Alger Horatio Jr.
From Canal Boy to President; Or, the Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield
Chapter XXVI—The Canal-Boy Becomes A Congressman
While Garfield was serving his country to the utmost of his ability in the field, the voters of the Nineteenth District of Ohio, in which he had his home, were called upon to select a man to represent them in Congress. It perhaps exceeds any other portion of the State in its devotion to the cause of education and the general intelligence of its inhabitants. The people were mostly of New England origin, and in selecting a representative they wanted a man who was fitted by education, as well as fidelity, to do them credit.
Their choice fell upon Garfield, who was known to them at home as the head of one of their chief institutions of learning, and whose reputation had not suffered in the field. They did not even consult him, but put him in nomination, and elected him by an overwhelming majority.
It was a gratifying compliment, for in our country an election to Congress is regarded as a high honor, which no one need be reluctant to accept. We have on record one of our most distinguished statesmen—John Quincy Adams—who, after filling the Presidential chair, was content to go back to Washington as a member of the House of Representatives from his district in Massachusetts. It was undoubtedly more in harmony with the desires and tastes of the young man—for he was still a young man—than service in the field. But he felt that that was not the question. Where was he more needed? The war was not over. Indeed, it seemed doubtful when it would be finished; and Garfield was now in a position to serve his country well as a military commander.
When on the march to Chattanooga, Garfield consulted Gen. Rosecranz, owning that he was perplexed in attempting to decide.
Rosecranz said: "The war is not yet over, nor will it be for some time to come. Many questions will arise in Congress which will require not only statesman-like treatment, but the advice of men having an acquaintance with military affairs. For that reason you will, I think, do as good service to the country in Congress as in the field. I not only think that you can accept the position with honor, but that it is your duty to do it."
He added, and we may be sure that his advice accorded with the personal judgment of the man whom he was addressing, "Be true to yourself, and you will make your mark before your country."
Some months were to elapse before he would require to go to Washington, for Congress was not to meet till December.
He went to Washington, undecided even yet whether to remain as a legislator, or to return to his old comrades in the army. He only wished to know where he could be of most service to his country, and he finally decided to lay the matter before President Lincoln.
Lincoln gave substantially the same advice as Rosecranz: "We need men who will help us carry the necessary war measures; and, besides, we are greatly lacking in men of military experience in the House to promote legislation about the army. It is your duty, therefore, to enter Congress."
When, on the 5th of December, 1863, Garfield took his seat in the House of Representatives, he was the youngest member of that body. The Military Committee was the most important committee of Congress, and he was put upon that, on account of his practical experience in the field. This, of course, brought him, though a new and young member, into immediate prominence, and his familiarity with the wants of the army enabled him to be of great service.
I do not propose to detail at tiresome length the legislative achievements of Gen. Garfield in the new position which he was destined to fill for eighteen years. I shall only refer to such as illustrate his characteristic devotion to duty without special regard to his own interests. He never hesitated to array himself in opposition to the popular will, if he thought the people were wrong. It was not long before an occasion came up which enabled him to assert his independence.
The country needed soldiers, and had inaugurated a system of bounties which should tempt men to join the ranks of the country's defenders. It was only a partial success. Some men, good and true, were led to join by the offer of a sum which made them more at ease about the comfort of their families, but many joined the service from mercenary considerations only, who seized the first opportunity to desert, and turning up in another locality, enlisted again and obtained a second bounty. These men obtained the name of bounty-jumpers, and there was a host of them. Yet the measure was popular with soldiers, and Congress was unanimously in favor of it. Great was the amazement of his fellow-members when the young member from the Nineteenth Ohio district rose in his seat and earnestly opposed it. He objected that the policy was ruinous, involving immense expense, while effecting little good. He claimed that the country had a right to the service of every one of its children at such a crisis, without hire and without reward.
But one man stood with him, so unpopular was the stand he had taken; but it was not long before the bounty system broke down, and Garfield's views were adopted.
