From Canal Boy to President Part 26

CHAPTER XXIX.

GARFIELD AS A LAWYER.

In the crowded activities of Garfield's life, my readers may possibly have forgotten that he was a lawyer, having, after a course of private study during his presidency of Hiram College, been admitted to the bar, in 1861, by the Supreme Court of Ohio. When the war broke out he was about to withdraw from his position as teacher, and go into practice in Cleveland; but, as a Roman writer has expressed it, "Inter arma silent leges." So law gave way to arms, and the incipient lawyer became a general.

When the soldier put off his armor it was to enter Congress, and instead of practicing law, Garfield helped to frame laws.

But in 1865 there came an extraordinary occasion, which led to the Ohio Congressman entering upon his long delayed profession. And here I quote from the work of Major Bundy, already referred to: "About that time that great lawyer, Judge Jeremiah S. Black, as the attorney of the Ohio Democrats who had been opposing the war, came to his friend Garfield, and said that there were some men imprisoned in Indiana for conspiracy against the Government in trying to prevent enlistments and to encourage desertion. They had been tried in 1864, while the war was going on, and by a military commission sitting in Indiana, where there was no war, they had been sentenced to death. Mr. Lincoln commuted the sentence to imprisonment for life, and they were put into State's prison in accordance with the commutation. They then took out a writ of _habeas corpus_, to test the const.i.tutionality and legality of their trial, and the judges in the Circuit Court had disagreed, there being two of them, and had certified their disagreement to the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Black said to Garfield that he had seen what Garfield had said in Congress, and asked him if he was willing to say in an argument in the Supreme Court what he had advocated in Congress.

"To which Garfield replied: 'It depends on your case altogether.'

"Judge Black sent him the facts in the case--the record.

"Garfield read it over, and said: 'I believe in that doctrine.'

"To which Judge Black replied: 'Young man, you know it is a perilous thing for a young Republican in Congress to say that, and I don't want you to injure yourself.'

"Said Garfield: 'It does not make any difference. I believe in English liberty, and English law. But, Judge Black, I am not a pract.i.tioner in the Supreme Court, and I never tried a case in my life anywhere.'

"'How long ago were you admitted to the bar?' asked Judge Black.

"'Just about six years age.'

"'That will do,' Black replied, and he took Garfield thereupon over to the Supreme Court and moved his admission.

"He immediately entered upon the consideration of this important case.

On the side of the Government was arrayed a formidable amount of legal talent. The Attorney-General was aided by Gen. Butler, who was called in on account of his military knowledge, and by Henry Stanbury. a.s.sociated with Gen. Garfield as counsel for the pet.i.tioners were two of the greatest lawyers in the country--Judge Black and Hon. David Dudley Field, and the Hon. John E. McDonald, now Senator from Indiana. The argument submitted by Gen. Garfield was one of the most remarkable ever made before the Supreme Court of the United States, and was made under circ.u.mstances peculiarly creditable to Garfield's courage, independence, and resolute devotion to the cause of const.i.tutional liberty--a devotion not inspired by wild dreams of political promotion, for at that time it was dangerous for any young Republican Congressman to defend the const.i.tutional rights of men known to be disloyal, and rightly despised and hated for their disloyal practices."

I refer any of my maturer readers who may desire an abstract of the young lawyer's masterly and convincing argument, to Major Bundy's valuable work, which necessarily goes more deeply into such matters than the scope of my slighter work will admit. His argument was listened to with high approval by his distinguished a.s.sociate counsel, and the decision of the Supreme Court was given unanimously in favor of his clients.

Surely this was a most valuable _debut_, and Garfield is probably the first lawyer that ever tried his first case before that august tribunal.

It was a triumph, and gave him an immediate reputation and insured him a series of important cases before the same court. I have seen it stated that he was employed in seventeen cases before the Supreme Court, some of large importance, and bringing him in large fees. But for his first case he never received a cent. His clients were poor and in prison, and he was even obliged to pay for printing his own brief. His future earnings from this source, however, added materially to his income, and enabled him to install his family in that cherished home at Mentor, which has become, so familiar by name to the American people.

I can not dwell upon Garfield's experience as a lawyer. I content myself with quoting, from a letter addressed by Garfield to his close friend, President Hinsdale, of Hiram College, the account of a case tried in Mobile, which ill.u.s.trates his wonderful industry and remarkable resources.

