Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1882-02-28

competent Judge of his own capacities and
adaptations, the law was the profession to
which Garfield should have devoted him
self But fate ordained otherwise, and his
reputation in history will rest largely upon
his service in the House of Representatives.
That service was exceptionally long. He
was nine times consecutively chosen to the
House, an honor enjoyed by not more than
* other Representatives of the more than
five thousand who have been elected from
the organization of the government to this
hour.
AS parliamentary orator, as a debater on
an issue squarely joined, where the position
had been chosen and the ground laid out.
Garfield must be assigned very high rank.
More perhaps, than any man with whom
he was associated in public life, he gave
careful and systematic study to public ques-
ions and he came to every discussion in
which he took part, with elaborate and CON-
plete preparation. He was a steady and in
defatigable worker. Those who imagine
that talent or genius can supply the place or
enlargement in Garfeld's life In prelimi-.
nary work he was apt, rapid and skillful.
He possessed, in high degree, the power
of readily absorbing ideas and facts, and
like Dr. johnson, had the art of getting
from book all that was of value in it by a
reading apparently so quick and cursory
that it seemed like amere glance at the table
of contents. He was pre-eminently fair
and candid man in debate, took no petty
advantage, stopped to no unworthy meth
DDS, avoided personal illusions, rarely APP.
pealed to prejudice, did not seek to infiame
passion. He had quicker eye for the
strong point of his adversary than for his
weak point, and on his own side he SO mar
shaled his weighty arguments as to make
his hearers forget any possible lack in the
complete strength of his position He had
a habit of stating his opponents side with
such amplitude of fairness and such Gber-
atty of concession that his followers oftens
complained that he was giving his case
away. But never in his prolonged partici-
patton in the proceedings of the House did
he give his case away, or fail in the judg-
to gain the mastery.
These characteristics, which marked Gar
field as debater, did not, however, make
him great parliamentary leader. A par
iamentary leader, as that term is under
stood wherever free representative govern
ment exists, is necessarily and very strictly
thO VI gan VI LID pa AL dluCAt
can defined the instructive warmth of patri-
otism when he offered the toast, "Our coun-
try, always right, but right or wrong, our
country" The parliamentary leader who
has body of followers that will do and dare
and die for the cause, is one who believes
his party always right, but right or wrong,
is for his party. No more important or
exacting duty devolves upon him than the
selection of the field and the time for con-
test. He must know not merely how to
strike, but where to strike and when to
strike. He often skillfully avoids the strength
of his opponents position and scatters con-
fusion in his ranks by attacking an exposed
point, when the righteousness of the cause
and the strength of logical intrenchment
are against him. He conquers ofte both
against the light and heavy battalions; as
when young Charles Fox, in the days of his
toryism, carried the House of Commons
against justice, against its immemorial rights,
against his own convictions, if, indeed, at
that period Fox had convictions, and in the
interest of corrupt administration, in ODE
dience 20 a tyrannical sovereign, drove
Wilkes from the seat to which the electors
of Middlesex had chosen him and installed
Luttreu in defiance, not merely of law, but
of public decency. For an achievement of
that kind Garfield was disqualified disqual-
fled by the texture of his mind, by the hon
esty of his heart, by his conscience, and by
every instinct and aspiration of his nature.
The three most distinguished parliament
airy leaders hitherto developed in this coun-
try are Mr.. Clay, Mr.. Douglas, and Mr..
Thaddeus Stevens. Each was a man of
consummate ability, of great earnestness,
of intense personality, differing widely,
each from the others, and yet with signal
| trait in common-the power to command.
In the give and take of daily discussion, in
the art Of controlling and consolidating re-
luctant and refractory followers; in the skill
to overcome all forms of opposition, and to
meet with competency and courage the
varying phases of unlocked for assault or
unsupported detection, it would be difficult
to rank with these fourth name in all our
Congressional history. But of these Mr..
Clay was the greatest. 1t would, perhaps,
be impossible to find in the parliamentary
annals of the world parallel to Mr.. Clay,
in 1871, when at sixty -four years of age he
took control of the Wing party from the
President who had received their suffrages,
against the power of Webster in the Cab
met, against the eloquence of Choate in the
Senate, against the Herculean efforts o.
Caleb Cushing and Henary A. Wise in the
House. In unshared leadership, in the
pride and plenitude of power he hurled
against John Tyler with deepest scorn the
mass of that conquering column which had
swept over the land in 1910, and drove his
administration to seek shelter behind the
lines of his political foes. Mr.. Douglas
achieved a victory scarcely less wonderful
when, in 1854, against the secret desires OF
a strong administration, against the wise
counsel of the older chiefs, against the con-
sentative instincts and even the moral sense
of the country, he forced reluctant Con-
gress into repeal of the Missouri compro-
mise. Mr.. Thaddeus Stevens, in his con-
tests from 1865 to 1868 actually advanced
his parliamentary leadership until Congress
tied the hands of the President and gov
erned the country by its own will, leaving
only perfunctory duties to be discharged by
the Executive With two hundred millions
of patronage 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. Andrew johnson
could not command the support of one
third in either House against the Parliament
airy uprising of which Thaddeus Stevens
was the animating spirit and the unques
toned leader.
From these three great men Garfield diff
|
his mind, in temperament, in the form anG
phase of ambition. He could not do wha
they did, but he could do what they coulo
not, and in the breadth of his Congressional
work he left that which will longer exert G
potential influence among men, and which
measured by the severe test of posthumous
criticism, will secure more enduring anC
more enviable iame
Those unfamiliar with Garfeld's indus
try, and ignorant of the details of IS work
may, in some degree, measure them by the
annals of Congress. No one of the gener-
alton 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 them brilliant, all
of them well studied, carefully phrased, and
exhaustive of the subject under consider
alton. Collected from the scattered pages
of ninety royal octave volumes of Congress
sional Record, they would present an in
~