“Hiram, January 10, 1859.
“Hiram, January 10, 1859.
“Hiram, January 10, 1859.
“Hiram, January 10, 1859.
“The Sunday after the debate I spoke in Solon on ‘Geology and Religion,’ and had an immense audience. Many Spiritualists were out.... The reports I hear from the debate are much more decisive than I expected to hear. I received a letter from Bro. Collins, of Chagrin, in which he says: ‘Since the smoke of the battle has partially cleared away, we begin to see more clearly the victory we havegained.’ I have yet to see the first man who claims that Denton explains his position; but they are all jubilant over his attack on the Bible. What you suggest ought to be done I am about to undertake. I go there next Friday or Saturday evening, and remain over Sunday. I am bound to carry the war into Carthage, and pursue that miserable atheism to its hole.
“Bro. Collins says that a few Christians are quite unsettled because Denton said, and I admit, that the world has existed for millions of years. I am astonished at the ignorance of the masses on these subjects. Hugh Miller has it right when he says that ‘the battle of the evidences must now be fought on the field of the natural sciences.’”
In the year preceding the date which this letter bears, the sweet romance of his youth reached its fruition, in the marriage of Garfield to Lucretia Rudolph. During the years which of necessity elapsed since the first-whispered vows, on the eve of his departure to Williams, the loving, girlish heart had been true. They began life, “for better for worse,” in an humble cottage fronting on the waving green of the college campus. In their happy hearts rose no picture of another cottage, fronting on the ocean, where, in the distant years, what God had joined man was to put asunder. Well for them was it that God veiled the future from them.
But the enormous activities already enumerated of this man did not satisfy his unexhausted powers. The political opinions formed at college began to bear fruit. In those memorable years just preceding the outbreak of the Rebellion—the years “when the grasping power of slavery was seizing the virgin territories of the West, and dragging them into the den of eternal bondage;” the years of the underground railroad and of the fugitive slave law; of the overseer and the blood-hound; the years of John Brown’s heroic attempt to incite an insurrection of the slaves themselves, such as had swept every shackle from San Domingo; of his mockery trial, paralleled only by those of Socrates and Jesus, and of his awful martyrdom,—the genius of the man, whose history this is, was not asleep. The instincts of resistance to oppression, and of sympathy for the oppressed, which he inherited from his dauntless ancestry, began to stir within him. As the times becamemore and more stormy, his spirit rose with the emergency, and he threw his strength into political speeches. Already looked upon as the rising man of his portion of the State, it was natural that the people should turn to him for leadership. In 1859, he was nominated and elected to the State Senate, as member from Portage and Summit counties.
The circumstances attending Garfield’s first nomination for office are worthy to be recounted. It was in 1859, an off year in politics. Portage County was a doubtful battle-field; generally it had gone Democratic, but the Republicans had hopes when the ticket was fortified with strong names. The convention was held in August, in the town of Ravenna. There was a good deal of beating about to find a suitable candidate for State Senator. At length a member of the convention arose and said: “Gentlemen, I can name a man whose standing, character, ability and industry will carry the county. It is President Garfield, of the Hiram school.” The proposition took with the convention, and Garfield was thereupon nominated by acclamation.
It was doubtful whether he would accept. The leaders of the church stoutly opposed his entering into politics. It would ruin his character, they said. At Chagrin Falls, at Solon, at Hiram and other places where he had occasionally preached in the Disciples’ meeting-houses, there was alarm at the prospect of the popular young professor going off into the vain struggle of worldly ambition. In this juncture of affairs, the yearly meeting of the Disciples took place in Cuyahoga County, and among other topics of discussion, the Garfield matter was much debated. Some regretted it; others denounced it; a few could not see why he should not accept the nomination. “Can not a man,” said they, “be a gentleman and a politician too?” In the afternoon Garfield himself came into the meeting. Many besought him not to accept the nomination. He heard what they had to say. He took counsel with a few trusted friends, and then made up his mind. “I believe,” said he, “that I can enter political life and retain my integrity, manhood and religion. I believe that there is vastly more need of manly men in politics than of preachers. You know I never deliberatelydecided to follow preaching as a life work any more than teaching. Circumstances have led me into both callings. The desire of brethren to have me preach and teach for them, a desire to do good in all ways that I could, and to earn, in noble callings, something to pay my way through a course of study, and to discharge debts, and the discipline and cultivation of mind in preaching and teaching, and the exalted topics for investigation in teaching and preaching, have led me into both callings. I have never intended to devote my life to either, or both; although lately Providence seemed to be hedging my way and crowding me into the ministry. I have always intended to be a lawyer, and perhaps to enter political life. Such has been my secret ambition ever since I thought of such things. I have been reading law for some time. This nomination opens the way, I believe, for me to enter into the life work I have always preferred. I have made up my mind. Mother is at Jason Robbins’. I will go there and talk with her. She has had a hope and desire that I would devote my life to preaching ever since I joined the church. My success as a preacher has been a great satisfaction to her. She regarded it as the fulfillment of her wishes, and has, of late, regarded the matter as settled. If she will give her consent, I will accept the nomination.”