Under date of June 18, 1877, Garfield writes "You know that my life has abounded in crises and difficult situations. This trip has been, perhaps, not a crisis, but certainly has placed me in a position of extreme difficulty. Two or three months ago, W.B. Duncan, a prominent business man in New York, retained me as his lawyer in a suit to be heard in the United States Court in Mobile, and sent me the papers in the case. I studied them, and found that they involved an important and somewhat difficult question of law, and I made myself sufficiently familiar with it, so that when Duncan telegraphed me to be in Mobile on the first Monday in June, I went with a pretty comfortable sense of my readiness to meet anybody who should be employed on the other side. But when I reached Mobile, I found there were two other suits connected, with this, and involving the ownership, sale, and complicated rights of several parties to the Mobile and Ohio Railroad.

"After two days' skirmishing, the court ordered the three suits to be consolidated. The question I had prepared myself on pa.s.sed wholly out of sight, and the whole entanglement of an insolvent railroad, twenty-five years old, and lying across four States, and costing $20,000,000, came upon us at once. There were seven lawyers in the case besides me. On one side were John A. Campbell, of New Orleans, late member of the Supreme Bench of the United States; a leading New York and a Mobile lawyer.

Against us were Judge Hoadley, of Cincinnati, and several Southern men.

I was a.s.signed the duty of summing up the case for our side, and answering the final argument of the opposition. I have never felt myself in such danger of failure before, all had so much better knowledge of the facts than I, and all had more experience with that cla.s.s of litigation? but I am very sure no one of them did so much hard work, in the five nights and six days of the trial, as I did. I am glad to tell you that I have received a dispatch from Mobile, that the court adopted my view of the case, and gave us a verdict on all points."

Who can doubt, after reading of these two cases, that had Garfield devoted himself to the practice of the law exclusively, he would have made one of the most successful members of the profession in the country, perhaps risen to the highest rank? As it was, he was only able to devote the time he could spare from his legislative labors.

These increased as years sped. On the retirement of James G. Blaine from the lower House of Congress, the leadership of his party devolved upon Garfield. It was a post of honor, but it imposed upon him a vast amount of labor. He must qualify himself to speak, not superficially, but from adequate knowledge upon all points of legislation, and to defend the party with which he was allied from all attacks of political opponents.

On this subject he writes, April 21, 1880: "The position I hold in the House requires an enormous amount of surplus work. I am compelled to look ahead at questions likely to be sprung upon us for action, and the fact is, I prepare for debate on ten subjects where I actually take part in but one. For example, it seemed certain that the Fitz John Porter case would be discussed in the House, and I devoted the best of two weeks to a careful 're-examination' of the old material, and a study of the new.

"There is now lying on top of my book-case a pile of books, revisions, and ma.n.u.scripts, three feet long by a foot and a half high, which I acc.u.mulated and examined for debate, which certainly will not come off this session, perhaps not at all. I must stand in the breach to meet whatever comes.

"I look forward to the Senate as at least a temporary relief from this heavy work. I am just now in antagonism with my own party on legislation in reference to the election law, and here also I have prepared for two discussions, and as yet have not spoken on either."

My young readers will see that Garfield thoroughly believed in hard work, and appreciated its necessity. It was the only way in which he could hold his commanding position. If he attained large success, and reached the highest dignity in the power of his countrymen to bestow, it is clear that he earned it richly. Upon some, accident bestows rank; but not so with him. From his earliest years he was growing, rounding out, and developing, till he became the man he was. And had his life been spared to the usual span, it is not likely that he would have desisted, but ripened with years into perhaps the most profound and scholarly statesman the world has seen.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

THE SCHOLAR IN POLITICS.

In the midst of his political and professional activity, Garfield never forgot his days of tranquil enjoyment at Hiram College, when he was devoted solely to the cultivation of his mind, and the extension of his knowledge. He still cherished the same tastes, and so far as his leisure--he had no leisure, save time s.n.a.t.c.hed from the engrossing claims of politics--so far, at any rate, as he could manage the time, he employed it for new acquisitions, or for the review of his earlier studies.

In January, 1874, he made a metrical version of the third ode of Horace's first book. I quote four stanzas:

"Guide thee, O ship, on thy journey, that owest To Africa's sh.o.r.es Virgil trusted to thee.

I pray thee restore him, in safety restore him, And saving him, save me the half of my soul.

"Stout oak and bra.s.s triple surrounded his bosom Who first to the waves of the merciless sea Committed his frail bark. He feared not Africa's Fierce battling the gales of the furious North.

"Nor feared he the gloom of the rain-bearing Hyads Nor the rage of fierce Notus, a tyrant than whom No storm-G.o.d that rules o'er the broad Adriatic Is mightier its billows to rouse or to calm.