Later on he had another chance to show his independence. President Lincoln, foreseeing that at a certain date not far ahead the time of enlistment of nearly half the army would expire, came before Congress and asked for power to draft men into service. It met with great opposition. "What! force men into the field! Why, we might as well live under a despotism!" exclaimed many; and the members of Congress, who knew how unpopular the measure would be among their constituents, defeated it by a two-thirds vote.
It was a critical juncture. As Lincoln had said in substance, all military operations would be checked. Not only could not the war be pushed, but the Government could not stand where it did. Sherman would have to come back from Atlanta, Grant from the Peninsula.
The voting was over, and the Government was despondent. Then it was that Garfield rose, and moving a reconsideration, made a speech full of fire and earnestness, and the House, carried by storm, passed the bill, and President Lincoln made a draft for half a million men.
Garfield knew that this action would be unpopular in his district. It might defeat his re-election; but that mattered not. The President had been assailed by the same argument, and had answered, "Gentlemen, it is not necessary that I should be reëlected, but it is necessary that I should put down this rebellion." With this declaration the young Congressman heartily sympathized.
Remonstrances did come from his district. Several of his prominent supporters addressed him a letter, demanding his resignation. He wrote them that he had acted according to his views of the needs of the country; that he was sorry his judgment did not agree with theirs, but that he must follow his own. He expected to live long enough to have them all confess that he was right.
It was about this time that he made his celebrated reply to Mr. Alexander Long, of Ohio, a fellow Congressman, who proposed to yield everything and to recognize the Southern Confederacy.
The excitement was intense. In the midst of it Garfield rose and made the following speech:
"MR. CHAIRMAN," he said, "I am reminded by the occurrences of this afternoon of two characters in the war of the Revolution as compared with two others in the war of to-day.
"The first was Lord Fairfax, who dwelt near the Potomac, a few miles from us. When the great contest was opened between the mother country and the colonies, Lord Fairfax, after a protracted struggle with his own heart, decided he must go with the mother country. He gathered his mantle about him and went over grandly and solemnly.
"There was another man, who cast in his lot with the struggling colonists, and continued with them till the war was well-nigh ended. In an hour of darkness that just preceded the glory of the morning, he hatched the treason to surrender forever all that had been gained to the enemies of his country. Benedict Arnold was that man!
"Fairfax and Arnold find their parallels of to-day.
"When this war began many good men stood hesitating and doubting what they ought to do. Robert E. Lee sat in his house across the river here, doubting and delaying, and going off at last almost tearfully to join the army of his State. He reminds one in some respects of Lord Fairfax, the stately Royalist of the Revolution.
"But now when tens of thousands of brave souls have gone up to God under the shadow of the flag; when thousands more, maimed and shattered in the contest, are sadly awaiting the deliverance of death; now, when three years of terrific warfare have raged over us; when our armies have pushed the Rebellion back over mountains and rivers, and crowded it into narrow limits, until a wall of fire girds it; now when the uplifted hand of a majestic people is about to hurl the bolts of its conquering power upon the Rebellion; now, in the quiet of this hall, hatched in the lowest depths of a similar dark treason, there rises a Benedict Arnold, and proposes to surrender all up, body and spirit, the nation and the flag, its genius and its honor, now and forever, to the accursed traitors to our country! And that proposition comes—God forgive and pity our beloved State—it comes from a citizen of the time-honored and loyal commonwealth of Ohio!
"I implore you, brethren in this House, to believe that not many births ever gave pangs to my mother State such as she suffered when that traitor was born! I beg you not to believe that on the soil of that State another such a growth has ever deformed the face of nature, and darkened the light of God's day!"
Chapter XXVII—Garfield's Course In Congress
If Garfield at once took a prominent place in the House of Representatives, it was by no means because it was composed of inferior men. On the other hand, there has seldom been a time when it contained a larger number of men either prominent, or destined in after days to be prominent. I avail myself of the detailed account given of its members by Major Bundy, in his excellent Life of Garfield. There are some names which will be familiar to most of my young readers:
"Its then most fortunate and promising member was Schuyler Colfax, the popular Speaker. But there were three young members who were destined to a more lasting prominence. The senior of these who had enjoyed previous service in he House, was Roscoe Conkling, already recognized by Congress and the country as a magnificent and convincing speaker. The other two were James G. Blaine and James A. Garfield. Only a year the senior of Garfield, Blaine was about to begin a career as brilliant as that of Henry Clay, and the acquisition of a popularity unique in our political history. But in this Congress there were many members whose power was far greater than that of either of the trio, who may yet be as much compared as Clay, Webster, and Calhoun were in former days.
