ut it took the
candidate unaware, for as an officer in the regular army he had never
given the matter thought. His evasive answer, that the tariff was a
local issue only, gave an opening to his opponents, who forced the
tariff to a prominent place in the few remaining days before election.
They made much of Hancock's ignorance, and perhaps by this maneuver
offset the disadvantage done to Garfield by a forged letter, which
purported to show him as a friend of cheap labor and Chinese
immigration. Garfield and Arthur were elected by a small plurality over
Hancock. No one received a popular majority, for a third candidate,
named Weaver, headed a Greenback-Labor ticket and polled 308,000 votes.

General James A. Garfield would have become Senator from Ohio in 1881
had not his election transferred him to the Presidency. The fifty years
of his life covered a career that was typically American. The son of a
New England emigrant, he was born in the Connecticut Reserve in Ohio. He
worked his way from the farm through the log school to college. His
service on the towpath of the Ohio Canal, in the course of his
education, became a strong adjunct to his popularity among the common
people. He taught Latin and Greek after leaving college, studied law,
worked into politics, and went to the front upon the call for troops. He
left the war a major-general to enter Congress, in 1863, where he sat
until his election to the Senate in 1880. He was the friend of John
Sherman and had been the manager of his campaign. Like his friend, and
like most Ohio Republicans, he believed that the tariff was one of the
bases of prosperity in his State. In his campaign a young Cleveland
merchant named Hanna raised funds among the local manufacturers on the
plea that Republican success and their interests would go hand in hand.
In his inaugural address, however, Garfield said nothing of the new
issue which was threatening to enter politics, but dwelt upon the
supremacy of law, the status of the South, hard money, religious
freedom, and the civil service.

The Republican party had been left broken and in hostile camps by
President Hayes; Garfield tried in his Cabinet to change this and "to
have a party behind him." The State Department went to his rival and
ally, Blaine, whose personal following was larger than that of any other
American politician. The independent Republicans, who had seceded in
1872 and had muttered ever since, were pleased by the elevatio