The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1882-03-09
MEMORIAL.
Ex-Secretary Blaine's Eul0gy of
the Late President Garfield.


| bled in the Hall of Representatives to do
| honor to the memory Of murdered Presi-
| struggle in which the PASSIONS OF men had
| been deeply stirred. The tragical ternina-
| tion of his great life added buganother to the
| lengthened succes ssion OF horrors which had
marked 50 many lintels with the blood Of the
| peace, when brother had been reconciled to
| brother, and when anger and hate had been
/ banished from the land. Whoever shall here
| after draw the rCrtraft OF the murderer If he
/ will show it as it has been Eexilibited whose
for let him NOT rive h the vsa e ff Mn
| loch, the brow knitted by revenge the face
| black with settled hate Let him daaw rather
| decOrOus, smooth faced, bloodTess demon,
| tuie in its depravity and in it's DaroxysIns OF
| crime as an internal being-a iend in the
ordinary display and Development of his
From the landing of the Pilgrims at Ply
! mouth till the uprising against Charles l.,
about 10000 emtgrants came from old England
| TO New England. As they came In pursuit of
| intellectual freedom and ecclesiastical inde-
| profit, the emigration naturally ceased when
! the contest for religious liberty began in
! earnest at home. The man who struck his
most etfeetual blow for freedom of conscience
| by sailing for the colonies inl62Q would have
| been accounted q deserter to leave in 1910,
! The opportunity had then come on the soil OF
Iished the authority of Parliament gave re
| ligfOus freedom to the people, sent Charles to
the block and committed to the hands of Oil
yer Cromwell the supreme executive atthori-
4
| never renewed, and from these % 900 men.
with small emigration from Scotland and
! France, are descended the vast numbers who
! have New England blood in their veins. In
| 1888 the revocation of the edfct of Nantes by
! Louis XIV. scattered to other countries 400 600
! Protestants, who were among the most intel
| lectuaI and enterprising of French subjects
| merchants of capital, skilled manufacturers
| anu nahdicfaItSlnen, superior at the time to
| all others in Europe. A considerable number
OF these Huguenot French came to America.
| A few landed in New England and became
nOnOT1DlN prominent history hnip
names have in large part become anglicized
| or have disappeared, but their blood Is trace
able in many of the most reputable families
| ana their fame Is perpetuated in honorable
memorials and usefut institutions From
| these two Sources the English Puritan and
/ the French Huguenot, came the late Presl-
| dent his father, Abram Garfield, being de
| Scended from the one, and his mother, Eliza
beth Ballou, from the other. It was good
stock on both sides, none better, none braver,
| mono truer. There was in it an inheritance of
| courage, of manliness, of fmperishable love OF
| liberty, of undying adherence to principles.
/ GARFIELD was proud of his blood, and with as
much satisfaction as II he wer9 British no
| bleman reading his stately ancestral record
IN Burke's Peerage, he spoke of himself as
nlnen In descent from those who would not
| endure the oppression of the Stuafts, and
seventh in descent from the brave French
| ProteStants who refused to submit to tyranny
even from the Grand Monarque. Gen. Car
| neld delighted to dwell on these traits; and
| during his only visit to England he Bl1sied
himself in discovering every trace of his fore
fathers in parish registries and on ancient
| army rolls.
Sitting with friend in the gallery of the
House OF Commons one night, after a long
| days labor In this field Of research, he said.
| with evident elatioh, that in every war in
which, for three centuries, patriots of English
| blood had struck sturdy blows for con- stitn-
| tional government and human liberty, his
family had been represented: They were at
! MarstOn Moore, at NaSeby, at Preston and at
iI mo anu IN ms own person he had bat
tleu Ior the same great cause IN the war which
| preserved the Union of the United States
! Losing his father before he was two years old,
! the early life of Garfield was one of privation
| but its poverty has been made indelicately
\ and unjustly prominent. Thousands of read
| ers have imagined him the ragged, starv-
ing child, whose reality too often greets the
eye in the squalid sections of our large cities
Gen. Gariields infancy and youth had none of
their destitutiOn, none of their pitifuI features
appealing to the tender heart and the open
hand OF charity He was a poor boy in the
same sense in which Henry Clay was a poor
boy, in which Andrew Jackson was a poor
| boy, in which Daniel webster was a poor bow !.
in the sense in which a large majority of the
eminent men OF America in past generations
have been poor boys.
