CHAPTER X.

THE BRIGHTNESS OF HIS RISING.

The day of the Kansas-Nebraska struggle, and the effort on one side, politically, to repeal what is known in history as the "Missouri Compromise," and on the other to prevent it, was the birth-day into politics of many young men.

That day was the "beginning of the end" of the mighty struggle between two hostile ideas, represented by two words, freedom and slavery, which had been planted in the soil of the new world, and which had grown with its growth and strengthened with its strength, until nothing save mortal combat on the field of battle could settle the controversy.

It does not appear that Mr. Garfield took any particular interest in public affairs, or general politics before 1856.

It is said by one of his classmates, that on entering Williams College "Mr. Garfield was uncommitted in national politics; perhaps his first lesson came from John Z. Goodrich, who at that time represented in Congress the western district of Massachusetts. In the fall of 1855, Mr. Goodrich delivered a political address in Williamstown, on the history of the Kansas-Nebraska struggle, and the efforts of the handful of Republicans then in Congress to defeat the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. As Mr. Goodrich spoke I sat at Garfield's side, and saw him drink in every

word. He said as we passed out, This subject is entirely new to me. I am going to know all about it.' He sent for documents, studied them until he became perfectly familiar with the history of the anti-slavery struggle, and from that hour has been the champion of right against injustice."

Another classmate says: "Garfield had always been a Whig of the Seward and Wade school, and until the organization of the Republican Party in 1856, men with his opinions, during our college days, were in a sort of political limbo, for he would have nothing to do with the KnowNothing Party, which then seemed to be carrying everything before it, and attracted large numbers of young men, but whose principles he strongly condemned, and he had. no liking, of course, for the Democracy."

The great questions of that day, such as the treatment of Kansas, the dangers from the influx of foreigners and from the Roman Catholic Church, the constitutionality of personal liberty bills, the Crimean war, and the desirability of an elective judiciary, were among the questions which attracted his attention while at college, and in our society -the Philologian-of which he was a member, were these questions eagerly discussed. It is said that in all of these debates he was distinguished for moderation in opinion. "His instincts were conservative;" and his friend, Mr. Clement Hugh Hill, says, "I remember distinctly that he was, when he came to college, a fervent supporter of an elective judiciary, but in preparing himself to take part in a debate on that subject, he studied himself over to the opposite side of the question, and began his speech by frankly admitting that he had within a week entirely changed his opinions on this subject."

He graduated in 1856. June 17th of that year the first national convention of the Republican Party to nominate

a President and Vice-President was held in Philadelphia, which resulted in the nomination of John C. Fremont, the "Path-finder of the West "-and for him Mr. Garfield cast his first vote. He made some speeches that year in Hiram and the neighboring villages. The one great idea which pervaded the Republican platform of that year was, "resistance to the spread of slavery in the national Territories," and the party held with the enthusiasm of an almost new revelation and inspiration "That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the Territories of the United States for their government, and that in the exercise of this power it is both the right and the duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery."

Arrayed against that was the equally radical idea embodied by the Democratic party in their national platform of the same year, "Non-interference by Congress with slavery in State and Territory, or in the District of Columbia."

Upon the collision of these two ideas, embodied in the national utterances of two political parties, Mr. Garfield's political pulses began to stir. He saw that freedom was about to engage in a hand-to-hand encounter with slavery, and that there must be soon a settlement of the question, either in favor of freedom or slavery.

Constituted as he was, and trained from his mother's knee as he had been in the principles of civil and religious liberty, it was impossible for him not to be drawn into the conflict, and therefore, with all the ardor of his intelligent convictions he enrolled himself on the side of the Republican party. As a young man, his private life was spotless, his nature whole-souled and generous, his personal presence commanding and magnetic, his ability and integrity alike unquestioned; and he was an orator, with the

warm feelings, the fervid imagination, and the intense pur pose which electrify great masses of men.

His public addresses as a teacher and preacher and lecturer had made him widely and favorably known in the Congressional district of which the county in which he lived was a part; hence, when he began to make speeches on political questions, he instantly had the attention and interest of the people. His speeches "were well reasoned, candid, earnest, and often eloquent. As the Republican platform then contained but one plank-resistance to the spread of slavery in the national Territories-the central point of all his speeches was the constitutionality and rightness of the Wilmot proviso. Here was room to interpret the Constitution, to trace the legislation of Congress on the subject, to discuss the general character of slavery, and to mark the destructive consequences of its spread. At no time in our history, perhaps, has a stump orator had a better opportunity to make effective speeches. The national mind and conscience were awakening from their long slumber. Historical, logical, economical, and moral elements could be blended and fused in the appeal to the popular heart."

Looking backward twenty-five years to that period, Mr. Garfield once said:

"Long familiarity with traffic in the bodies and souls of men had paralyzed the conscience of a majority of our people. The baleful doctrine of State sovereignty had shaken and weakened the noblest and most beneficent powers of the national government; and the grasping power of slavery was seizing the virgin Territories of the West and dragging them into the den of eternal bondage. At that crisis the Republican party was born. It drew its first inspiration from that fire of liberty which God has lighted in every human heart, and which all the powers of ignorance and tyranny can never wholly extinguish. The

Republican party came to deliver and save the Republic. It entered the arena where the beleagured and assailed territories were struggling for freedom, and drew around it the sacred circle of liberty which the demon of slavery has never dared to cross. It made them free forever."

In one of his speeches, in 1865, Mr. Garfield said of slavery: "We shall never know why slavery dies so hard in this Republic till we know why sin has such longevity and Satan is immortal. With marvelous tenacity of existence, it has outlived the expectations of its friends and the hopes of its enemies."

So far as he was concerned, there was one thing which Mr. Garfield greatly desired: it was the perpetuation and the glory of the American Republic. This feeling was ardently expressed by him in his 4th of July oration in Ravenna, O., in 1860. He was confident that the Republic could not be successfully assailed from without, and if it died it must be by its own hand.

But it was impossible for two such radical ideas as freedom and slavery to lie in the same bed, or dwell together in unity in the same house, and the Republic must choose which of these should be the everlasting occupant. The Republic, in his vision, was not simply like a pyramid, broad-based and secure, not liable to overthrow, as is an obelisk or column, by storm or age; it was more than that. It was rather like one of the permanent features of nature -like the river, which flows along the course which nature opens, forever in motion, but forever the same; like the lake which lies on common days level and bright in placid stillness, while it gathers its fullness from many lands, and lifts its waves in stormy strength when winds assail it; like the mountain, which is not artistically shaped, and which only rarely, in some supreme sunburst, flushes with color, but whose roots the very earthquakes cannot shake,