Postscript. — President Garfield11
The reconstruction of the Union was completed during General Grant’s term of office. The Presidentship of his successor, Mr. Rutherford B. Hayes, was uneventful. It was not on that account the less fruitful in good results. The complete amalgamation of the North and the South could only be the work of time. President Hayes helped forward this useful work. He visited the South in his first year of office, and was everywhere well received.
The Census of 1880 showed the population of the United States to be upwards of fifty million. The increase during the previous ten years had been eleven million and a half, or at the extraordinary rate of more than a million a year.
During Mr. Hayes’ Presidentship, two questions became prominent, and sharply divided political parties. These were, the resumption of cash payments, and the reform of the Civil Service.
1878 A.D.
The Currency Controversy is remarkable for having brought the President into conflict with Congress. The Bland Silver Bill, making the silver dollar a legal tender, was passed by large majorities both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. President Hayes had no faith in the doctrine of bi-metallism, and he vetoed the Bill. The Bill was re-passed in both Houses by a two-thirds majority, and became law in spite of the presidential veto. The conflict subjected the Constitution to a severe strain. But the crisis passed quietly, showing how well-grounded is the faith of the Americans in the fitness of their Constitution to meet all exigencies.
The demand for a reform in the Civil Service had been growing for years. The revelations of electoral corruption filled men of independent spirit with shame and confusion. The evil practices were not confined to a particular party. Republicans and Democrats were equally unscrupulous. It was proved by strict inquiry that in two States the majority for President Hayes himself had been obtained by fraudulent means. The constitutional custom which makes every office in the Civil Service, from the highest to the lowest, change hands whenever power is transferred from one party to another, was felt to be the root of the evil.
1881 A.D.
When President James Garfield assumed office in March 1881, he announced his intention of dealing firmly and earnestly with the question of administrative reform. Garfield’s election to the dignity of President was unexpected. The chief Republican candidates were General Grant, who had previously held the office for two terms, Secretary Sherman, and Senator Blaine. In the Republican convention held at Chicago for the selection of a candidate, General Garfield acted as manager of the party which supported Sherman. When he was first proposed he declined to become a candidate. It was only when Sherman’s success was seen to be impossible, and when all the parties opposed to Grant coalesced in favour of Garfield, that his name came to the front. He was ultimately chosen unanimously as the Republican candidate, on the ground that he divided the party the least. In the election itself, which was mainly determined by the vote of New York State, Garfield defeated his Democratic opponent General Hancock by 219 votes to 185.
Comparatively little was known about the new President before he was elected. Even in America his selection was a surprise. The chief fact that was known about him was that he had risen, like Abraham Lincoln, from the humblest origin. He had been born in a log-hut in the forest of Ohio. He had begun life on the tow-path as a driver of mules which dragged a canal boat between Cleveland and Pittsburg. By his own energy alone he had risen. He had been a professor, a preacher, a successful soldier, a practical lawyer, a bold and ready party leader. Throughout life he had been noted for fearless honesty. In his public career, no taint of corruption was found attaching to any part of his conduct. The man who should undertake to reform the abuses in the official system of America must himself have clean hands, and Garfield’s hands were clean.
General Garfield’s election was held to be a great triumph for the Republican party, but especially for that section of it which advocated Civil Service reform. He had made no secret of his opinions on that subject. In the outline of his political creed which he issued soon after his selection as Republican candidate he expressed his agreement with those who urged the necessity of “placing the Civil Service on a better basis.” The remedy to which he pointed was that “Congress should devise a method that will determine the tenure of office.” In his inaugural address on assuming office, he intimated his intention of taking steps to apply this remedy. Two objects, he said, must be aimed at. The one was to protect the executive against “the waste of time and the obstruction to public business caused by the inordinate pressure for place.” The other was to protect the holders of office “against intrigue and wrong.” To effect both objects, he would “at the proper time ask Congress to fix the tenure of the minor offices of several executive departments, and prescribe grounds upon which removals shall be made.” Further, he announced his purpose “to demand rigid economy in all expenditures of the Government, and to require honest and faithful service of all the executive officers, remembering that their offices were created, not for the benefit of the incumbents or their supporters, but for the service of the Government.”
These declarations did not give unmixed satisfaction to the Republican party. The anti-reform section of it, which still holds by President Jackson’s maxim, “The spoils to the victors,” regarded them as in some sense a declaration of war. It is certain that to the hopes of place-hunters they were a serious blow. For his honest desire to rid the public offices of these pests, and at the same time to purify the Government, the President was made to pay a terrible penalty. Within the railway station at Washington he was shot in the back by a man named Charles Guiteau, who for several days had been importuning the authorities at White House for place.
The useless and utterly wanton crime sent a thrill of horror through America, through England, through the civilized world. The shot did not at once prove fatal; but that only made the cruelty of the deed the more intense. For eleven weeks through the heat of summer (July 2 till September 19) the President’s life trembled in the balance. He bore his sufferings with marvellous patience and fortitude. The calamity brought out the manly strength and the simple beauty of his character with the brilliancy of sunset.
