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CHAPTER IX.

GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS.

T is now appropriate to consider somewhat in extenso the claims of James A. Garfield to be regarded as a statesman. It must needs be in the life of every public man, more particularly in the life of a Congressman, and more particularly still in the life of him who has risen to the rank of leader of the House, that he speak much on questions of passing interest. Many of the topics which engage his attention flit away with the occasion which gave them birth. They are the issues of the day, creatures perhaps of excitement, may be of prejudice, certainly of partisanship. Hence in the history of the life of a public man, many paragraphs will be found which merely recount the battles fought and victories won in the ordinary contests of the arena.

In the most marked contrast with this, however, is another class of questions which rise to the level of perpetual interest, affecting not only the destinies of the hour, but pregnant with the fate of the future. Not questions of the day are these, passing like a shadow over the landscape of current events; but shining rather like those orbs from whose disks the effulgence is shed which makes shadows possible. Albeit, there are themes of statesmanship vitally affecting the life of the nation; and only he, who in the heated arena of public life shows himself able to grapple with such problems, is worthy of the name of statesman.

Was James A. Garfield a statesman? In considering this question, and finding therefor a fitting answer, it is necessary clearly to understand what are the leading themes of American statesmanship. Perhaps a fair analysis of this great question will show that those topics of public discussion which rise to the dignity of questions of statesmanship will present about four leading heads:

I. Questions affecting the nationality of the United States.

II. Questions affecting the revenue and expenditures of the United States.

III. Questions affecting the financial and monetary systems of the United States.

IV. Questions concerning the general character and tendency of American institutions.

If it be shown that James A. Garfield proved himself able to grasp and discuss any or all of the great questions falling under this comprehensive classification, in such a manner as to throw new light upon them, to fix the status of public opinion regarding them, and to that extent to build more securely than hitherto the substructure of American greatness, then indeed is he worthy of the name of statesman. Let us then, without fear or partiality, apply the crucial test to Garfield's public life, and see whether indeed he is the peer and fit companion for the great names of our historyfor Hamilton, and Adams, and Webster, and Sumner, and Chase.

Before beginning this discussion, however, it will be necessary to remind the reader, that in considering the claims of Garfield to the rank of statesman under the outline presented above, the chronological order of the narrative will be broken up, and such a grouping made of his public speeches and papers as will best illustrate his views and establish his rank among the great men of our country.

First, then, as to questions affecting the nationality of the United States. What is the record of him whose life is here recounted concerning those great and vital themes upon which rests our perpetuity as a nation? Three utterances, his earliest, his latest, and his most characteristic, must be taken as representatives of the entire class.

On February 1, 1866, being thirty-five years of age, he presented his views on the general question of the restoration of the States lately in rebellion:

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THIS IS A NATION.

"The word State', as it has been used by gentlemen in this discussion, has two meanings, as perfectly distinct as though different words" had been used to express them. The confusion arising from applying

the same word to two different and dissimilar objects, has had very much to do with the diverse conclusions which gentlemen have reached. They have given us the definition of a 'state' in the contemplation of public or international law, and have at once applied that definition and the conclusions based upon it, to the States of the American Union and the effects of war upon them. Let us examine the two meanings of the word, and endeavor to keep them distinct in their application to the questions before us.

"Phillimore, the great English publicist, says: For all the purposes of international law, a state (demos, civitas, volk) may be defined to be a people permanently occupying a fixed territory, bound together by common laws, habits, and customs, into one body-politic, exercising through the medium of an organized government, independent sovereignty and control over all persons and things within its boundaries, capable of making war and peace, and of entering into all international relations with the other communities of the globe.'-Phillimore's International Law, vol. i, sec. 65.

"Substantially the same definition may be found in Grotius, book one, chapter one, section fourteen; in Burlamaqui, volume two, part one, chapter four, section nine; and in Vattel, book one, chapter one. The primary point of agreement in all these authorities is, that in contemplation of international law a state is absolutely sovereign, acknowledg ing no superior on earth. In that sense the United States is a state, a sovereign state, just as Great Britain, France, and Russia are states.

