Chapter XI: Candidate for the Presidency (2)

“I want to say another thing about the soldiers’ work. I know of
nothing in all the circle of human duty that so unites men as the
common suffering and danger and struggle that war brings upon a
regiment. You can not know a man so thoroughly and so soon as by the
tremendous tests to which war subjects him. These men knew each
other by sight long before they knew each other by heart; but before
they got back home they knew each other, as you sometimes say you
know a son, ‘by heart;’ for they had been tested by fire; they had
been tested by starvation; they had been tested by the grim presence
of death, and each knew that those who remained were union men; men
that in all the hard, close chances of life, had the stuff in them
that enabled them to stand up in the very extremes they did; and
stand up ready to die. And such men, so tried and so acquainted,
never got over it; and the rest of the world must permit them to be
just a little clannish towards each other; the rest of the world
will not think we are narrow when they consider this particular
fault of ours; a little closer to us than any of the rest of the
world in a military way.

“Now, fellow-citizens, we are here to look into your faces, to enjoy
your hospitality, to revive our old memories of the place, but, for
more than any thing else, to look into each other’s faces, and
revive old memories of a great many places less pleasing and
home-like than Ashland. We have been meeting together in this way
for nearly fifteen years, and we have made a pledge to each other
that as long as there are two of us left to shake hands, we will
meet and greet the survivor. Some of us felt a little hurt about ten
years ago when the papers spoke of us as the survivors of the
Forty-second Regiment. We were survivors it was true, but we thought
we were so surviving that it need not be put at us, as though we
were about to die. Now, I don’t know how it is with the rest of you.
Most of mankind grow old, and you can see it in their faces. I see
here and there a bald head, like my own, or a white one, like
Captain Gardner’s, but to me these men will be boys till they die.
We call them boys; we meet and greet them as boys, even though they
become very old boys, and in that spirit of young, hopeful, daring
manhood we expect to meet them so long as we live. Nothing can get
us a great way from each other while we live. I am glad to meet
these men here to-day. [Here another portion of the platform broke
down, precipitating General Garfield and two or three of the
reporters to the ground.] Continuing, he said: I was glad also that
there was not any body hurt when that broke, and nobody made
unhappy, and I will conclude all I wanted to say, more than I
intended to say, by adding this: These men went out without one
single touch of revenge in their hearts. They went out to maintain
this Union and make it immortal; to put their own immortal lives
into it, and to make it possible that the people of Ashland should
make the monogram of the United States, as you see it up there
(pointing to the monogram on the building), a wreath of Union inside
of a very large N, a capital N, that stands for Nation, a Nation so
large that it includes the ‘U. S. A.’ all the people of the
Republic, and will include it for evermore; that is what we meant
then and is what we mean now.

“And now, fellow-citizens and soldiers of the Forty-second
Regiment—for I have been talking mainly to you, and if any of this
crowd have overheard I am not particularly to blame for it—I say,
fellow-citizens and comrades, I greet you to-day with great
satisfaction and bid you a cordial good-bye.”

Two days later General Garfield was present at a reunion of an artillery company, held at Mentor, and since they had composed a part of the force with which Thomas stayed at last the furious onset at Chickamauga, their old chief of staff was all the more willing to say a few words for their edification. This he did as follows:—

“_Comrades_: This is really the first time I have met this battery
as an organization since the Sunday evening of the terrible battle
of Chickamauga, nearly seventeen years ago. I last saw you there in
the most exposed angle of that unfortunate line, broken by the
combined forces of Bragg and Longstreet. I then saw you gallantly
fighting under the immediate direction of General Thomas, to reform
that broken line, and hold the exultant rebel host in check until
the gallant Steedman with reinforcements swept them back into the
dark valley of the Chickamauga. I am now able to distinguish among
your numbers faces which I saw there in that terrible hour. But how
changed! I now see you here with your wives, children, and friends,
peaceably enjoying this grand reception of your friends and
neighbors here assembled to honor and entertain you.

“But nothing so attracts my attention as your young and active
appearance. It is more than eighteen years since you left for the
war, and yet you are not old. Indeed, many of you appear almost like
boys. This I am pleased to observe; for if there be any men upon the
face of the earth who deserve an extension of time, it is you who,
in early manhood, so freely gave your services to your country, that
it might live. Nothing can be more proper than these annual
reunions. I am aware of the reputation which this organization, as
well as my own regiment, always enjoyed of unity and good fellowship
among its officers and men. May you, therefore, continue to enjoy
and perpetuate that friendship to the very latest hour of your
lives.”