Before a great multitude of men, in a public
speech, Mr.. Webster bore this testimony: cit
did not happen to me to be born in log cab
in but my elder brothers and sisters were
! born in a log cabin, raised amid the snow
| drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early
| that when the smoke rose first from it's fude
| chimney and Curled over the frozen hills
there was no similar evidence of a white
mans habftatiOn between it and the settle
ments on the rivers of Canada. Its remains
| still exist. make to it. an annual visit. l
carry my children to it, to teach them the
hardshipS endured by the generations who
have gone before them. L love to dwell on
the tender recOllectiOns, the kindred ties the
and incidents which mingle with ali 1 know
of this primitive family abode"
With the requisite change of scene the same
words would aptly portray the early days of
Garfield The poverty of the frontier, where
all are engaged in a common struggle and
where a common sympathy and hearty co-
operation tighten the burdens of each is a
very different T)overtv different in hind diff
ferent in influence and effort, from that con
scious and humiliatng indigence which is ey-
every day forced to contrastitsef with neigh
/ hrr nj frNa 70.
grinding dependence. The poverty of the
frontier is, indeed, no poverty. 1t is but the
possibilities of the future always opening be-
fore it. No man ever grew up in the agffcul-
tural regions of the West, where house-rais-
ing, or even a cOrn-husking, is a matter of
common interest and helpfulness, with anv
other feeling than that OF a broad minded,
generous Independence. This honorable in
dependence marked the youth of Garfield as
1t marks the youth of millions of the blood
and brains now training for the future citizen
ships and government of the republic. Garfield
was born heir to the land, to the title of free
port of lf-respect with the Anglo Saxon race
ever since Hengfst and Horsa landed on the
shores of England. His adventure on the ca.
nal, an alternative between that and the deck
of a Lake Erie schooner, was a farmer bows
device for earning,Tnoney lust as a New Fstl p.
land lad begins a possibly greater career by
sailing before the mast on a eOastfno vessel
oTOn amerchantman bound to the farther In
dia or China seas No manly man feels any
thing of shame in looking back to the early
struggles with adverse circumstances, and no
conquered the obstacles to his progress. But
no one of noble mold desires to be looked
inferiOritY, or as having suffered the pangs of
poverty until relief was found at the hands of
charity. Gen. Garheld's youth presented
no hardships which family love and family
energy did not overcome, Subjected him to no
pTivations which he did not cheerfutIy accept
and lett no memories save those which were
recalled with delight and transmitted with
profit and with pride a
Garheld's early pportunties for securing an
education extremely limited md sznf
were sufficient to develop an intense desire to
learn He could read at three Years ~ q ore7
and each winter he had advantage of the dis
trict school. He read all the books to be found
within the circle ofhis acquaintance; some of
he was a constant student of the Bible and
became familiar with it's literature. The dig
nifty and earnestness of speech in hismatureF
life gave evidence of this early traiping. At
Is years of age he was able to teach school,
and thenceforward his ambition was TO obtain
a college educatlon To this end he bent all
his efforts, working in the harvest field at
the carpenters Dencll, ana IN the winter sea-
son teachlng the common schools of the
neighborhood- While thus labori0usIy occu-
pied he found time to prosecute his studies,
and was so successful that at p years of age
he was able to enter the junior class at VIII
liams College, then under the presidency of
the venerable and hOnoredT dark Hopkins,
who in the fullness of his powers survives the
eminent pupil to whom he was of tnestiTna-
~ble service. The history of G5aFffeid's life to
this period presents no novel features. He
had undoubtedly shown perseverance, self
reliance, self sacrifice and ambition Qualities
which, be 1t said for the honor of our country
are every where to he found among the Young
men of America But from his graduation at
Williams onward to the hour of his ffagical
death Garfie1d's career was eminent and ex-
ceptfonai Hourly working Through his eflrf-
cational period, receiving his diploma when
p years OF age he seemed at one bound to
spring into conspicuous and brilliant success.
Within SIX years he was successfully Presi-
dent of College, state Senator of Ohio, Ma
ior-Generai of the Army of the United states,
and Representative Elect to the National
Congress 4 combination of honors 50 varied,
so elevated, within period 50 brief and to
man so Young IS, without precedent or parallel
in the history of the country.
CTarneld's army life was begun With 9th