"But what is the meaning of the word State as applied to Ohio or Alabama? Is either of them a state in the sense of international law? They lack all the leading requisites of such a state. They are only the geographical subdivisions of a state; and though endowed by the people of the United States with the rights of local self-government, yet in all their external relations their sovereignty is completely destroyed, being merged in the supreme Federal Government.-Halleck's International Law, sec. 16, page 71.

“Ohio can not make war; can not conclude peace; can not make a treaty with any foreign government, can not even make a compact with her sister States; can not regulate commerce; can not coin money; and has no flag. These indispensable attributes of sovereignty, the State of Ohio does not possess, nor does any other State of the Union. We call them States for want of a better name. We call them States, because the

original Thirteen had been so designated before the Constitution was formed, but that Constitution destroyed all the sovereignty which those States were ever supposed to possess in reference to external affairs.

"I submit, Mr. Speaker, that the five great publicists-Grotius, Puffendorf, Bynkershoek, Burlamaqui, and Vattel, who have been so often quoted in this debate, and all of whom wrote more than a quarter of a century, and some nearly two centuries before our Constitution was formed, can hardly be quoted as good authorities in regard to the nature and legal relationships of the component States of the American Union. "Even my colleague from the Columbus District [Mr. Shellabarger], in his very able discussion of this question, spoke as though a State of this Union was the same as a state in the sense of international law, with certain qualities added. I think he must admit that nearly all the leading attributes of such a state are taken from it when it becomes a State of the Union.

"Several gentlemen, during this debate, have quoted the well known doctrine of international law, that war annuls all existing compacts and treaties between belligerents;' and they have concluded, therefore, that our war has broken the Federal bond and dissolved the Union. This would be true, if the rebel States were states in the sense of international law-if our Government were not a sovereign nation, but only a league between sovereign states. I oppose to this conclusion the unanswerable proposition that this is a nation; that the rebel States are not sovereign states, and therefore their failure to achieve independence was a failure to break the Federal bond-to dissolve the Union. .

"In view of the peculiar character of our Government, in what condition did the war leave the rebel States?"

He argued that by the admission of a State to the Union, the laws of the United States were extended to it. A State might violate one of these laws, but could not annul it. Each rebel State exerted every power to break away from these laws, but was unable to destroy or invalidate one of them. Each rebel State let go of the Union, but the Union did not let go of it:

"Let the stars of heaven illustrate our constellation of States. When God launched the planets upon their celestial pathway, He bound them al by the resistless power of attraction to the central sun, around which

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they revolved in their appointed orbits. Each may be swept by storms, may be riven by lightnings, may be rocked by earthquakes, may be devastated by all the terrestrial forces and overwhelmed in ruin, but far in the everlasting depths the sovereign sun holds the turbulent planet in its place. This earth may be overwhelmed until the high hills are covered by the sea; it may tremble with earthquakes miles below the soil, but it must still revolve in its appointed orbit. So Alabama may overwhelm all her municipal institutions in ruin, but she can not annul the omnipotent decrees of the sovereign people of the Union. She must be held forever in her orbit of obedience and duty.

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"Now, let us inquire how the surrender of the military power of the rebellion affected the legal condition of those States. When the rebellion collapsed, and the last armed man of the Confederacy surrendered to our forces, I affirm that there was not in one of those States a single government that we did or could recognize. There was not in one of those States, from governor down to constable, a single man whom we could recognize as authorized to exercise any official function whatever. They had formed governments alien and hostile to the Union. Not only had their officers taken no oaths to support the Constitution of the United States, but they had heaped oath upon oath to destroy it.

"I go further. I hold that there were in those States no constitutions of any binding force and effect; none that we could recognize. A constitution, in this case, can mean nothing less than a constitution of government. A constitution must constitute something, or it is no constitution. When we speak of the constitution of Alabama, we mean the constitution of the government of Alabama. When the rebels surrendered, there remained no constitution in Alabama, because there remained no government. Those States reverted into our hands by victorious war, with every municipal right and every municipal authority utterly and completely swept away."

After citing from the highest authorities on the laws of war, he sums up the legal status of the rebellious states as follows:

"1. That, by conquest, the United States obtained complete control of the rebel territory.

"2. That every vestige of municipal authority in those States was, by secession, rebellion, and the conquest of the rebellion, utterly destroyed.

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