General Garfield had now to learn that the people in their eagerness, and especially the politicians in their unselfish devotion, had decreed him no further rest, even at Lawnfield. Pilgrimages to Mentor became the order of the day. For meanwhile the October elections had been held, and all had gone triumphantly for the Republicans. Indiana, chief of the so-called “doubtful States,” had whirled into line with an unequivocal majority. Ohio had put a quietus on all hopes of the Democracy to carry her electoral votes for Hancock. The high-blown anticipations of the friends of “the superb soldier” were shockingly shattered. And so all the paths of political preferment led to Mentor; and all the paths were trodden by way-worn pilgrims, who, with sandal-shoon and scallop-shell urged their course thither to see him who was now their hope. On the 19th of October a train of these pilgrims, rather more notable than the rest, came in from Indiana. It was the Lincoln Club of Indianapolis, four hundred strong. They were uniformed, and wore grotesque cockades extemporized out of straw hats into a sort of three-cornered conspicuity. The General was, none the less, greatly pleased with his visitors, and spared no pains to make their brief stay at Mentor a pleasure, if not a profit. The club was formally introduced by Captain M. G. McLean, and in response General Garfield said:—

“_Gentlemen_: You come as bearers of dispatches, so your chairman
tells me. I am glad to hear the news you bring, and exceedingly glad
to see the bringers of the news. Your uniform, the name of your
club, the place from which you come, are all full of suggestions.
You recollect the verses that were often quoted about the old
Continental soldiers: “The old three-cornered hat and breeches, and
all that were so queer.” Your costume brings back to our memory the
days of the Continentals of 1776, whose principles I hope you
represent. You are called the Lincoln Club, and Lincoln was himself
a revival, a restoration of the days of ’76 and their doctrines. The
great Proclamation of Emancipation, which he penned, was a second
Declaration of Independence—broader, fuller, the New Testament of
human liberty; and then you come from Indiana, supposed to be a
Western State, but yet in its traditions older than Ohio. More than
one hundred years ago a gallant Virginian went far up into your
wilderness, captured two or three forts, took down the British flag,
and reared the Stars and Stripes. Vincennes and Cahokia, and a post
in Illinois, were a part of the capture. Your native State was one
of the first fruits of that splendid fighting power which gave the
whole West to the United States, and now these representatives of
Indiana come representing the Revolution in your hats, representing
Abraham Lincoln in your badges, and representing the victory both of
the Revolution and of Lincoln in the news you bring. I could not be
an American and fail to welcome your costumes, your badges, your
news and yourselves. Many Indiana men were my comrades in the days
of the war. I remember a regiment of them that was under my command
near Corinth, when it seemed necessary for the defense of our forces
to cut down a little piece of timber—seventy-five acres. We unboxed
for my brigade about four thousand new axes, and the Fifty-first
Regiment of Indiana Volunteers chopped down more trees in half a day
than I supposed it was possible could fall in any forest in a week.
It appears that in the great political forest from which you have
just come, your axes have been busy again. I especially welcome the
axmen of the Fifty-first Regiment, who may happen to be here, and
thank you all, gentlemen, for the compliment of your visit, and for
the good news you bring. I do not prize that news half so much for
its personal relations to you and to me, as I do because it is a
revival of the spirit of 1776, the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, the
spirit of universal liberty, and the spirit of just and equal law
all over this land. That gives your news its greatest significance.
Gentlemen, I thank you again, and shall be glad to take you by the
hand.”

After the speeches, the members of the Lincoln Club all had the pleasure of shaking the hand of General Garfield, and of hearing an individual welcome from his lips.

Two days afterwards, the Cuyahoga Veteran Corps came on a similar pilgrimage to Lawnfield, and were similarly well received. General M. D. Leggett, commander of the corps, made the introductory address; and, in answer, General Garfield said:

“_Comrades_: Any man that can see twelve hundred comrades in his
front-door yard has as much reason to be proud as for any thing that
can well happen to him in this world. After that has happened, he
need not much care what else happens, or what else don’t happen. To
see twelve hundred men, from almost every regiment of the State, and
from regiments and brigades and divisions of almost every other
State—to see the consolidated field report of the survivors of the
war, sixteen years after it is over—is a great sight for any man to
look on. I greet you all with gratitude for this visit. Its personal
compliment is great.