He accordingly went to his mother, and received this reply: “James, I have had a hope and a desire, ever since you joined the church, that you would preach. I have been happy in your success as a preacher, and regarded it as an answer to my prayers. Of late, I had regarded the matter as settled. But I do not want my wishes to lead you into a life work that you do not prefer to all others—much less into the ministry, unless your heart is in it. If you can retain your manhood and religion in political life, and believe you can do the most good there, you have my full consent and prayers for your success. A mother’s prayers and blessing will be yours.” With this answer as his assurance, he accepted the nomination, and placed his foot on the first round in the aspiring ladder.
From this time on, Garfield ceased forever to be a private citizen, and must thereafter be looked on as a public man. Twenty-eight yearof age, a giant in body and mind, of spotless honor and tireless industry, it was inevitable that Garfield should become a leader of the Ohio Senate. During his first winter in the legislature, his powers of debate and his varied knowledge gave him conspicuous rank. A committee report, drawn by his hand, upon the Geological Survey of Ohio, is a State document of high order, revealing a scientific knowledge and a power to group statistics and render them effective, which would be looked at with wide-eyed wonder by the modern State legislator. Another report on the care of pauper children; and a third, on the legal regulation of weights and measures, presenting a succinct sketch of the attempts at the thing, both in Europe and America, are equally notable as completely out of the ordinary rut of such papers. During this and the following more exciting winter at Columbus, he, somehow, found time to gratify his passion for literature, spending many evenings in the State library, and carrying out an elaborate system of annotation. But Garfield’s chief activities in the Ohio legislature did not lie in the direction of peace. The times became electric. Men felt that a terrible crisis upon the slavery and States-rights questions was approaching. The campaign of 1860, in which Abraham Lincoln, the Great Unknown, was put forward as the representative of the antislavery party, was in progress. In the midst of the popular alarm, which was spreading like sheet lightning over the Republic, Garfield’s faith in the perpetuity of the nation was unshaken. His oration at Ravenna, Ohio, on July 4, 1860, contains the following passage:
“Our nation’s future—shall it be perpetual? Shall the expanding circle of its beneficent influence extend, widening onward to the farthest shore of time? Shall its sun rise higher and yet higher, and shine with ever-brightening luster? Or, has it passed the zenith of its glory, and left us to sit in the lengthening shadows of its coming night? Shall power from beyond the sea snatch the proud banner from us?Shall civil dissension or intestine strife rend the fair fabric of the Union?The rulers of the Old World have long and impatiently looked to see fulfilled the prophecy of its downfall. Such philosophers as Coleridge, Alison and Macaulay have, severally, set forth the reasons for this prophecy—thechief of which is, that the element of stability in our Government will sooner or later bring upon it certain destruction. This is truly a grave charge. But whether instability is an element of destruction or of safety, depends wholly upon the sources whence that instability springs.
“The granite hills are not so changeless and abiding as the restless sea. Quiet is no certain pledge of permanence and safety. Trees may flourish and flowers may bloom upon the quiet mountain side, while silently the trickling rain-drops are filling the deep cavern behind its rocky barriers, which, by and by, in a single moment, shall hurl to wild ruin its treacherous peace. It is true, that in our land there is no such outer quiet, no such deceitful repose. Here society is a restless and surging sea. The roar of the billows, the dash of the wave, is forever in our ears. Even the angry hoarseness of breakers is not unheard. But there is an understratum of deep, calm sea, which the breath of the wildest tempest can never reach. There is, deep down in the hearts of the American people, a strong and abiding love of our country and its liberty, which no surface-storms of passion can ever shake. That kind of instability which arises from a free movement and interchange of position among the members of society, which brings one drop to glisten for a time in the crest of the highest wave, and then gives place to another, while it goes down to mingle again with the millions below; such instability is the surest pledge of permanence. On such instability the eternal fixedness of the universe is based. Each planet, in its circling orbit, returns to the goal of its departure, and on the balance of these wildly-rolling spheres God has planted the broad base of His mighty works. So the hope of our national perpetuity rests upon that perfect individual freedom, which shall forever keep up the circuit of perpetual change. God forbid that the waters of our national life should ever settle to the dead level of a waveless calm. It would be the stagnation of death—the ocean grave of individual liberty.”
Meanwhile blacker and blacker grew the horizon. Abraham Lincoln was elected President, but it brought no comfort to the anxious North. Yet, even then, but few men thought of war. The winter of 1860–’61 came on, and with it the reassembling of the State legislatures. Rising with the emergency Garfield’s statesmanship foresaw the black and horrible fate of civil war. The following letter by him to his friend, PresidentHinsdale, was prophetic of the war, and of the rise of an Unknown to “ride upon the storm and direct it”:
Columbus, January 15, 1861.