"In the first place, there was Elihu B. Washburne, 'the watch-dog of the treasury,' the 'father of the House,' courageous, practical, direct, and aggressive. Then there was Thaddeus Stevens, who was one of the very few men capable of driving his party associates—a character as unique as, and far stronger than, John Randolph; General Robert C. Schenck, fresh from the army, but a veteran in Congress, one of the ablest of practical statesmen; ex-Governor Boutwell, of Massachusetts; ex-Governor Fenton, of New York, a very influential member, especially on financial questions; Henry Winter Davis, the brilliant orator, of Maryland; William B. Allison, since one of the soundest and most useful of Iowa's Senators; Henry L. Dawes, who fairly earned his promotion to the Senate, but who accomplished so much in the House that his best friends regret the transfer; John A. Bingham, one of the most famous speakers of his time; James E. English, of Connecticut, who did valiant and patriotic service as a War Democrat; George H. Pendleton, now Senator from Ohio, and a most accomplished statesman, even in his early service in the House; Henry G. Stebbins, who was to make a speech sustaining Mr. Chase's financial policy that was unequaled for its salutary effect on public opinion; Samuel J. Randall, now Speaker; John A. Griswold, of New York; William Windom, one of the silent members, who has grown steadily in power; James F. Wilson, who was destined to decline three successive offers of Cabinet positions by President Grant; Daniel W. Voorhies, of Indiana, now Senator; John A. Kasson, of Iowa, now our Minister to Austria; Theodore M. Pomeroy, of New York, afterward Acting Speaker for a brief period; William R. Morrison, of Illinois, since a Democratic candidate for the Presidency; William S. Holman and George W. Julian, of Indiana, both able men; and Fernando Wood—these were all prominent members of the House. It will be seen that the House was a more trying arena for a young member like Garfield than the Senate would have been; for the contests of the former—unsubdued and unmitigated by 'the courtesy of the Senate'—were conducted by as ready and able a corps of debaters as ever sat in that body."
This was surely a formidable array of men, and a man of ordinary powers would have found it prudent to remain silent during the first session, lest he should be overwhelmed by some one of the ready speakers and experienced legislators with whom he was associated. But the canal-boy, who had so swiftly risen from his humble position to the post of college president and major-general, till at the age of thirty-two he sat in the national council the youngest member, was not daunted. His term of service as State Senator was now of use to him, for it had given him a knowledge of parliamentary law, and the practice in speaking which he gained long ago in the boys' debating societies, and extended in college, rendered him easy and master of himself.
Indeed he could not remain silent, for he represented the "boys at the front," and whenever a measure was proposed affecting their interests, he was expected to take part in the debate. It was not long before the House found that its new member was a man of grace and power, with whom it was not always safe to measure weapons. He was inclined to be peaceful, but he was not willing to permit any one to domineer over him, and the same member did not often attempt it a second time.
My young readers are sure to admire pluck, and they will, therefore, read with interest of one such occasion, when Garfield effectually quelled such an attempt. I find it in a chapter of reminiscences contributed to the Boston Journal, by Ben Perley Poore, the well-known correspondent:
"When the Jenckes Bankrupt Bill came before the House, Gen. Garfield objected to it, because in his opinion it did not provide that the estates of rebels in arms should escape the operations of the law. He also showed that money was being raised to secure the enactment of the bill, and Mr. Spalding, of the Cleveland district, was prompted by Mr. Jenckes to 'sit down on him.' But Gen. Garfield was not to be silenced easily and quite a scene ensued. The next day Garfield rose to a personal explanation, and said:
"'I made no personal reference whatever; I assailed no gentleman; I called no man's honor in question. My colleague from the Cleveland district (Mr. Spalding) rose and asked if I had read the bill. I answered him, I believe, in courteous language and manner, that I had read it, and immediately on my statement to that effect he said in his place in the House, and it has gone on the record, that he did not believe I had read it; in other words, that he believed I had lied, in the presence of my peers in this House. I felt, under such circumstances, that it would not be becoming my self-respect, or the respect I owe to the House, to continue a colloquy with any gentleman who had thus impeached my veracity and I said so.