“But there is another thought in it far greater than that to me and
greater to you. Just over yonder about ten miles, when I was a mere
lad, I heard the first political speech of my life. It was a speech
that Joshua R. Giddings was making. He had come home to appeal to
his constituents. A Southern man drew a pistol on him while he was
speaking in favor of human liberty, and marched over toward him to
shoot him down, to stop his speech and quench the voice of liberty.
I remember but one thing that the old hero said in the course of
that speech so long ago, and it was this: ‘I knew I was speaking for
liberty, and I felt that if the assassin had shot me down, my speech
would still go on and triumph.’ Well, now, gentlemen, there are
twelve hundred, and the hundred times twelve hundred—the million of
men that went out into the field of battle to fight for our
Union—felt just as that speaker felt—that if they should all be shot
down the cause of liberty would still go on. You and all the Union
felt that around you, and above you, and behind you, were a force
and a cause and an immortal truth that would outlive your bodies and
mine, and survive all our brigades and all our armies and all our
battles. Here you are to-day in the same belief. We shall all die,
and yet we believe that after us the immortal truths for which we
fought will live in a united Nation, a united people against all
factions, against all section, against all division, so long as
there shall be a continent of rivers and mountains and lakes. It was
that great belief that lifted you all up into the heroic height of
great soldiers in the war, and it is that belief that you cherish
to-day, and carry with you in all your pilgrimages and in all your
reunions. In that great belief, and in that inspiring faith, I meet
you and greet you to-day, and with it we will go on to whatever fate
has in store for us all.

“I thank you, comrades, for this demonstration of your faith and
confidence and regard for me. Why, gentlemen, this home of mine will
never be the same place again. I am disposed to think that a man
does not take every thing away from a place when he takes his body
away. It was said that long after the death of the first Napoleon,
his soldiers believed that on certain anniversary days he came out
and reviewed all his dead troops, he himself being dead; that he had
a midnight review of those that had fought and fallen under his
leadership. That, doubtless, was a fiction of the imagination; but I
shall have to believe in all time hereafter the character and spirit
and impressions of my comrades live on this turf, and under these
trees, and in this portal; and it will be a part of my comradeship
in all days to come.”

On the 28th of the month a delegation of Portage County citizens, two hundred strong, headed by Judge Luther Day, of Ravenna, visited Mentor, and paid the customary respects to him who was now regarded as well nigh certain to carry away the greatest honor known to the American people. After the company was formally introduced by Judge Day, the General, in response, said:

“_Judge Day, Ladies and Gentlemen_: I once read of a man who tried
to wear the armor and wield the sword of some ancient ancestor, but
found them too large for his stature and strength. If I should try
at this moment to wear and sway the memories which your presence
awakens, I should be overwhelmed, and wholly unable to marshal and
master the quick-coming throng of memories which this semicircle of
old friends and neighbors has brought to me. Here are school-fellows
of twenty-eight years ago. Here are men and women who were my pupils
a quarter of a century ago. Here are venerable men who, twenty one
years ago, in the town of Kent, launched me upon the stormy sea of
political life. I see others who were soldiers in the old regiment
which I had the honor to command, and could I listen to the teaching
and thoughtful words of my friend, the venerable late Chief Justice
of Ohio, who has just spoken, without remembering that evening in
1861, of which he spoke too modestly, when he and I stood together
in the old church at Hiram, and called upon the young men to go
forth to battle for the Union, and be enlisted before they slept,
and thus laid the foundation of the Forty-second Regiment? How can I
forget all these things, and all that has followed? How can I forget
that twenty-five years of my life were so braided and intertwined
with the lives of the people of Portage County, when I see men and
women from all its townships standing at my door? I can not forget
these things while life and consciousness remain. No other period of
my life can be like this. The freshness of youth, the very
springtide of life, the brightening on toward noonday—all were with
you and of you, my neighbors, my friends, my cherished comrades, in
all the relations of social, student, military and political life
and friendship. You are here, so close to my heart that I can not
trust myself to an attempt to marshal these memories with any thing
like coherence. To know that my neighbors and friends in Portage
County, since the first day of my Congressional life, have never
sent to any convention a delegate who was hostile to me; that
through all the storm of detraction that roared around me, the
members of the old guard of Portage County have never wavered in
their faith and friendship, but have stood an unbroken phalanx with
their locked shields above my head, and have given me their hearts
in every contest. If a man can carry in his memory a jewel more
precious than this, I am sure Judge Day has never heard what it is.

