the
Northern Democracy, our people will not yet surrender the
government.

“I am aware that there is a general disposition ‘to let by-gones be
by-gones,’ and to judge of parties and of men, not by what they have
been, but by what they are and what they propose.

“That view is partly just and partly erroneous. It is just and wise
to bury resentments and animosities. It is erroneous in this, that
parties have an organic life and spirit of their own—an
individuality and character which outlive the men who compose them;
and the spirit and traditions of a party should be considered in
determining their fitness for managing the affairs of a nation. For
this purpose I have reviewed the history of the Democratic party.”

Long ago an arrangement was perfected by which each State of the Union should be allowed to place in the halls of Congress two statues of distinguished citizens. On December 19, 1876, the State of Massachusetts announced its readiness to comply with this arrangement, by presenting two statues, one of John Winthrop and one of Samuel Adams.

Speaking on the resolution of that day, accepting this gift, Mr. Garfield made one of the most felicitous of the many speeches of this kind that he has left on record. One paragraph from this address can not be omitted here:

“As, from time to time, our venerable and beautiful Hall has been
peopled with statues of the elect of the States, it has seemed to me
that a Third House was being organized within the walls of the
Capitol—a house whose members have received their high credentials
at the hands of history, and whose term of office will outlast the
ages. Year by year we see the circle of its immortal membership
enlarging; year by year we see the elect of their country, in
eloquent silence, taking their places in this American Pantheon,
bringing within its sacred circle the wealth of those immortal
memories which made their lives illustrious; and year by year that
august assembly is teaching a deeper and grander lesson to all who
serve their brief hour in these more ephemeral Houses of Congress.
And now two places of great honor have just been most nobly filled.”

Of a truth, General Garfield understood and appreciated the greatness of the Republic, and the grandeur of the character which belonged to its founders!

The election for President, in 1876, and the difficulty which arose in deciding its results, will not be forgotten by this generation, or left out of the studies of American statesmen in the future. We still vividly recollect how narrow the majority, and how uncertain; how all depended on three doubtful Southern States; how the “visiting statesmen” went to New Orleans to watch the count before the Returning Board; how the nation waited breathless while these momentous calculations were being made. And finally, we long shall remember that famous Electoral Commission which by an eight to seven vote made R. B. Hayes President of the United States.

Arriving at Washington early in November, General Garfield was requested by President Grant to go to New Orleans with the little company of Democratic and Republican leaders who were there. General Garfield arrived in New Orleans on November fourteenth. In common with other members of the Republican Committee, he refused to unite in any movement to in any way influence the Returning Board in its canvass of the vote. He was there simply to witness what was done; not to take part in the proceedings.

These visitors of both parties were given opportunities to witness the count, five of each party being there all the time. They were furnished with copies of all testimony taken; and to simplify the work, the study of this testimony was distributed out among individuals. General Garfield was given all the papers regarding East Feliciana parish, which he thoroughly examined, and even recalled and re-examined some of the witnesses.

In the work before the Returning Board, that Board allowed these witnesses to ask questions, and to take copies of all the papers. Each party was also represented by counsel, who argued the disputed points.

This was the work of the “visiting statesmen.” When the canvassing of votes was completed, without waiting for or trying to influence the result, General Garfield returned to Washington, as did nearly all the others.

It has been a question whether outsiders ought to have been at New Orleans at all in this emergency. Certainly a public man ran great risk of doing himself harm by going, and it required the utmost circumspection to get out of it, clear from suspicion of evil. A year afterward this affair was examined by the Potter Committee, and of Garfield, the worst they could say was this: “We found no fault in him.”

But the struggle at New Orleans did not decide it all. When January came it was seen that there would still be trouble in deciding who were elected. It was feared by all that an attempt to decide by the existing laws, without the help of further provisions, might lead to serious difficulties.

Accordingly, on January 29, 1877, there was passed in the House a law providing for the Electoral Commission, a body to be composed of five Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, five Senators and five Representatives, to whom should be committed the duty of deciding, by their recommendation, the votes of any disputed States.

General Garfield was opposed to this commission, which he thought an unhappy way of ending the trouble. His views are given in a speech made to the House, on January 25, wherein he said:

“What, then, are the grounds on which we should consider a bill like
this? It would be unbecoming in me or in any member of this Congress
to oppose this bill on mere technical or trifling grounds. It should
be opposed, if at all, for reasons so broad, so weighty, as to
overcome all that has been said in its favor, and all the advantages
which I have here admitted may follow from its passage. I do not
wish to diminish the stature of my antagonist; I do not wish to
undervalue the points of strength in a measure before I question its
propriety. It is not enough that this bill will tide us over a
present danger, however great. Let us for a moment forget Hayes and
Tilden, Republicans and Democrats; let us forget our own epoch and
our own generation; and, entering a broader field, inquire how this
thing which we are about to do will effect the great feature of our
republic, and in what condition, if we pass this bill, we shall
transmit our institutions to those who shall come after us. The
present good which we shall achieve by it may be very great; yet if
the evils that will flow from it in the future must be greater, it
would be base in us to flinch from trouble by entailing remediless
evils upon our children.

“In my view, then, the foremost question is this: What will be the
effect of this measure upon our institutions? I can not make that
inquiry intelligibly without a brief reference to the history of the
Constitution, and to some of the formidable questions which
presented themselves to our fathers nearly a hundred years ago, when
they set up this goodly frame of Government.

