The Story of Garfield Part 6

No one could have entered college with a more homely appearance than Garfield. His rustic manners and still more rustic dress invited criticism among the smart young men of his college, yet because he was by nature a gentleman, he was treated from the first as such, by both teachers and students alike.

His vacations, as before, were spent in teaching, and his Sabbaths in preaching. In this latter office he acquitted himself so well, that it became quite an accepted opinion that he was to become a minister.

This was one mark of the high estimation in which he was held, but there were others besides. The position of teacher in a high school, at the handsome salary of two hundred and fifty pounds, was offered him at this time. The offer, however, was declined, for the reason that it would prevent him taking his degree, and thus interfere with his plans in life.

His ambition was a very n.o.ble one. He wished, he said, to take a degree, to win, if possible, a name for scholarship; and then to go back to the modest salary and the limited sphere of the Hiram Inst.i.tute, and thus help the humble college which had done so much for him.

Another ill.u.s.tration of the good name he had earned was shown in a smaller, but still very practical way. His brother Thomas's resources had unfortunately given out, and James was in urgent need of money to buy a suit of clothes. Careless as he was about his personal appearance, the state of his wardrobe had become a serious anxiety to him. One day a tailor in Troy sent for him, took his measure, and fitted him out, saying, "Go on with your education, and when you have some money for which you have no other use, pay me." This was a little matter in itself, but of great interest as showing the opinion which his neighbours had formed of the young man.

It was during his residence at Williams' that the country was thrown into excitement by Preston Brooks' attack upon Charles Sumner. Sumner had taken a prominent part in the growing desire of the Northern States of America for the abolition of slavery. He was a Senator of the United States, and a politician and orator of great influence.

One day, as he sat writing at his desk in the Senate House, two men came up to him. One of these, a Senator and a slaveholder from South Carolina, of the name of Brooks, was armed with a heavy stick. This ruffian attacked Sumner from behind, felled him with a blow, and then beat him as he lay upon the floor, leaving him almost dead. For this grievous offence a small fine was imposed upon Brooks, and the amount was promptly paid by his admiring const.i.tuents. The bully then resigned his seat, and was re-elected without opposition by the South as its spokesman, leader, and law-maker.

The news of this murderous attack spread like a flame through the land.

In every State in the South it found a ready response in the sullen pa.s.sions of the slave-owners, whose hatred for the Abolitionists it exactly expressed. Throughout the North it raised a n.o.bler sentiment, and called forth a resolve that the system which placed millions of human beings under the absolute power of such men as this Brooks must be swept away. In both North and South that blow in the Senate House at Washington fell like a spark among the stubble: it set the nation on fire.

Among others who denounced the shameful deed was young Garfield. The students of his university called a public meeting to protest against the crime, and Garfield was the princ.i.p.al speaker. His address more than surprised his companions. All the pa.s.sionate vehemence of his mighty heart was awakened by this outrage, and all the slumbering hatred which he had nursed since boyhood against the abominations of slavery sprang to his lips.

As his hot words swept over the audience, his fellow-students sat amazed. Great as had been their belief in his powers, they had hardly expected this, and they heard enough that night to convince them that one of the mighty men of the earth was rising up amongst them; and they went away from the meeting whispering, "We have heard great things to-day."

CHAPTER XIV.

THE FIRST BLOW.

Garfield's Power as a Platform Speaker--A Candidate for the Senate--His Election--Is Slavery right or wrong?--War inevitable--The Attack on Fort Sumter--The Civil War begun.

Garfield was twenty-six when he left Williams' University. He entered this college a raw student from a Western seminary; he left it a distinguished scholar, a graduate with honours, and a popular lay preacher and platform speaker.

In spite of many flattering offers, he had remained true to the Western Inst.i.tute at Hiram. Before his return he was appointed teacher of ancient languages and literature there, and to this office he came full of enthusiasm.

The salary was only one hundred and fifty pounds a year, less by one-third than the sum offered him by the trustees of the high school at Troy, but that made no difference to Garfield. He brought to the duties of his profession a profound love for the school to which he himself was so greatly indebted, and an ardent desire to help young fellows as poor as himself. He found plenty of scope for his gifts, and he taught with such success that in two years' time he was appointed princ.i.p.al of the Inst.i.tution.

This was the height of his ambition. Around him were some three hundred young people, sons and daughters of the great West, whose mental and spiritual training was in his hands. He regarded it as a sacred trust, and he solemnly devoted his life to the service of these Western students.

His ideal was a high one. The teacher, he felt, was a builder of the nation, and he resolved that no work should leave his hands that was ill planned or badly done.

The memory of his own early struggles made him especially mindful of the poorer scholars, and his keen eye was always on the look-out for young men of promise. Perfectly free in his intercourse with the students, the young princ.i.p.al maintained his influence by the n.o.bility of his character and the steadiness of his aim. His only wish was to help his pupils. And they believed in him with a faith that in the years to come transformed his cla.s.ses into battalions on the field of battle.

The slavery question was still exercising the minds of all parties when Garfield returned to Hiram. His power as a speaker made him an important ally to the Abolitionist party in his country, and his fame brought numberless demands for platform work. The Democratic party in the States had unhappily identified itself with slavery. Its leaders defended the system, its members voted in its favour; while the Republicans led the way for its abolition.

Soon after Garfield's return to Hiram, a well-known Democrat named Hart visited the town, to deliver an address on slavery. It was a clever speech, and made some impression, and the princ.i.p.al of the Inst.i.tute was urged by the Republicans to reply. After some hesitation, Garfield did so. The answer was said to have been calmly given, but its grim facts of slavery horrors, its awful pictures of slavery evils, were so overwhelming, that his opponent was completely crushed.

