Partisanship is opinion crystallized, and party organizations are the scaffoldings whereon citizens stand while they build up the walls of their national temple. Organizations may change or dissolve, but when parties cease to exist, liberty will perish. In conclusion, let me say, the memory of Governor Morton will be forever cherished and honored by the soldiers of my State. They fought side by side with the soldiers of Indiana, and in a hundred glorious fields his name was the battle-cry of the noble regiments which he had organized and inspired with his own lofty spirit.

To the nation he has left the legacy of his patriotism, and the example of a great eventful life."

General Garfield's speeches upon the tariff, which were, perhaps, the ablest production of his brain, are not included here, as they are necessarily so long, and so full of statistics, of no interest to the general reader. His position was that of a conservative and careful protector of American industry, avoiding the extremes of either free trade or wholesale protection.

CHAPTER XVII.

PERIOD OF UNPOPULARITY,

HIS PRACTICE OF LAW. HIS FIRST CASE IN THE SUPREME COURT. HIS SUCCESS AS A LAWYER, — UNPOPULARITY OF HIS DEFENSE OF REBELS IN COURT. HIS CONNECTION WITH A MATTER CALLED THE DE GOLYER PAVEMENT CASE. HOW HE WAS MALIGNED. — PERSISTENCY OF ENEMIES. THE GREAT CREDIT MOBILIER CASE. VINDICATION OF GENERAL GARFIELD. HIS STORY OF HIS DEALINGS WITH OAKES AMES. HIS OPPOSITION TO THE INCREASE OF SALARIES IN CONGRESS. THE CENSURE OF HIS CONSTITUENTS. HIS EXPLANATION. -RESTORATION TO PUBLIC FAVOR.

No great or good man ever served a capricious public without disheartening trials, and periods of unpopularity. Such experiences are often the test of a man's ability and integrity. In the history of General Garfield's Congressional career, however, his loss of public favor was due, in each instance, to a misunderstanding of the facts, on the part of the people. When his actions and positions on public measure were fully understood by the people, he was at once restored to favor and applause.

One cause of the first noticeable ebb in the public regard, which the student of his life observes, was the natural result of his practice of law.

He was a Congressman before he ever tried a case in court; and his experience as an attorney is perhaps

an exception to that of any other lawyer, inasmuch as his first case was in the Supreme Court of the ́United States. He never had a case in any other court.

His first appearance in the Supreme Court was in behalf of some conspirators who had been tried by court-martial, and condemned t death, for engaging in a movement to assist the rebellion. They were tried by martial law in a State, in time of peace de facto in the State, and in a section of State not under martial law. The legal question was, whether any military body had such power under the circumstances. Should the civil power be ignored in time of peace, or in sections of the country where martial law had not been proclaimed? It was a case for which he received no pay, and was undertaken as a test of this important principle.

He was sustained by the Court and complimented by the presiding justice for his able presentation of the case and the law, while the criminals were set at liberty. No sooner had the news of his interference in behalf of condemned rebels reached his district in Ohio, than the indignant voters loudly proclaimed his "treachery to his party and to the nation." In the following election, the great majority, with which he had always been elected, fell off more than a thousand votes, because of his supposed espousal of the cause of rebellious criminals.

Other cases followed with occasionally a like result, from which he easily recovered, but which, for the time, annoyed him and disturbed his district.

His practice in the Supreme Court increased very rapidly, and there was a time when he could have left his seat in Congress and entered upon a practice which would soon have made him rich. As it was, the income he thus derived was of great use to him, for his great generosity and thoughtlessness of self kept him almost incessantly in financial straits. He wasted no money on himself or his family; but he had rather pay a bill himself, than to ask another person, who owed it, for the money; and he gave to almost every good enterprise that came to his notice. He was often called upon to act as attorney for corporations and contractors, whose applications for money or privileges were to come before Congress; and though it was considered honorable by many Congressmen to act in such cases, provided the attorney refused to vote when the measure came before Congress, yet invariably, did General Garfield refuse such applications, and rejected the large fees which many statesmen thought it perfectly honorable for him to receive.

In 1873, General Garfield was called upon, by an attorney in Washington, to appear for him in a matter | which the attorney (Mr. Parsons) said would not require much attention. The attorney being retained in the case, and being obliged to be absent when the matter was to come up, naturally sought some other attorney to temporarily take his place.

The matter to be attended to, in this instance, was a hearing before the Board of public works in Washington, concerning the durability of a wooden pave

ment, on which Messrs. De Golyer and McLellan held a patent.

General Garfield knew nothing about the pavement, and but little about the men; and knowing that he was to appear, as a matter of form, for another, he attended one hearing, where the questions of durability and material were the only ones discussed. Having performed this act of courtesy he dismissed the matter wholly from his mind. Some months afterwards, to his great surprise, the contract which was made between the patentees and the city, after the hearing upon the durability of the pavement, and with which he had nothing to do, came up in Congress, with the charge and appearance that the contract-not the pavement was a great swindle. Immediately, the fact that he had, at one time, in some way, and somewhere, appeared as attorney for the patentees was noticed in the public press, and became the cause of a great uproar, and of much disgraceful abuse.

The charges that he was connected with the fraud were, for several years, proclaimed by some of the newspapers of the Democratic party, notwithstanding his complete vindication by the committee of investigation.

So much was said about it, that the Hon. J. M. Wilson, chairman of the Congressional committee of investigation, felt called upon to publish the following letter:

There was not in my opinion, any evidence that