“Among the foremost difficulties, both in point of time and
magnitude, was how to create an executive head of the Nation. Our
fathers encountered that difficulty the first morning after they
organized and elected the officers of the Constitutional Convention.
The first resolution introduced by Randolph, of Virginia, on the
29th day of May, recognized that great question, and invited the
Convention to its examination. The men who made the Constitution
were deeply read in the profoundest political philosophy of their
day. They had learned from Montesquieu, from Locke, from Fénelon,
and other good teachers of the human race, that liberty is
impossible without a clear and distinct separation of the three
great powers of government. A generation before their epoch,
Montesquieu had said:

“‘When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same
person or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty,
because apprehensions may arise lest the same monarch or senate
should enact tyrannical laws and execute them in a tyrannical
manner.

* * * * *

“‘There would be an end of every thing were the same man or the same
body, whether of the nobles or of the people, to exercise these
three powers, that of enacting the laws, that of executing the
public resolutions, and of trying the causes of individuals.’

“This was a fundamental truth in the American mind, as it had long
been cherished and practiced in the British empire.

“There, as in all monarchies, the creation of a chief executive was
easily regulated by adopting a dynasty, and following the law of
primogeniture.

“But our fathers had drawn the deeper lesson of liberty from the
inspirations of this free New World, that their Chief Executive
should be born, not of a dynasty, but of the will of a free people
regulated by law.

“In the course of their deliberations upon this subject, there were
suggested seven different plans, which may be grouped under two
principal heads or classes. One group comprised all the plans for
creating the Chief Executive by means of some one of the preëxisting
political organizations of the country. First and foremost was the
proposition to authorize one or both Houses of the National
Legislature to elect the Chief Executive. Another was to confer that
power upon the governors of the States, or upon the legislatures of
the States. Another, that he should be chosen directly by the people
themselves under the laws of the States. The second group comprised
all the various plans for creating a new and separate
instrumentality for making the choice.

“At first the proposition that the Executive should be elected by
the National Legislature was received by the Convention with almost
unanimous approval; and for the reason that up to that time Congress
had done all that was done in the way of national government. It had
created the nation and led its fortunes through a thousand perils,
had declared and achieved independence, and had preserved the
liberty of the people in the midst of a great war. Though Congress
had failed to secure a firm and stable Government after the war, yet
its glory was not forgotten. As Congress had created the Union, it
was most natural that our fathers should say Congress should also
create the Chief Executive of the nation. And within two weeks after
the Convention assembled, they voted for that plan with absolute
unanimity.

“But with equal unanimity they agreed that this plan would be fatal
to the stability of the Government they were about to establish, if
they did not couple with it some provision that should make the
President’s functions independent of the power that created him. To
effect this, they provided that the President should be ineligible
for reëlection. They said it would never do to create a Chief
Executive by the voice of the National Legislature, and then allow
him to be reëlected by that same voice; for he would thus become
their creature.

“And so, from the first day of their session in May, to within five
days of its close in September, they grappled with the mighty
question. I have many times, and recently very carefully, gone
through all the records that are left to us of that great
transaction. I find that more than one-seventh of all the pages of
the Madison papers are devoted to this Samson of questions, how the
Executive should be chosen and made independent of the organization
that made the choice. This topic alone occupied more than
one-seventh of all the time of the Convention.

“After a long and earnest debate, after numerous votes and
reconsiderations, they were obliged utterly to abandon the plan of
creating the Chief Executive by means of the National Legislature. I
will not stop now to prove the statement by a dozen or more pungent
quotations from the masters of political science in that great
assembly, in which they declared that it would be ruinous to the
liberty of the people and to the permanence of the Republic if they
did not absolutely exclude the National Legislature from any share
in the election of the President.

“They pointed with glowing eloquence to the sad but instructive fate
of those brilliant Italian republics that were destroyed because
there was no adequate separation of powers, and because their
senates overwhelmed and swallowed up the executive power, and, as
secret and despotic conclaves, became the destroyers of Italian
liberty.

“At the close of the great discussion, when the last vote on this
subject was taken by our fathers, they were almost unanimous in
excluding the National Legislature from any share whatever in the
choice of the Chief Executive of the nation. They rejected all the
plans of the first group, and created a new instrumentality. They
adopted the system of electors. When that plan was under discussion,
they used the utmost precaution to hedge it about by every
conceivable protection against the interference or control of
Congress.

“In the first place, they said the States shall create the electoral
colleges. They allowed Congress to have nothing whatever to do with
the creation of the colleges, except merely to fix the time when the
States should appoint them. And, in order to exclude Congress by
positive prohibition, in the last days of the Convention they
provided that no member of either House of Congress should be
appointed an elector; so that not even by the personal influence of
any one of its members could the Congress interfere with the
election of a President.

“The creation of a President under our Constitution consists of
three distinct steps: First, the creation of the electoral colleges;
second, the vote of colleges; and third, the opening and counting of
their votes. This is the simple plan of the Constitution.

“The creation of the colleges is left absolutely to the States,
within the five limitations I had the honor to mention to the House
a few days ago. First, it must be a _State_ that appoints electors;
second, the State is limited as to the number of electors it may
appoint; third, electors shall not be members of Congress or
officers of the United States; fourth, the time for appointing
electors may be fixed by Congress; and, fifth, the time when their
appointment is announced, which must be before the date for giving
their votes, may also be fixed by Congress.

“These five simple limitations, and these alone, were laid upon the
States. Every other act, fact, and thing possible to be done in
creating the electoral colleges was absolutely and uncontrollably in
the power of the States themselves. Within these limitations,
Congress has no more power to touch them in this work than England
or France. That is the first step.

“The second is still plainer and simpler, namely, the work of the
colleges. They were created as an independent and separate power, or
set of powers, for the sole purpose of electing a President. They
were created by the States. Congress has just one thing to do with
them, and only one: it may fix the day when they shall meet. By the
act of 1792 Congress fixed the day as it still stands in the law;
and there the authority of the Congress over the colleges ended.