"What form, or what pathway of death him affrighted Who faced with dry eyes monsters swimming the deep, Who gazed without fear on the storm-swollen billows, And the lightning-scarred rocks, grim with death on the sh.o.r.e?"

In reviewing the work of the year 1874, he writes: "So far as individual work is concerned, I have done something to keep alive my tastes and habits. For example, since I left you I have made a somewhat thorough study of Goethe and his epoch, and have sought to build up in my mind a picture of the state of literature and art in Europe, at the period when Goethe began to work, and the state when he died. I have grouped the various poets into order, so as to preserve memoirs of the impression made upon my mind by the whole. The sketch covers nearly sixty pages of ma.n.u.script. I think some work of this kind, outside the track of one's every-day work, is necessary to keep up real growth."

In July, 1875, he gives a list of works that he had read recently. Among these are several plays of Shakespeare, seven volumes of Froude's England, and a portion of Green's "History of the English People." He did not limit himself to English studies, but entered the realms of French and German literature, having made himself acquainted with both these languages. He made large and constant use of the Library of Congress. Probably none of his political a.s.sociates made as much, with the exception of Charles Sumner.

Major Bundy gives some interesting details as to his method of work, which I quote: "In all his official, professional, and literary work, Garfield has pursued a system that has enabled him to acc.u.mulate, on a vast range and variety of subjects, an amount of easily available information such as no one else has shown the possession of by its use.

His house at Washington is a workshop, in which the tools are always kept within immediate reach. Although books overrun his house from top to bottom, his library contains the working material on which he mainly depends. And the amount of material is enormous. Large numbers of sc.r.a.p-books that have been acc.u.mulating for over twenty years, in number and in value--made up with an eye to what either is, or may become, useful, which would render the collection of priceless value to the library of any first-cla.s.s newspaper establishment--are so perfectly arranged and indexed, that their owner with his all-retentive memory, can turn in a moment to the facts that may be needed for almost any conceivable emergency in debate.

"These are supplemented by diaries that preserve Garfield's multifarous political, scientific, literary, and religious inquiries, studies, and readings. And, to make the machinery of rapid work complete, he has a large box containing sixty-three different drawers, each properly labeled, in which he places newspaper cuttings, doc.u.ments, and slips of paper, and from which he can pull out what he wants as easily as an organist can play on the stops of his instrument. In other words, the hardest and most masterful worker in Congress has had the largest and most scientifically arranged of workshops."

It was a pleasant house, this, which Garfield had made for himself in Washington. With a devoted wife, who sympathized with him in his literary tastes, and aided him in his preparation for his literary work, with five children (two boys now at Williams College, one daughter, and two younger sons), all bright and promising, with a happy and joyous temperament that drew around him warmly-attached friends, with a mind continually broadening and expanding in every direction, respected and appreciated by his countrymen, and loved even by his political opponents, Garfield's lot seemed and was a rarely happy one. He worked hard, but he had always enjoyed work. Higher honors seemed hovering in the air, but he did not make himself anxious about them. He enjoyed life, and did his duty as he went along, ready to undertake new responsibilities whenever they came, but by no means impatient for higher honors.

Filling an honored place in the household is the white-haired mother, who, with justifiable pride, has followed the fortunes of her son from his dest.i.tute boyhood, along the years in which he gained strength by battling with poverty and adverse circ.u.mstances, to the time when he fills the leading place in the councils of the nation. So steadily has he gone on, step by step, that she is justified in hoping for him higher honors.

The time came, and he was elected to the United States Senate in place of Judge Thurman, who had ably represented the State in the same body, and had been long regarded as one of the foremost leaders of the Democratic party. But his mantle fell upon no unworthy successor. Ohio was fortunate in possessing two such men to represent her in the highest legislative body of the nation.

Doubtless this honor would have come sooner to Garfield, for in 1877 he was the candidate to whom all eyes were directed, but he could not be spared from the lower House, there being no one to take his place as leader. He yielded to the expressed wishes of President Hayes, who, in the exceptional position in which he found himself, felt the need of a strong and able man in the House, to sustain his administration and help carry out the policy of the Government. Accustomed to yield his own interest to what he regarded as the needs of his country, Garfield quietly acquiesced in what to most men would have been a severe disappointment.

But when, after the delay of four years, he was elected to the Senate, he accepted with a feeling of satisfaction--not so much because he was promoted as because, in his new sphere of usefulness, he would have more time for the gratification of his literary tastes.

In a speech thanking the members of the General a.s.sembly for their support, he said:

"And now, gentlemen of the General a.s.sembly, without distinction of party, I recognize this tribute and compliment paid to me to-night.