“Well, gentlemen, on the eve of great events, closing a great
campaign, I look into your faces and draw from you such consolation
as even you can not understand. Whatever the event may be, our post
is secure, and whatever may befall me hereafter, if I can succeed in
keeping the hearts of Portage County near to me I shall know that I
do not go far wrong in any thing, for they are men who love the
truth for truth’s sake, far more than they love any man.

“Ladies and gentlemen, all the doors of my house are open to you.
The hand of every member of my family is outstretched to you. Our
hearts greet you, and we ask you to come in.”

In the meantime there had occurred the most remarkable episode of the campaign. On the 21st of October appeared in the columns of a New York newspaper called _Truth_, a letter purporting to have been written on the 23d of January, 1880, to one H. L. Morey, of Lynn, Massachusetts. The communication was ostensibly a reply to a letter written to General Garfield with the purpose of obtaining his views on the great question of the Chinese in the United States, and more particularly to extract his ideas on the subject of Chinese cheap labor. This previous supposititious letter of Morey was never produced, but only the alleged answer of General Garfield, which was as follows:

“HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, }
WASHINGTON, D. C., January 23, 1880. }

“_Dear Sir_: Yours in relation to the Chinese problem came duly to
hand. I take it that the question of employes is only a question of
private and corporate economy. Individuals or companies have the
right to buy labor where they can get it the cheapest. We have a
treaty with the Chinese Government, which should be religiously kept
until its provisions are abrogated by the action of the General
Government, and I am not prepared to say that it should be abrogated
until our great manufacturing interests are conserved in the matter
of labor.

Very truly yours,

“J. A. GARFIELD.

“To H. L. MOREY, Employers’ Union, Lynn, Mass.”

It was instantly manifested, on the appearance of this letter, that its almost certain effect would be to lose General Garfield the electoral votes of the Pacific States; for the settled sentiment of those States against Chinese immigration and the consequent competition of that people with American free labor, was known to be so pronounced as to make it sure that no party discipline could hold them in allegiance to a candidate who squinted at favoring the Celestials. There was instant alarm among the General’s friends, but their fears were quickly quieted by the prompt action of Garfield himself, who immediately sent to Hon. Marshall Jewell, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, the following dispatch:

“MENTOR, O., October 22, 1880.

“_To Hon. M. Jewell and Hon. S. W. Dorsey_:

“I will not break the rule I have adopted by making a public reply
to campaign lies, but I authorize you to denounce the so-called
Morey letter as a bold forgery, both in its language and sentiment.
Until its publication I never heard of the existence of the
Employers’ Union of Lynn, Massachusetts, nor of such a person as H.
L. Morey.

“J. A. GARFIELD.”

The mails of the same day brought to General Garfield a copy of the _Truth_ newspaper, containing a lithographic fac-simile of his alleged letter, and to this he made immediate answer as follows:

MENTOR, O., October 23, 1880.

“_To Hon. Marshall Jewell_:

“Your telegram of this afternoon is received. Publish my dispatch of
last evening, if you think best. Within the last hour the mail has
brought me a lithographic copy of the forged letter. It is the work
of some clumsy villain who can not spell nor write English, nor
imitate my handwriting. Every honest and manly Democrat in America,
who is familiar with my handwriting, will denounce the forgery at
sight. Put the case in the hands of the ablest detectives at once,
and hunt the rascal down.

“J. A. GARFIELD.”

The question of veracity was thus broadly opened between General Garfield and the mythical Morey and his backers. It did not take the American people long to decide between them. Except in the columns of extreme and reckless partisan newspapers and in the months of irresponsible demagogues, the matter was laid forever to rest. To convince the people that James A. Garfield was a liar was an up-hill work. The Republicans simply said that the Morey letter was an outrageous fraud, a forged expedient, a last resort to stay a lost cause.

In the investigation the following facts clearly appeared:

1. That no such person as H. L. Morey lived at or near Lynn, Massachusetts, at the time when the alleged Garfield letter was written.

2. That no such association as the supposed Morey pretended to represent, ever existed in Lynn.

3. The fac-simile of the letter printed in the columns of _Truth_ showed, on close examination, all the internal evidences of forgery. It was a coarse and easily detected counterfeit of the General’s handwriting and signature, and contained, among other palpable absurdities, the word “companies,” spelled _companys_—a blunder utterly at variance with General Garfield’s scholarship and careful literary habit.

4. The fact that the sentiments of the letter were in broad and palpable contradiction of Garfield’s letter of acceptance and other public utterances on the Chinese question.