“In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men.”
Seldom if ever before has there been so striking an instance of misfortune raising a good man to world-wide renown. Hardly less beautiful than the President’s cheerful endurance was the heroic devotion of his wife. “It is no exaggeration to say,” said Mr. James Russell Lowell, the American Minister in London, “that the recent profoundly-touching spectacle of womanly devotedness, in its simplicity, its constancy, and its dignity, has moved the heart of mankind in a manner without any precedent in living memory.”
During the whole of these “eleven agonizing weeks” the bed of the dying President was the centre of interest to men and women of all ranks in both hemispheres. “The whole civilized world,” said Mr. Lowell, “gathered about it; and in the breathless suspense of anxious solicitude listened to the difficult breathing, counted the fluttering pulse, was cheered by the momentary rally, and saddened by the inevitable relapse.”
At length the end came with startling suddenness. It was followed by a universal wail. All humanity mourned, as if it had lost a brother. The sentiment pervaded all classes, from crowned heads to humble peasants. The Queen of England was foremost in her offers of sympathy, not only with the sorrowing widow and mother, but also with the bereaved nation; and stanch Republicans were fain to acknowledge “how true a woman’s heart may beat under the royal purple.” The English Court was ordered to go into mourning, as for one of royal blood and ancient lineage. The act was as graceful and as wise as it was unprecedented. The head of the young Republic was, by the spontaneous act of the head of the ancient Kingdom, recognized in his due place as one of the community of monarchs and princes. A hundred years ago, who could have anticipated such an event?
It would be a mistake to suppose that the death of President Garfield created the warm feelings of sympathy between England and America which the event revealed. It is true, however, that the event opened at once the hearts and the eyes of both peoples, and brought to light the depth and the strength of their brotherhood, in a way that nothing else could have done. The brotherly feelings on the part of England were heartily and even touchingly reciprocated in America. After the coffin of the deceased President had been closed, only one wreath was allowed to rest on it; and that was the wreath sent by the Queen of England. To the world this was a token of peace and good-will firmly established between England and America—of the oneness of the English-speaking race, in their common homage to President and to Queen. If the result shall be to strengthen permanently the bond between the kindred peoples—to root out jealousies and smooth over asperities, to produce generosity in the midst of rivalry and co-operation in good works—President Garfield will not have died in vain.
“He was no common man,” said Mr. Lowell, in his graceful and eloquent panegyric, “who could call forth, and justly call forth, an emotion so universal, an interest so sincere and so human.” And that is no common country which can produce such a man, and give him the opportunity of achieving greatness. Garfield’s career teaches many lessons; but it shows nothing more clearly than the great possibilities which his country opens up to honesty and persevering labour. “The poor lad who at thirteen could not read, dies at fifty the tenant of an office second in dignity to none on earth; and the world mourns his loss as that of a personal relative.”
“The soil out of which such men as he were made is good to be born on, good to live on, good to die for and to be buried in.”
The peace and naturalness with which Vice-President Arthur at once succeeded to the presidential functions, without shock to the political system and without detriment to the national honour, justifies the pride of the Americans in the stability of their institutions.
Footnotes
1 During the ten years, from 1840 to 1850, the annual export of slaves from the Border States to the South averaged 23,500. These, at an average value of £150, amounted to three million and a quarter sterling!
2 The local indebtedness of America has increased largely since the war, and is now equal to one-half of the Federal debt. In many of the States the Constitution now prohibits the State Legislature from contracting debt excepting for war and other urgent purposes. There is a growing opinion that this wise restriction should be universally adopted.
3 State and county taxation in the west ranges from five to twenty-five cents per acre—2½d. to 12½d. National taxation is in America 20s., and in Britain 47s. 2d., for each of the population.
4 Wheat is now carried from Chicago to New York by lake and canal for 2s. 6d. per quarter, and by rail for 4s. From the northern parts of Minnesota carriage to New York is 8s. per quarter.
5 The American average is fourteen bushels of wheat per acre; the English average is twenty-eight bushels; the Scotch average, under high farming, is thirty-four bushels.
6 Equal to three times the area of Great Britain.
7 To the north of Minnesota and across the Canadian frontier lies the province of Manitoba, a section of the North-West Territories recently acquired by the Canadian Government from the Hudson Bay Company. In the capability of a large portion of its soil to produce wheat Manitoba is unsurpassed, perhaps unequalled, by any part of the world. An active immigration is in progress: during the year 1879, when navigation was open, the daily arrivals numbered four hundred. When communication by rail and river is more adequate, Manitoba may be expected to take the highest place as a wheat-producing country.
8 The use of animal-power was not confined to America. In England the earliest of Cartwright’s power-looms are said to have owed their movement to the labour of a bull.
9 “We regard [the education of the people] as a wise and liberal system of police by which property and life and the peace of society are secured.”—Daniel Webster.
10 “This country with its institutions belongs to the people who inhabit it.”—President Lincoln.
11 This short chapter has been added since the author’s death, by another hand.