Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-02-28

the art of getting from book all that was @
, value IL it by reading apparently so auicl
and cursory that it seemed like mere glanc
at the table of contents.
METHODS AND SECRETS OF HIS oRAToRr.
He was pre-eminently fair and candle
man in debate and took no petty advantage
stopped to no unworthy methods, avoided
personal alterations, rarely appealed to pref
udice, and did not seek TO iniame passion
He had a quicker eye for the strong point o.
his adversary than for the weak point, and or
his own side he SO marshaled his weighty
arguments as to make his hearers forget any
possible lack in the complete strength of his
position. He had habit Of stating his op.
ponent's side with such amplitude of fairness
and such significant liberalitY of concession
that his followers often complained that he
was giving his case away but never in his
prolonged participations in the proceedings
of the House did he give his case away, or
fail. in the judgment of competent and i'm
partial listeners to gain the mastery.
These characteristics which marked Gen
eral Garfield as a great debater did not, how
ever, make him a great parliamentary leader.
A parliamentary leader, as that term is
understood wherever free representative gov
ernment exists. is necessarily and very
strictly The organ of his party. An ardent
American defined the instructive warmth of
patriotism when he offered the toast, Z" Our
Country-Always right; but right or wrong,
our country" A parliamentary leader who
has body of followers that will do and dare
and die for the cause, Is one who believes his
party is always right, but right or wrong, is
for his party. No more important or exact
ing duty devolves upon him than the selec-
tion of the field and the time for contest.
| He must know not merely how to strike.
be often skillfuliy avoids the strength Of his
opponents position and scatters confusion in
| its ranks by attacking en- exposed point where
really the right business of the case and the
strength of the logical intrenchments are
against him. He conqaers often both against
the right and the heavy battalions. as when
young Charles Fox, in the days of history,
carried the House of Commons against ius-
tice, against immemorial rights, against his
own convictions lii indeed at that period Fox
had convictions), and in the interests of
corrupt administration, in obedience to q
tyrannical sovereign, drove Wilkes from the
seat to which the electors of Middlesex had
chosen him and installed Luttrell in defiance,
not merely of law, but of public decency.
THREE GREAT AMERICAN PARLIAMLNTARIANs.
For an achievement of that kind Garfield
was disqualified by the texture of his mind,
by the honesty of his heart, by his conscience,
ana by every instinct and aspiration of his
nature. The three most distinguished party
leaders hitherto developed in this country
are Mr.. Clay. Mr.. Douglas and Thaddeus
Stevens. Each was a man of consummate
ability, of great earnestness, and of intense
personality, differing each from the others,
and yet with one signal trait in common-the
power to command. Iu the give- and-take of
daily discussion, in the art Of controlling
and consolidating reluctant and refractory
followers, in the skill to overcome sill
forms of opposition andsto meet with conf.
dence and courage the varying phases Of
an uniooked-for assault or uususpected de-
fection, it would be difficulty to rank with
these fourth name in all our Congressional
history; but of these Mr.. Clay was the
greatest. It would, perhaps be impossible
to fiGd IN the parliamentary annals of the
world parallel to Mr. Clay in 1S41, when,
at 64 years Of age, he took control Of the
Wing party from President who had re-
osived their suffrages, against the power Of
Webster in the Cabinet against the elcquence
of Cho&te in the Senate, against the hercu-
lean efforts of Caleb Gushing and Henry A
Wise in the House. In unsbared leadership,
in the pride ard splenaOr of power, he hurled
against John Tyler with the deepest scorn
the mass of that corquering 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 victory scarcely
less wonderful when, in 1854, against the
secret desires of strong administration,
against the wise counsel of older chiefs,
against the conservative instinct and even
the moral sense of the country, he forcsd a
reluctant Congress into repeal of the Mis-.
souri, Compromise.
1.-THE GREAT coMMoNER."
Thad. Stevens, in his contest from 1865 to
1868, actually advanced his parliamentary
leadership until Congress tied the hands Of
the Presidant and governed the country by its
own will, leaving only psrfuuctory duties to
be discharged by the Executive. With $780,.
0C0,000 Of patronage in his hands, at the
force of Seward in the Cabinet. and the moral
power of Chase on the Bench, Andrew
johnson could not command the support Of
third in either House against the parlia.
mentary uprising Of which Thaddeus Stevens
was the animating spirit and the unques
toned leader. From these three great men
Garfield differed radically, differed in quality
of his mind and of temperament in the form
and phase of ambition. He could not dc
what they did, but he could do what they
could not. and, in the breadth of his Con.
gressional work, he left that which will long
exert potential influence among men, and
which, measured by the severe test of post
humous criticism, will secure more endur.
ing and more enviable fame.
GARFIELD's CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FUTURE
Those unfamiliar with GaI6eld's industry
and ignorant of the details of his work, may,
in some degree, measure them by the annals
Of Congress. No one of the generation oi
public men to which he belonged has con.
tributed so much that will be valuable fol
future reference. His speeches are numerous
many of them brilliant, all of them well
studied, carefully phrased and exhaustive oi
the subject they had under consideration
Collected from the scattered pages of ninety
royal octave volumes of Congressional rec
ords, they wo1ld present an incalculabIe com
pendulum of the political history Of the most
important era through which the Na.iona
Government has ever passed.
When the war legislatien-the measures Of
reconstruction, the protection Of human
rightg, the amendments OF the Constitution
the maintenance of the public credit, the
steps toward resumption, the true theories ol