5. General Garfield’s positive and unreserved denial of authorship.

This put the abettors of the Morey business on the defensive, and they squirmed not a little. They said that Morey was dead; which was a necessary thing to say. They declared themselves innocent of all complicity. The letter had come into their hands in the regular way. They _believed_ it to be true, etc. But all these allegations combined would not suffice to stay the inevitable reaction; for say what you will, do not the American people believe in fair play?

According to General Garfield’s expressed desire, the Morey case was carried to the courts. A certain Kenward Philp, a contributor to _Truth_, was charged with the forgery and arrested.

The grand jury in General Sessions presented an indictment against Joseph Hart, Louis A. Post, Kenward Philp and Charles A. Bryne for publishing in the newspaper _Truth_ a criminal libel on General Garfield.

A long trial followed in the court of Oyer and Terminer, of New York. The suit was at first directed against the editors of _Truth_, and Philp was thus unearthed. As the trial progressed, although the evidence was inconclusive as to Philp’s authorship of the letter, yet every circumstance tended to show unmistakably that the whole affair had been a cunning conspiracy of some prodigious scoundrel to injure General Garfield’s chances for the Presidency.

The production of the letter and its envelope in Court betrayed at once the tampering to which the latter had been subjected, and settled the character of the disgraceful political maneuver which had given it birth. The alleged forger proved to be an English Bohemian, who contributed to the “story papers,” and who confessedly wrote the editorial articles defending the genuineness of the letter in the underground journal which first published it. The register of the Kirtland House, at Lynn, Massachusetts, was produced by the defense, and the name “H. L. Morey” was shown there in October, 1879, and again in February of 1880. But there was the most circumstantial evidence that the name had been recently written on each page of the register. The name had, undoubtedly, been added to the hotel register in each instance by some one who was anxious to bolster up the fraud.

The discovery was made that the envelope containing the forged letter had originally been addressed to some one else than H. L. Morey; and an enlarged photographic copy of the envelope revealed the fact that the original name was Edward or Edwin Fox or Cox, in care of some company in the city of New York. And in the next place it was shown that Edward Fox was employed upon the _Truth_!

The prosecution failed to convict the publishers of the _Truth_ of criminal libel; but the country rendered again the old Scotch verdict of “Guilty—but not proven.” The Presidential election, however, was imminent, and it is not improbable that General Garfield’s vote on the Pacific Slope was injured by the base machinations of the Morey conspirators.

On the 2d of November was held the Presidential election. The result had been foreseen. The Democracy could not stem the tide. The “Solid South,” the unfortunate plank in their platform declaring in favor of “a tariff for revenue only,” and the Morey forgery which had been charged up to their account, wrought their ruin. Garfield was overwhelmingly elected. The morning of the 3d revealed the general outline of the result. For a few days it was claimed by the Republicans that they had carried two or three of the Southern States, but this idea was soon dispelled. In a like unprofitable way the Democrats set up certain and sundry claims for some of the Northern States. One day they had carried New York; another day they had authentic information that California and Oregon were safe for Hancock. It was all in vain. The South all went Democratic, and all of the Northern States, except Nevada and one electoral vote from California, had been secured by the Republicans. The victory was unequivocal. The humble boy of Mother Garfield was elected President of the United States by 214 electoral votes against 155 for his antagonist, General Hancock. Thus, under the benign institutions of our country, was conferred upon one who began his life in a log cabin the highest civic honor known among the nations of the earth.

General Garfield spent election day at home without manifest excitement. In the evening, and later in the night, news began to arrive indicative of the result. Still no agitation. To some friends he said: “I have been busying myself with a calculation to determine the rate of voting to-day. During the hours in which the election has been in progress about 2000 ballots have dropped for every tick of the pendulum.” With the morning light there was no longer doubt. The title of General, won on the bloody field of Chickamauga, had given place to that of President-elect, won before the grandest bar of public opinion under the circle of the sun.

