James A. Garfield

Although elected, General Garfield never took his seat in the Senate of the United States. His legislative career ended here, where it had practically begun eighteen years before. His nomination for the Presidency occurred soon after the Legislature of Ohio had chosen him Senator, and came to him, as did all of his honors, because deserved. Although unsought, no mere chance brought him this rare distinction. His solid reputation rendered it not improbable at any time. He had the qualities which attached his great party to him and the equipment which filled the fullest measure of public and party requirements. From the stirring scenes at Chicago to the succeeding election he bore himself like a statesman and patriot fit for the highest trust. He advanced in public confidence, and whenever he met with or addressed the people, he enlarged the circle of his admiring followers and friends. … He was twenty-three years of age when he confronted the practical duties and the wider problems of life. All before had been training and preparation, the best of both, and his marvelous career ended before he was fifty. Few have crowded such great results and acquired such lasting fame in so short a life. Few have done so much for country and for civilization as he whom we honor to-day, stricken down as he was when scarce at the meridian of his powers. He did not flash forth as a meteor; he rose with measured and stately step over rough paths and through years of rugged work. He earned his passage to every preferment. He was tried and tested at every step in his pathway of progress. He produced his passport at every gateway to opportunity and glory.
His broad and benevolent nature made him the friend of all mankind.

A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.

It is not manly to lie even about Satan.

The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.

I am glad to have the opportunity of standing up against a rabble of men who hasten to make weathercocks of themselves.

Here he was leader and master, not by combination of scheming, not by chicanery or caucus, but by the force of his cultivated mind, his keen and farseeing judgment, his unanswerable logic, his strength and power of speech, his thorough comprehension of the subjects of legislation. Always strong, he was strongest on his feet addressing the House or from the rostrum the assembled people. Who of us having heard him here or elsewhere speaking upon a question of great national concern can forget the might and majesty, the force and directness, the grace and beauty of his utterances? He was always just to his adversary, an open and manly opponent, and free from invective. He convinced the judgment with his searching logic, while he swayed his listeners with brilliant periods and glowing eloquence. He was always an educator of people. His thoughts were fresh, vigorous, and instructive.

Twenty-five years ago this Republic was bearing and wearing a triple chain of bondage. Long familiarity with traffic in the bodies and souls of men had paralyzed the consciences of a majority of our people; the narrowing and disintegrating doctrine of State sovereignty had shackled and weakened the noblest and most beneficent powers of the national government; and the grasping power of slavery was seizing upon 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 to save.

It has been said that unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of nations. It should be said with the utmost emphasis that this question of the suffrage will never give repose or safety to the States or to the nation until each, within its own jurisdiction, makes and keeps the ballot free and pure by the strong sanctions of the law.

I love to deal with doctrines and events. The contests of men about men I greatly dislike.

I take it that the question of employees is only a question of private and corporate economy, and individuals or companies have the right to buy labor where they can get it 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 and corporate interests are conserved in the matter of labor.

It is not part of the functions of the national government to find employment for people — and if we were to appropriate a hundred millions for this purpose, we should be taxing forty millions of people to keep a few thousand employed.

The President is the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think.

Gentlemen of the Convention, your present temper may not mark the healthful pulse of our people. When your enthusiasm has passed, when the emotions of this hour have subsided, we shall find below the storm and passion that calm level of public opinion from which the thoughts of a mighty people are to be measured, and by which final action will be determined.

Whosoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.... And when you realize the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.

I am oppressed with a sense of the impropriety of uttering words on this occasion. If silence is ever golden, it must be here, beside the graves of fifteen thousand men, whose lives were more significant than speech, and whose death was a poem, the music of which can never be sung. With words we make promises, plight faith, praise virtue. Promises may not be kept, plighted faith may be broken, and vaunted virtue be only the cunning mask of vice. We do not know one promise these men made, one pledge they gave, one word they spoke: but we do know they summed up and perfected, by one supreme act, the highest virtues of men and citizens. For love of country they accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and their virtue.

Tell her I am seriously hurt; how seriously I cannot yet say. I am myself, and hope she will come to me soon. I send my love to her.

Under this Constitution the boundaries of freedom have been enlarged, the foundations of order and peace have been strengthened, and the growth of our people in all the better elements of national life has indicated the wisdom of the founders and given new hope to their descendants.

I will not vote against the truths of the multiplication table.

The sin of slavery is one of which it may be said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission.

Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself.