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on no question was he ever an extremist. While he was a strong believer in the nationality of the Republic, and its powers of self-preservation, he faced the entire North in his opposition to the provisions of the "Force Bill," for the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and the declaration of martial law in a country bleeding at every wound from war, but in a state of peace. Let no reader omit his speech of April 4, 1871. We say it the more willingly because at the time we thought Garfield was wrong. While he was a protectionist, he believed in a tariff which avoided both extremes. While he was an original and unintermittent hard-money man, he believed in the necessity of an elastic volume of currency. As the end of resumption forbade inflation, he demanded that every part of the country should have its share of banks, and the drafts and checks which they threw into the circulation.

Of the variety as well as the quantity of his work, men will not soon cease to wonder. There were few who could equal him in the discussion of any one of the great topics of the day, much less all of them. His name and fame can never be identified with any single question or measure, for he displayed the same ability on every subject alike.

In other respects he also differed from the men around him. He was a scholar in the broadest sense. His speeches are absolutely unequaled anywhere for their scientific method. In their philosophical discussions they were the product of the ripest scholarship; in their practical suggestions and arguments, they were, they are the product of the highest statesmanship.

Finally, a man of more spotless honor and loftier integrity never trod the earth than James A. Garfield. He lived in an atmosphere of purity and unselfishness, which, to the average man, is an unknown realm. After all, there are men enough with intellect in politics, but two few with character. An estimate of Garfield would be incomplete which failed to include the inflexible honesty of the great orator and legislator, whether in affairs public or private. History shows that while no institutions ever decayed because of the intellectual weak

ness of the people among which they flourished, empire after empire has perished from the face of the earth through the decay of morals in its people and its public men. History repeats itself. What has been, will be. What has been, will be. Name after name of the great men of the new Republic is stained with private immorality and public crime. The noblest part of Garfield, with all his genius, was his spotless character. There was, there is, no greater, purer, manlier man.

"His tongue was framed to music,

His hand was armed with skill,
His face was the mold of beauty,
And his heart the throne of will."

CHAPTER X.

THE CLIMAX OF 1880.

HE fathers and founders of the Republic had no suspicion

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of the form which American politics has assumed. The thing which we know as a political party is new under the sun. All ages and countries have had parties, sects; but no other country or age ever had any thing like what America. understands by the word party. When we speak of a party, we do not have in mind a mere sect, or class, distinguished by peculiar opinions, and composed of individuals whose only bond of union is their harmony of opinion, passion, or prejudice. We do not mean a caste, nor a peculiar section of American society, nor a portion of the masses, whose birth, condition, and surroundings predestine them to take a traditional sort of a view of political affairs, which they hold in common with their parents and their fellows. This was what Rome, in the days of her Republic, understood by the name of party. Patrician and plebeian stood not merely for opinion, but for more-for birth, heritage, and station. When there was an election, it was a rout, a rabble, without organization, work, or object. Rich and poor were arrayed against each other; the public offices were the glittering prize. But they were captured more by seditions, revolts, coups d'état, than by the insinuating arts of the wire-puller. The same thing is largely true of England and France, although less so lately than formerly.

But in America by a political party, we mean an organism, of which the life is, in the beginning at least, an opinion or set of opinions. We mean an institution as perfectly organized as the government itself; and taking hold of the people much more intimately. We mean an organization so power

ful that the government is in its hands but a toy; so despotic that it has but one penalty for treason-political death; so much beloved, that while a few men in a few widely separated generations make glorious and awful sacrifices for their country, nearly all the men of every generation lend themselves, heart and soul, to the cause of party. A political party raises, once in four years, drilled armies, more numerous than any war ever called forth. If the battalions wear no uniform but red shirt and cap, and carry no more deadly weapon than the flaming torch, they are, nevertheless, as numerous, as well drilled, and as powerful as the glistening ranks of Gettysburg or Chickamauga. They, too, fight for the government-or against it. A political party has its official chief, its national legislature or "committee," its state, county, township, ward, and precinct organizations. It is stupendous. The local organization has in its secret rooms lists containing the name of every voter, with an analysis of his political views; if they are wavering, a few significant remarks on how he can be "reached." The county and state organizations have their treasuries, their system of taxation and revenue, their fields of expenditure, and their cries of robbery, reform, and retrenchment. In the secret committee rooms are laid deep and sagacious plans for carrying the election. In some States, the old, crude ways of sedition, driving away of voters, and stuffing the poll are still followed; but in most of the States prevail arts and methods so mysterious, so secret, that none but the expert politician knows what they are.

A political party has other than financial resources. It owns newspapers-manufacturers of public sentiment. It makes the men that make it. It controls offices, and places of trust and profit. It has all the powers of centralization. One man in a State is at the head of the organism. He is an autocrat, a czar, a sultan. At the crack of his finger the political head of his grand vizier falls under the headsman's ax. The party has in its service the most plausible writers, the most

eloquent orators, the most ingenious statisticians, and the most graphic artists. In its service are all the brilliant and historic names and reputations. Military glory, statesmanship, diplomacy, are alike appropriated to itself. Wealth, genius, love, and beauty, alike lay their treasures at its feet.

A party as well as the nation has its laws. Its delegates and committeemen are as certain to be elected, and those elections are required to occur at times and places as definitely settled by party rule as those for Congressmen or President.

The thing which we have been describing did not begin with the Republic. It is substantially a growth of the last fifty years. Its beginning was marked by the rise of the convention, its most public and prominent feature. Formerly, congressional and legislative caucuses nominated the candidates for office. But about 1831 a change began to come about. When the first severe cold of winter begins, every floating straw or particle of dust on the surface of a pond becomes the center of a crystallization around, itself. The distances between the nearer and smaller, then the more isolated and larger, centers, are gradually bridged until the icy floor is built. So in the rise of party organism in the Republic. The local organizations, the town clubs, the township conventions for the nomination of trustee and road master, became the initial centers of a process of crystallization which was to go on until the icy floor of party organization and platforms covered the thousand little waves and ripples of individual opinions from shore to shore.

The delegate and the convention, the permanent committee and the caucus, became the methods by which the organization grew. Stronger and stronger have they grown, twining themselves like monster vines around the central trunk of the Republic. Every Presidential election has doubled the power, unity, centralization and resources of the monsters. The surplus genius and energy of the American people for organiz

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