On the day succeeding the election, the first delegation bearing congratulations visited Mentor. It was composed of the Oberlin College faculty and students, headed by President Fairchild, and the occasion was one of more than usual interest. In reply to the speech of introduction, General Garfield said:

“_Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen_: This spontaneous visit is so
much more agreeable than a prepared one. It comes more directly from
the heart of the people who participate, and I receive it as a
greater compliment for that reason. I do not wish to be unduly
impressible or superstitious, but, though we have outlived the days
of the augurs, I think we have a right to think of some events as
omens; and I greet this as a happy and auspicious omen, that the
first general greeting since the event of yesterday is tendered to
me by a venerable institution of learning. The thought has been
abroad in the world a good deal, and with reason, that there is a
divorce between scholarship and politics. Oberlin, I believe, has
never advocated that divorce. But there has been a sort of
cloistered scholarship in the United States that has stood aloof
from active participation in public affairs, and I am glad to be
greeted here to-day by the active, live scholarship of Ohio; and I
know of no place where scholarship has touched upon the nerve center
of the public so effectually as Oberlin. For this reason I am
specially grateful for this greeting from the Faculty and students
of Oberlin College and its venerable and venerated President. I
thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for this visit. Whatever the
significance of yesterday’s event may be, it will be all the more
significant for being immediately indorsed by the scholarship and
culture of my State. I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and thank
your President for coming with you. You are cordially welcome.”

On the 6th of November the Republican Central Committee of Indiana repaired to Mentor and paid their respects to the coming Chief Magistrate; and on the 12th of the month the President, soon-to-be, was visited by the Republican Central Committee of Cuyahoga County. In answer to their salutation he said:

“_Gentlemen_: I have been saying a good many things during the past
few weeks, and think I should be nearly through talking by this
time. I should be the listener. But I can not refrain from saying
that I am exceedingly glad to meet with you, a company of
Republicans from my native county, and congratulate you upon what
you have done. You have shown your strength and character in your
work. You have shown that you are men of high convictions and
observe them in all that you do. I have always taken pride in this
county and in the city of Cleveland. The Forest City is well worthy
to be the capital of the Western Reserve. It has the credit of our
country at heart, never losing sight of it in the heat of political
warfare. In no city in the country can be found more active and
earnest men—solid business men. It is an honor to any one to have
the confidence of such a people. I am glad to be here this evening
to greet you and thank you for your kind invitation.” [Applause.]

Garfield had now more offices in prospect or actual possession than usually fall to the lot of one man. He was still a member of the House of Representatives in the Forty-sixth Congress; he was also United States Senator-elect for the State of Ohio; and, thirdly, he was President-elect of the United States. On the 10th of November, being perhaps content with the Presidency, he resigned his seats in the House and Senate, and thus for about four months became Citizen Garfield, of Ohio.

The 2d of December was rather a Red-letter day at Mentor. The Presidential electors for the State of Ohio, on that day called on the President-elect and tendered their best regards. In answer to their congratulations he spoke with much animation and feeling as follows:

“_Gentlemen_: I am deeply grateful to you for this call, and for
these personal and public congratulations. If I were to look upon
the late campaign and its result merely in the light of a personal
struggle and a personal success, it would probably be as gratifying
as any thing could be in the history of politics. If my own conduct
during the campaign has been in any way a help and a strength to our
cause, I am glad. It is not always an easy thing to behave well. If,
under trying circumstances, my behavior as a candidate has met your
approval, I am greatly gratified. But the larger subject—your
congratulations to the country on the triumph of the Republican
party—opens a theme too vast for me to enter upon now.

“I venture, however, to mention a reflection which has occurred to
me in reference to the election of yesterday. I suppose that no
political event has happened in all the course of the contest since
the early spring, which caused so little excitement, and, indeed, so
little public observation, as the Presidential election which was
held yesterday at midday. The American people paid but little
attention to the details of the real Presidential election, and for
a very significant reason: although you and all the members of the
Electoral Colleges had absolute constitutional and technical right
to vote for any body you chose, and although no written law directed
or suggested your choice, yet every American knew that the august
sovereign of this Republic—the 9,000,000 of voters—on an early day
in November had pronounced the omnipotent fiat of choice; and that
sovereign, assuming as done that which he had ordered to be done,
entertained no doubt but that his will would be implicitly obeyed by
all the Colleges in all the States. That is the reason why the
people were so serenely quiet yesterday. They had never yet found an
American who failed to keep his trust as a Presidential Elector.

“From this thought I draw this lesson: that when that omnipotent
sovereign, the American people, speaks to any one man and orders him
to do a duty, that man is under the most solemn obligations of
obedience which can be conceived, except what the God of the
universe might impose upon him. Yesterday, through your votes, and
the votes of others in the various States of the Union, it is
probable (the returns will show) that our great political sovereign
has laid his commands upon me. If he has done so, I am as bound by
his will and his great inspiration and purpose as I could be bound
by any consideration that this earth can impose upon any human
being. In that presence, therefore, I stand and am awed by the
majesty and authority of such a command.

