demands of financial honor. In May, 1868, he spoke again on the currency, dealing a staggering blow to the adherents of George H. Pendleton, who, under the stress of a money panic, were clamoring for the government to “make the money-market easier.” It may be said that he was at this, as at later times, the representative and champion of the sound-money men in congress, and first and last did more than any one else, probably, in settling the issues of this momentous question. In 1877 and 1878 he was again active in stemming a fresh tide of financial fallacies. He treated the matter this time with elementary simplicity, and gave in detail reasons for a hard-money policy, based not so much upon opinion and theory as upon the teachings of history.
In the 41st congress a new committee—that on banking and currency—was created, and Garfield was very properly made its chairman. This gave him new opportunities to serve the cause in which he was heartily enlisted, and no one now seeks to diminish the value of that service. The most noticed and most widely read of these discussions was a speech on the National finances, which he delivered in 1878, at Faneuil hall, Boston. It was circulated as a campaign document by thousands, and served to win a victory in Massachusetts and to subdue for a while the frantic appeals from the
west for more paper money. He served also on the select committee on the census (a tribute to his skill in statistics) and on the committee on rules, as an appreciation of his practical and thorough knowledge of parliamentary law. In the 42d and 43d congresses he was chairman of the committee on appropriations. In the 44th, 45th, and 46th congresses (the house being Democratic) he was assigned a place on the committee of ways and means. In reconstruction times, Garfield was earnest and aggressive in opposition to the theories advocated by President Johnson. He was a kind man, and not lacking in sympathy for those who, from mistaken motives, had attempted to sever their connection with the Federal Union; but he was not a sentimentalist, and had too earnest convictions not to insist that the results won by so much treasure and blood should be secured to the victors. An old soldier, he would not see Union victories neutralized by evasions of the constitution. On these topics no one was his superior in either branch of congress, and no opponent, however able, encountered him here without regretting the contest.
In 1876, Gen. Garfield went to New Orleans, at President Grant's request, in company with Senators Sherman and Matthews and other Republicans, to watch the counting of the Louisiana vote. He made a special study of the West Feliciana parish case, and embodied his views in a brief but significant report. On his return, he made, in January, 1877, two notable speeches in the house on the duty of congress in a presidential election, and claimed that the vice-president had a constitutional right to count the electoral vote. He was opposed to an electoral commission; yet, when the commission was ordered, Gen. Garfield was chosen by acclamation to fill one of the two seats allotted to Republican representatives. His colleague was George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts. Garfield discussed before the commission the Florida and Louisiana returns, on 9 and 16 Feb., 1877. Mr. Blaine left the house in 1877 for the senate, and this made Garfield the undisputed leader of the Republican party in the house. He was at this time, and subsequently, its candidate for speaker.
The struggle begun in the second session of the 45th congress (1879), when the Democratic majority sought to control the president through the appropriations, gave Garfield a fine opportunity to display his powers as a leader in opposition. The Democratic members added to two general appropriation bills, in the shape of amendments, legislation intended to restrain the use of the army as a posse to keep the peace at elections, to repeal the law authorizing the employment of deputy U. S. marshals at the elections of members of congress, and to relieve jurors in the U. S. courts from the obligation of the test oath. The senate, which was Republican, refused to concur in these amendments, and so the session ended. An extra session was promptly called, which continued into midsummer. Contemporary criticism claims that, in this contest, Gen. Garfield reached, perhaps, the climax of his congressional career. A conservative man by nature, he revolted at such high-handed measures, and in his speech of 29 March, 1879, characterized them as a “revolution in congress.” Against this insult to the spirit of the law he protested with unwonted vigor. Like Webster in 1832, he stood the defender of the constitution, and his splendid eloquence and resistless logic upheld the prerogatives of the executive, and denounced these attempts by the legislature to prevent or control elections, however disguised, as an attack upon the constitution. He warned the house that its course would end in nullification, and protested that its principle was the “revived doctrine of state sovereignty.” (See speeches of 26 April, 10 and 11 June, and 19 and 27 June, 1879.) The result of it was that the Democrats finally voted $44,600,000 of the $45,000,000 of appropriations originally asked—a great party victory, to which Gen. Garfield largely contributed. His arguments had the more weight because not partisan, but supported by a clear analysis and statement of the relations between the different branches of the government. His last speech to the house was made on the appointment of special deputy marshals, 23 April, 1880. At the same time he made a report of the tariff commission, which showed that he was still a sincere friend to protection. He was already United States senator-elect from Ohio, chosen after a nomination of singular unanimity, 13 Jan., 1880.
Where there is government by party, no leader can escape calumny; hence it assailed Garfield with great venom. In the presidential canvass of 1872, he, with other Republican representatives, was charged with having bought stock in the Credit Mobilier, sold to them at less than its value to influence their action in legislation affecting the Union Pacific railroad. A congressional investigation, reporting 13 Feb., 1875, seemed to establish these facts so far as Garfield was concerned. He knew nothing of any connection between the two companies, much less that the Credit Mobilier con-
