Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1882-04-03

lty, OF great earnestneSs, of intense
personality, differing widely, each
from the others, and yet with a sig
nal trait in common-the power to
command. In the give and take of
daily discussion; in the art of con-
trolling and consolidating refractory
followers in the skill to overcome
all forms of opposition, and to meet
with competency and courage the va
rying phases of unlooked-for assault
or unsupported detection, it would be
difficult to rank with these a fourth
name in all our congressional history.
But Of these, Mr.. Clay was the great
est. 1t would, perhaps, be impossi-
BILE to find in the parliamentary an
nails of the world a parallel to Mr..
Clay, in 1S41, when at sixty-four
years of age he took the control of
the -whig party from the president
who had received their suffrages,
against the power of Webster in the
cabinet, against the eloquence of
Choate in the senate, against the
Herculean efforts of Caleb Gushing
and Henry A. Wise in the house.
In unshared leadership, in the pride
and plentitude of power he hurled
against John Tyler with deepest
scorn the mass of that conquering
column which swept over the land in
1910, and drove his administration to
seek shelter behind the lines of his
political foes. Mr.. Douglas achiev-
ed a victory scarcely less wonderful,
when in 1854, against the secret de-
sires of a strong administration,
against the wise counsel of the older
chiefs, against the conservative in
stincts and even the moral sense of
the country, he forced a reluctant
congress into a repeal of the Miss
ouri compromise. Mr.. Thaddeus
Stevens, in his contests from 1865 to
1868, actually advanced his parlia-
mentary leadership until congress
tied the hands of the president and
governed the country by its own will,
leaving only perfunctionary duties to
be discharged by the executive.
With two hundred millions of patron
age in his hands at the opening of the
contest, aided by the active force of
Seward in the cabinet and the moral
power of Chase on the bench, An
drew Johnson could not command
the support of one-third in either
house against the parliamentary up
rising Of which Thaddeus Stevens
was the animating spirit and the I'M
questioned leader.
From these three great men Gar
field differed radically, differed in the
qualify of mind, in temperament, in
the form ana phase OF ambltlon. lie
could not do what they did, but he
could do what they could not, and in
the breadth of his congressional work
he left that which will longer exert a
potential influence among men, and
which, measured by the severe test
of posthumous criticism, will secure
more enduring and more enviable
fame.
Those unfamiliar with Garfeld's
industry, and ignorant of the details
of his work, may in some degree
measure them by the annals of con
gress. No one of the generation OF
public men to which he belonged has
contributed so much that will be val
liable for future reference. His
speeches are numerous, many of then
brilliant, all of them well-Studied
carefully phrased and exhaustive O
the subject under consideration
Collected from the scattered pages o
ninety royal octave volumes of Con
gressiondl Record, they would presen
an invaluable compendium of the po
litical history of the most importan
era through which the national gov
ernment has ever passed. When tn
history of this period shall be impair
TALLY written, when war legislation
measures of reconstruction, protee
ton of human rights, amendments t
the constitution, maintenance of pub
lie credit, steps toward specie rt
sumption, true theories of revenu
may be reviewed, unsurrounded b
+ prejudice and disconnected from pa
tizanism, the speeches of CARTEL
f will be estimated at their true value
I and will be found to comprise Il va
$ magazine of fact and argument, {
+ clear analysis and sound conclusion
e Indeed, if no other authority we
s accessible, his speeches in the hou
e of representatives from Decembe
e 1868, to June, 1880, would give
J, well-connected history and compile
/ defence of the important legislatio
) of the seventeen eventful years tn
+ constitute his parliamentary life. F
: beyond that, his speeches would
) found to forecast many great mea
# ures, yet to be completed-measur
/. which he knew were beyond the pu
e lie opinion of the hour, but which
IS confidently believed would secu
is popular approval within the period
l. his own lifetime, and by the aid
L. his own efforts.
4 Differing, as Garfield does, frt
ID the brilliant parliamentary leaders,
D. is not easy to find his counterp:
in anywhere in the record of Americ
n, public life. He perhaps more neal
ch resembled Mr.. Seward in his suprel
en faith in the all-conquering power o