This triumph naturally raised the demand that a man of such abilities should go into politics, and he was formally requested to become a candidate for the State Legislature. For a long time he refused. The interests of his school seemed so great, and his love for the work was so strong, that for a while nothing could move him.

In the year 1859, however, the appeals of his fellow-townsmen had grown so urgent, that he reluctantly became a candidate for the Senate of the State of Ohio. He had held back until the trustees of the Inst.i.tute and his fellow-teachers joined their entreaties with the townsmen, and offered during his absence to do double duty in the school to release him for the public service. Greatly touched by these generous offers, Garfield at length consented, and was at once nominated a candidate to the parliament of his native State.

Though he had been slow to accept nomination, he did not hold back when once the battle had begun, and some few who looked with doubt on his youth and inexperience soon found that they had in their midst a bold though prudent leader. He won the seat by a large majority, and entered the Senate in the month of January 1860.

The United States of America consisted then of thirty-eight States and ten Territories. Each State is governed by its own parliament, which consists of a House of Senate and a House of Representatives. The whole of these States and Territories are again united under a Federal Government, at the head of which is the President of the United States.

Each State sends to the Federal Government two Senators and from one to thirty Representatives, according to its population.

The State of Ohio, in whose Senate Garfield took his seat for the first time, is considerably larger than Ireland, and contains a more numerous population. It was organised into a State and admitted into the Union in 1803. Its population then was less than fifty thousand. Twenty years afterwards it had become ten times as great, and at the time of Garfield's election to its Senate, numbered nearly two and a half millions. Garfield had won his spurs as a politician in the discussion of the slavery question, and very soon he was called to give practical form to his opinions. For years there had been a conviction among many of the people of the Northern States that slavery was wrong, that it was a crime against man and a sin against G.o.d. The Southern States where slavery existed defended the inst.i.tution without shame and without fear. They bitterly resented any discussion of the subject by the North, and they took effectual means to suppress any adverse opinions in the South.

In the very year of Garfield's election, nearly a thousand white persons in the slave States were robbed, whipped, imprisoned, tarred and feathered, or murdered, on suspicion of sympathy with the slaves.

New and bitter laws were pa.s.sed in the Southern States against teaching or helping the negroes; and in several States it was calmly proposed to deprive the free blacks also of their liberty, to sell them back into bondage in order to raise money for the support of the elementary schools. In defiance of the laws of the Federal Government, the slave trade also was reintroduced, and negroes stolen from the West Coast of Africa were once more landed and sold into slavery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Negroes stolen from the west coast of Africa were sold into slavery.]

This open and insolent growth of the spirit of slavery in the South was slowly rousing the rest of the great nation from its slumber.

Statesmen had been silent too long, politicians and preachers had apologised for the evil, and the people as a whole had given no sign, until provoked by those flagrant attempts to carry the vile system into those newer parts of the country called Territories, vast districts of only partly occupied land which had not yet been erected into States.

Then the controversy became sharp and bitter, and the men of the North began to speak out. To the younger men especially was the system hateful, and it was plain that in the free States a new generation had risen up which was prepared to wash its hands of the curse of slavery.

Some of the Southern States, afterwards known as the Confederates, formed themselves into an a.s.sociation, and threatened to withdraw from the Federal Union; and civil war between the slave States and the free was by the more thoughtful and far-seeing deemed inevitable.

The young Senator Garfield was one of the first to realise the true position of affairs. During his first year in the State Senate he had made his mark, in the next he became by the mere force of his character and the intensity of his feelings its leader.

The President of the United States at the time was James Buchanan, a Democrat and a friend of the slave-owners. He, with others in high places, seemed bent on giving the South every opportunity to strengthen itself against the North.

In many of the Northern States, it was hoped by the timid that war could be averted by pa.s.sing laws which would please the South. But Garfield knew better. He saw that war must come, and he urged his friends to be prepared. One night he said to a fellow-Senator, c.o.x, who shared his lodgings, "c.o.x, war is inevitable."

"It is, as sure as you live," was the reply.

Then said Garfield, "If it comes, you and I must fight; let us then pledge our lives to our country in her hour of peril." And standing there, these two men, grand types of the Young America which was rising above the shame of its dark past, pledged themselves to fight for the old flag and for human right.

Abraham Lincoln succeeded Buchanan in the Presidency of the United States, and the Confederates withdrew from the Union, and elected a friend of the slave-owners, named Jefferson Davis, as their President.

Then the first blow was struck. At Charleston was a stronghold called Fort Sumter, which commanded the bay and harbour. The fort was held by Major Andersen for the Federal Government. The garrison was small, consisting only of some seventy men, who were without provisions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The defense of Fort Sumter.]

The Confederates demanded possession of the fort. Anderson held out for a day or two, until the walls were beaten down about his ears, and then surrendered the fortress to the rebels. This was the beginning of war.

The news of the victory was flashed through the land, and the nation stood aghast, to find that the Great Rebellion had begun.

CHAPTER XV.

DARK DAYS FOE THE UNION.

President Lincoln's Appeal to the Country--Dark Days for the Northern States--A Decisive Battle--Glorious News.

The question of slavery was the real cause of the American Civil War, though in the first instance the object of the North was solely to save the Union. Six of the slave States had withdrawn from the Union. They had appointed as their President Jefferson Davis, and had attempted to seize all the arms and forts within the border of the States.