“In so far as I can interpret the best aspirations and purposes of
our august sovereign, I shall seek to realize them. You and I, and
those who have acted with us in the years past, believe that our
sovereign loves liberty, and desires for all inhabitants of the
Republic peace and prosperity under the sway of just and equal laws.
Gentlemen, I thank you for this visit; for this welcome; for the
suggestions that your presence and your words bring, and for the
hope that you have expressed, that in the arduous and great work
before us we may maintain the standard of Nationality and promote
all that is good and worthy in this country, and during the coming
four years we may raise just as large a crop of peace, prosperity,
justice, liberty, and culture as it is possible for forty-nine
millions of people to raise.”

At the close of the address there was a general hand-shaking _à la Américaine_; and then to add to the interest of the occasion the President’s aged mother, to whom more than ever of late his heart had turned with loyal devotion, was led into the apartment and presented to the distinguished guests by her more distinguished son.

Two days afterwards there was another assembly of visitors at Mentor. This time it was a delegation of colored Republicans—Black Republicans in both senses of the word—from South Carolina, headed by the negro orator, R. B. Elliott, who delivered the congratulatory address. In answer, the President-elect said:

“_General Elliott and Gentlemen_: I thank you for your
congratulations on the successful termination of the great campaign
that recently closed, and especially for your kind allusion to me
personally for the part I bore in that campaign.

“What I have done, what I have said concerning your race and the
great problem that your presence on this continent has raised, I
have said as a matter of profound conviction, and hold to with all
the meaning of the words employed in expressing it. What you have
said in regard to the situation of your people, the troubles that
they encountered, the evils from which they have suffered and still
suffer, I listened to with deep attention, and shall give it full
measure of reflection.

“This is not the time nor the place for me to indicate any thing as
to what I shall have to say and do, by and by, in an official way.
But this I may say: I noted as peculiarly significant one sentence
in the remarks of General Elliott, to the effect that the majority
of citizens, as he alleges, in some portions of the South, are
oppressed by the minority. If this be so, why is it so? Because a
trained man is two or three men in one, in comparison with an
untrained man; and outside of politics and outside of parties, that
suggestion is full, brim-full, of significance, that the way to make
the majority always powerful over the minority, is to make its
members as trained and intelligent as the minority itself. That
brings the equality of citizenship; and no law can confer and
maintain in the long run a thing that is not upheld with a
reasonable degree of culture and intelligence. Legislation ought to
do all it can. I have made these suggestions simply to indicate that
the education of your race, in my judgment, lies at the base of the
final solution of your great question; and that can not be
altogether in the hands of the State or National Government. The
Government ought to do all it properly can, but the native hungering
and thirsting for knowledge that the Creator planted in every child,
must be cultivated by the parents of those children to the last
possible degree of their ability, so that the hands of the people
shall reach out and grasp in the darkness the hand of the Government
extended to help, and by that union of effort bring what mere
legislation alone can not immediately bring.

“I rejoice that you have expressed so strongly and earnestly your
views in regard to the necessity of your education. I have felt for
years that that was the final solution.

“Those efforts that are humble and comparatively out of sight are,
in the long run, the efforts that tell. I have sometimes thought
that the men that sink a coffer-dam into the river, and work for
months in anchoring great stones to build the solid abutments and
piers, whose work is by and by hidden by the water and out of sight,
do not get their share of the credit. The gaudy structure of the
bridge that rests on these piers, and across which the trains
thunder, is the thing that strikes the eye of the general public a
great deal more than the sunken piers and hard work. The educational
growth and the building up of industry, the economy and all that can
help the foundations of real prosperity is the work that, in the
long run, tells. Some Scotch poet said, or put it in the mouth of
some prophet to say, that the time would come ‘when Bertram’s right
and Bertram’s might shall meet on Ellengowan’s height,’ and it is
when the might and the right of a people meet that majorities are
never oppressed by minorities. Trusting, gentlemen, that you may
take part in this earnest work of building up your race from the
foundation into the solidity of intelligence and industry, and upon
those bases at last see all your rights recognized, is my personal
wish and hope for your people.”

About this time in November, the weather closed in stormy and cold, and, fortunately for Garfield, the tide of visitors ebbed, and he found a little rest. Late in the month, he made a brief visit to Washington, where he spent a few days among his friends and political advisers. After that, he returned to Mentor, and during December his life was passed in comparative quiet at his home.

