The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1886-09-02

TO strike, Duc Where TO Str1ke and Wnen
to strike. He often ski1lfully avoids the
strength of his opponents position, and
scatters confusion in his RANKS by attack
ing an exposed point, when really the
righteousness of the cause and the
strength of logical intrenchment are
against him. He conquers often both
against the right and the heavy bat
talions; 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 obedience
to a tyrannical sovereign. drove Wilkes
from the seat to which the electors of
M1ddlesex had chosen him, and installed
Luttrell, in defiance not merely of law
but of public decency. For an achieve
ment of that kind Garfield was disquali-
ied-disqualifed by the texture of his
mind, by the honesty of his heart, by his
conscience, and by every instinct and
aspiration of his nature.
THE THREE MOST DISTINGUISHED PARLIA-
MENTARY LEADERS
Hitherto developed in this country are
Mr.. Clay, Mr.. Douglas and Mr.. Thaddeus
Stevens. They were all men of consum-
mate ability, of great earnestness, of in
tense 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 consolidat-
ing reluctant and refractory followers, in
the skill to overcome all forms of opposi-
ton, and to meet with competency and
courage the varying phases of unlocked
for assault or unsuspected detection, it
would be difficult to rank with these a
fourth name in all our Congressional
history. But OF these Mr.. Clay was the
greatest. It would, perhaps, be impossi-
BILE to find in the parliamentary annals of
the world 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 suf-
frages, against the power of Webster in
the Cabinet, against the eloquence of
Choate In the Senate, against the hercu-
lean efforts of Caleb Gushing and Henry
A. Wise in the House. In unshared lead
ership, in the pride and plenitude of
power, ne 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 its poIit-
ical foes. Mr.. Douglas achieved 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 conserva-
tive instincts and even the moral sense
of the country, he forced reluctant Con-
gress into repeal of the Missouri Com
promise. Mr.. Thaddeus Stevens in his
contests from 1865 to 1868 actually ad-
vanced his parliamentary leadership un-
til Congress tied the hands of the Pres1-
dent and governed the country by its
own will, leaving only perfunctory
duties to be discharged by the Execu-
tive. 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 parliamentary uprising of
which Thaddeus Stevens was the animat-
ing spirit and the unquestioned leader.
From these three great men Garfield
differed radically, differed in the quality
of his mind, in temperament, in the
form and phase of ambition. He 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 q potential 1ndu-