entered, anything like the
experience in statesmanship of Gen. Garfield. As you look over the list,
Grant, Jackson, and Taylor have brought to the position great fame as
soldiers, but who since John Quincy Adams has had such a civil career to
look back upon as Gen. Garfield? Since 1864 I can not think of one
important question debated in Congress or discussed before the great
tribunal of the American people in which you can not find the issue
stated more clearly and better than by any one else in the speeches in
the House of Representatives or on the hustings of Gen. Garfield--firm
and resolute, constant in his adherence to what he thinks is right,
regardless of popular delusions or the fear that he will become less
popular, or be disappointed in his ambitions.

"Just remember when Republicans and Democrats alike of Ohio fairly went
crazy over the financial heresy, this man stood as with his feet on a
rock, demanding honesty in government. About six years ago I sat by the
side of an Ohio Representative, who had an elaborately prepared table,
showing how the West was being cheated; that Ohio had not as many bank
bills to the square mile as the East, and that the Southwest was even
worse off than Ohio.

"In regard to the great questions of human rights he has stood
inflexible. The successor of Joshua R. Giddings, he is the man on whom
his mantle may be said to have descended. Still he is no blind partisan.
The best arguments in favor of civil service reform are found in the
speeches of Gen. Garfield. He is liberal and generous in the treatment
of the South, one of the foremost advocates of educational institutions
in the South at the national expense. Do you wish for that highest
type--the volunteer citizen soldier? Here is a man who enlisted at the
beginning of the war; from a subordinate officer he became a
major-general, trusted by those best of commanders, Thomas and
Rosecranz, always in the thickest of the fight, the commander of
dangerous and always successful expeditions, and returning home crowned
with the laurels of victory. Do you wish for an honored career, which in
itself is a vindication of the system of the American Republic? Without
the attributes of rank or wealth, he has risen from the humblest to the
loftiest position."

When the nominee of the convention had leisure to reflect upon his new
position, and then cast his eye back along his past life, beginning with
his rustic home in the Ohio wilderness