No doubt in these December days the vision of his boyhood rose many times to view. No doubt, in the silence of the winter evening, by his glowing hearth at Lawnfield, with the wife of his youth by his side and the children of their love around them, and the certain Presidency of the Republic just beyond, he realized in as full measure as falls to the lot of man that strange thing which is called success.

The New Year came in. The bleak January—bitter cold—went by. On the 16th of February, the distinguished Senator Conkling, of New York, made a visit to the President-elect. In the imagination of the political busybodies the event was fraught with great consequences. It was said that the haughty stalwart leader was on a mission looking to the construction of the new administration, to seek favor for his friends, and to pledge therefor the support—hitherto somewhat doubted—of himself and his partisans. The interview was named the “Treaty of Mentor;” but the likelihood is that the _treaty_ consisted of no more than distinguished civilities and informal discussion of the _personnel_ of the new Cabinet, etc. A few days later the President-elect made his departure for Washington to be inaugurated. The special train which was to bear himself and family away, left Mentor on the 28th of February. Fully three thousand people were gathered at the dépôt. Cheer after cheer was given in honor of him who had made the name of Mentor for ever famous. A farewell speech was delivered by Hon. A. L. Tinker, of Painesville, and to this the Chief Magistrate responded thus:

“_Fellow-citizens and neighbors of Lake County_: I thank you for the
cordial and kindly greeting and farewell. You have come from your
homes than which no happier are known in this country, from this
beautiful lakeside full of that which makes country life happy, to
give me your blessing and farewell. You do not know how much I leave
behind me of friendship, and confidence, and home-like happiness;
but I know I am indebted to this whole people for acts of kindness,
of neighborly friendship, of political confidence, of public
support, that few men have ever enjoyed at the hands of any people.
You are a part of this great community of Northern Ohio, which, for
so many years, have had no political desire but the good of your
country; and now wishing but the promotion of liberty and justice,
have had no scheme but the building up of all that was worthy and
true in our Republic. If I were to search over all the world I could
not find a better model of political spirit, of aspirations for the
truth and the right, than I have found in this community during the
eighteen years its people have honored me with their confidence. I
thank the citizens of this county for their kindness, and especially
my neighbors of Mentor, who have demanded so little of me, and have
done so much to make my home a refuge and a joy. What awaits me I
can not now speak of, but I shall carry to the discharge of the
duties that lie before me, to the problems and dangers I may meet, a
sense of your confidence and your love, which will always be
answered by my gratitude. Neighbors, friends, and constituents,
farewell.” [Great applause.]

Promptly at 1 P. M. the train moved off, and the crowd dispersed. At Ashtabula, that famous old seat of abolitionism, the President-elect was called out by the chorus of cheers, and, in answer, said:

“_Citizens of Ashtabula_: I greatly thank you for this greeting. I
can not forget the tree that was planted so many years ago, and its
planting so far watched and assisted by the people of Ashtabula
County. It has grown to be a great tree. Its branches cover the
whole Republic, and its leaves and fruit are liberty to all men.
That is a work for the citizens of Ashtabula County to be proud of
to the latest generation. If I, as your representative, have helped
on the cause you so much have at heart, I am glad; and if in the
future I can help to confirm and strengthen what you have done so
much to build; if I can help to garner the harvest that you have
helped to plant, I shall feel that I have done something toward
discharging the debt of gratitude which I owe for your confidence
and love. I thank you, fellow-citizens, for this farewell greeting,
and I bid you good-bye.” [Great cheering.]

All along the route, as far as Altoona, Pennsylvania, where night overtook the train, the scene at Ashtabula was renewed, the President-elect responding pleasantly to the many greetings of the people.

We are now come to the last scene in the progress of James A. Garfield from the obscurity of a backwoods home to the high seat of the Presidency. Wonderful career! Magnificent development of American manhood and citizenship! The train carrying the President-elect reached Washington on the evening of the 29th of February. By the courtesy of Mrs. President Hayes the Garfield family was taken at once to the White House. A press note, speaking of the arrival, said:

“The General looks travel-tired and weary, although the excitement
keeps him well stimulated, having something of the effect of
rich-living. He says that when once his Cabinet is settled, and he
begins home-life at the White House, he will have a comparative
freedom from worry. He does not sleep excellently well. Probably no
man ever did while engaged in making up a Cabinet.”

Here, then, we say, Good-night; but think of TO-MORROW!