"'It pains me very much that a gentleman of venerable age, who was in full maturity of life when I was a child, and whom I have respected since my childhood, should have taken occasion here in this place to use language so uncalled for, so ungenerous, so unjust to me, and disgraceful to himself. I have borne with the ill-nature and bad blood of that gentleman, as many others in this House have, out of respect for his years; but no importunity of age shall shield him, or any man, from my denunciation, who is so lacking in the proprieties of this place as to be guilty of such parliamentary and personal indecency as the House has witnessed on his part. I had hoped that before this time he would have acknowledged to me the impropriety and unjustifiableness of his conduct and apologized for the insult. But he has not seen fit to take this course. I leave him to his own reflections, and his conduct to the judgment of the House.'"
Those who listened to these spirited rebukes saw that the young member from Ohio would not allow himself to be snubbed or insulted with impunity, and the few who were accustomed to descend to such discourtesy took warning accordingly. They were satisfied that Garfield, to quote a common phrase, would give them as good as they sent, and perhaps a little better. The boy, who at sixteen, when employed on the tow-path, thrashed the bully of thirty-five for insulting him, was not likely in his manhood to submit to the insults of a Congressional bully. He was a man to compel respect, and had that resolute and persistent character which was likely ere long to make him a leader. So Disraeli, coughed down in his first attempt to speak before the English House of Commons, accepted the situation, but recorded the prediction that one day they would hear him. He, too, mounted step by step till he reached the highest position in the English Government outside of royalty. A man who is destined to be great is only strengthened by opposition, and rises in the end victorious over circumstances.
Garfield soon made it manifest that he had come to Washington to work. He was not one to lie back and enjoy in idleness the personal consequence which his position gave him. All his life he had been a worker, and a hard worker, from the time when he cut one hundred cords of wood, at twenty-five cents a cord, all through his experience as a canal-boy, a carpenter, a farm-worker, a janitor, a school teacher, a student, and a military commander, and now that he had taken his place in the grand council of the nation, he was not going to begin a life of self-indulgent idleness.
In consideration of his military record he was, at his entrance into Congress, put upon the Military Committee; but a session or two later, at his own request, he was assigned a place on the Committee of Ways and Means. His reason for this request was, that he might have an opportunity of studying the question of finance, which he had sufficient foresight to perceive would one day be a great question, overshadowing all others. He instantly set himself to a systematic and exhaustive study of this subject, and attained so thorough a knowledge of it that he was universally recognized as a high authority—perhaps the highest in the department. He made speech after speech on the finance question, and was a pronounced advocate of "Honest Money," setting his face like a flint against those who advocated any measures calculated to lower the national credit or tarnish the national reputation for good faith.
"I am aware," said he one day in debate, "that financial measures are dull and uninviting in comparison with those heroic themes which have absorbed the attention of Congress for the last five years. To turn from the consideration of armies and navies, victories and defeats, to the array of figures which exhibits the debt, expenditure, taxation, and industry of the nation requires no little courage and self-denial; but to these questions we must come, and to their solution Congress and all thoughtful citizens must give their best efforts for many years to come."
It was not only a wise but a bold thing to do, for among the members of his own party, in Ohio, financial heresies had crept in, and a party platform was adopted in 1867, looking to the payment of the bonds of the Government in greenbacks. He was advised to say nothing on the subject lest it should cost him the nomination in the election just at hand; but he met the question boldly, and declared that the district could only have his services "on the ground of the honest payment of this debt, and these bonds in coin, according to the letter and spirit of the contract."
Nevertheless he was renominated by acclamation.
