almost every important question brought before Congress since 1863.

On June 28, 1864, he made a speech upon the confiscation of certain Rebel estates. In February following he spoke against a draft law, and opposed the appointment of a lieutenant-general, and favored the sale of gold by the Treasury for the relief of the market.

To give a list of his speeches would be to copy many pages of the Index of the Congressional Record. They were not speeches made at random, but with preparation and research.

His acquaintance with the French and German language, his wide reading of history, biography, philosophy, his love of belle-lettres, and acquaintance with general literature, based on a thorough classical education, gives him great facility in debate, and his speeches have always commanded the attention of the House. His sentences are smooth, terse, and often epigrammatic; his periods rounded and impressed. A listener is never at a loss to understand his meaning.

William Pitt the younger used words to cover up his ideas; and Lord Palmerston, when he chose, could employ them to mask his opinion. It has been said that Talleyrand never made a sincere and honest speech; but there never is any subterfuge in the speeches of General Garfield. No one need be in the fog as to his meaning.

The mastery of Webster's Spelling-book in his early boyhood, as well as his more extended philological studies, gave him facility in the use of language.

Having honest and decided convictions, his speeches

are as clear-cut as diamonds. They are never dry reading.

"There is nothing," said Daniel Webster, "so dry as statistics."

To most statistical speeches the remark would be applicable; but the writer has seen General Garfield the center of an eager group of members of both political parties, while delivering a speech full of statistics upon the sugar qustion the amount consumed, and the best method of determining the value of the article, for the collection of revenue.

All of his nominations to Congress came spontaneously from his constituents, who have unbounded faith in him.

15

ON

XXI.

SPEECHES IN CONGRESS.

N April 8th, 1864, the House of Representatives went into committee of the whole on the consideration of the President's message. Mr. Long of Ohio, a prominent leader of the Bourbon democracy, made a speech to which Mr. Garfield replied. To understand the force of Mr. Garfield's speech, it is needful to take a view of the state of affairs at the time.

To go back a few months. The year 1863 opened gloomily for the Union armies. In December, 1862, the army of the Potomac had been defeated at Fredericksburg. It had remained inactive through the winter, and had again been defeated at Chancellorsville. The attempt of the navy at Charleston had failed. Then came the invasion of Pennsylvania, followed by the first great decisive victory for the Army of the Potomac, at Gettysburg, in July, 1863. The tide of victory rolled down the Mississippi, sweeping in Vicksburg and Port Hudson, opening the river the entire length to the flag of the Union.

Then came a lull. Through the winter of '63 and '64 the Army of the Potomac was on the north bank of the Rapidan, Lee on the south bank, with the lar

gest and most effective army that the Confederacy had put into the field. Sherman had spent the winter at Chattanooga, confronted by a large army. The war had been going on three years, at a great expense of men and money. The Democracy were clamoring for peace. There were some men in the Democratic party who doubtless were sincere in their belief that war was infinitely worse than any evils that could come from secession; but there was in the Democratic party an element in sympathy and league with the Confederacy. They raised the cry of "" Peace on any terms." In Indiana were the "Knights of the Golden Circle," -a secret organization, formed to aid the Confederacy. One of the most prominent of the Northern sympathizers was Vallandigham, member of Congress from Ohio, who after the adjournment of the 37th Congress, made speeches through Ohio, counselling resistance to the draft which the administration had ordered. He charged the government with aiming, under the pretext of restoring the Union, to crush out Liberty, and establish a despotism, and of deliberately rejecting the propositions made by which the Southern States could have been brought back.

General Burnside, commanding the military department of Ohio, had issued an order - No. 38, forbidding certain disloyal practices. Vallandigham defiantly announced that he intended to disobey it, and called upon his party to sustain him, for which he was arrested, tried by court-martial, and sentenced to be confined in some fortress of the United States.

President Lincoln was wiser than the court. To

hold him as a prisoner in confinement would beget sympathy for him, but no one could find fault if he was sent South; and with grim humor the President sent him inside the Rebel lines, forbidding his return while hostilities lasted.

Vallandigham, after passing some weeks in Richmond, escaped in a blockade runner and made his way to Canada, to lay plots with English, Canadian, and American sympathizers to raise a rebellion in the Northern States.

President Lincoln had wisely judged that his arrest would be regarded as an arbitrary act, and that the Democracy would make the most of it. The Democratic party organized meetings in nearly every State to protest against the action of the government, and the party in Ohio carried their folly to a climax by nominating him governor. The Republican party of that State showed its wisdom by nominating John Brough, a former Democrat, but who was giving heart, soul and money to the support of the government. He was elected by more than one hundred thousand majority. Strenuous efforts had been made by the Democracy to secure the House of Representatives. If they could accomplish that, they could withhold supplies, cripple the administration, and put an end to the war, the Southern States establishing the Confederacy. The Republicans obtained a majority of

twenty.

Under such circumstances the spring of 1864 opened. It was the year for the election of President. The Republicans had no thought of any other candi