Columbus, January 15, 1861.
Columbus, January 15, 1861.
Columbus, January 15, 1861.
“My heart and thoughts are full almost every moment with the terrible reality of our country’s condition. We have learned so long to look upon the convulsions of European states as things wholly impossible here, that the people are slow in coming to the belief that there may be any breaking up of our institutions, but stern, awful certainty is fastening upon the hearts of men.I do not see any way, outside a miracle of God, which can avoid civil war, with all its attendant horrors.Peaceable dissolution is utterly impossible. Indeed, I can not say that I would wish it possible. To make the concessions demanded by the South would be hypocritical and sinful; they would neither be obeyed nor respected. I am inclined to believe that the sin of slavery is one of which it may be said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission. All that is left us as a State, or say as a company of Northern States, is to arm and prepare to defend ourselves and the Federal Government. I believe the doom of slavery is drawing near. Let war come, and the slaves will get the vague notion that it is waged for them, and a magazine will be lighted whose explosion will shake the whole fabric of slavery. Even if all this happen, I can not yet abandon the belief that one government will rule this continent, and its people be one people.
“Meantime, what will be the influence of the times on individuals? Your question is very interesting and suggestive. The doubt that hangs over the whole issue bears touching also. It may be the duty of our young men to join the army, or they may be drafted without their own consent. If neither of these things happen, there will be a period when old men and young will be electrified by the spirit of the times, and one result will be to make every individuality more marked, and their opinions more decisive. I believe the times will be even more favorable than calm ones for the formation of strong will and forcible characters.
“Just at this time (have you observed the fact?) we have no man who has power to ride upon the storm and direct it. The hour has come, but not the man. The crisis will make many such. But I do not love to speculate on so painful a theme. I am chosen to respond to a toast on the Union at the State Printers’ Festival here next Thursday evening. It is a sad and difficult theme at this time.”
This letter is the key to Garfield’s record in the Ohio Senate. On the 24th of January he championed a bill to raise and equip 6,000 State militia. The timid, conservative and politically blind members of the legislature he worked with both day and night, both on and off the floor of the Senate, to prepare them for the crisis which his genius foresaw. But as his prophetic vision leaped from peak to peak of the mountain difficulties of the future, he saw not only armies in front, but traitors in the rear. He drew up and put through to its passage a bill defining treason—“providing that when Ohio’s soldiers go forth to maintain the Union, there shall be no treacherous fire in the rear.”
In the hour of darkness his trumpet gave no uncertain sound. He was for coercion, without delay or doubt.
He was the leader of what was known as the “Radical Triumvirate,” composed of J. D. Cox, James Monroe, and himself—the three men who, by their exhaustless efforts, wheeled Ohio into line for the war. The Ohio legislature was as blind as a bat.Two days after Sumter had been fired on, the Ohio Senate, over the desperate protests of the man who had for months foreseen the war, passed the Corwin Constitutional Amendment, providing that Congress should have no power ever to legislate on the question of slavery!Notwithstanding this blindness, through the indomitable zeal of Garfield and his colleagues, Ohio was the first State in the North to reach a war footing. When Lincoln’s call for 75,000 men reached the legislature, Senator Garfield was on his feet instantly, moving, amid tumultuous cheers, that 20,000 men and $3,000,000 be voted as Ohio’s quota. In this ordeal, the militia formerly organized proved a valuable help.
The inner history of this time will probably never be fully written. Almost every Northern legislative hall, particularly in border States, was the scene of acoup d’état. Without law or precedent, a few determined men broke down the obstacles with which treason hedged the path of patriotism. As we have said, the inner history of those high and gallant services, of the midnight counsels, the forced loans, the unauthorized proclamations, will never be written. All that will be known to history will be that,when the storm of treason broke, every Northern State wheeled into line of battle; and it is enough.
Of Garfield it is known that he became at once Governor Dennison’s valued adviser and aid. The story of one of his services to the Union has leaked out. After the attack on Sumter, the State capital was thronged with men ready to go to war, but there were no guns. Soldiers without guns were a mockery. In this extremity it was found out that at the Illinois arsenal was a large quantity of muskets. Instantly, Garfield started to Illinois with a requisition. By swift diplomacy he secured and shipped to Columbus five thousand stand of arms, a prize valued at the time more than so many recruits. But while the interior history of the times will never be fully known, the exterior scenes are still fresh in memory. The opening of the muster-rolls, the incessant music of martial bands, the waving of banners, the shouts of the drill-sergeant, the departure of crowded trains carrying the brave and true to awful fields of blood and glory,—all this we know and remember. The Civil War was upon us, and James A. Garfield, in the morning of his power, was to become a soldier of the Union.