James A. Garfield: Trending quotes (page 6)

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“I am receiving what I suppose to be the usual number of threatening letters on the subject. Assassination can be no more guarded against than death by lightning; it is best not to worry about either.”

James A. Garfield

As quoted in Garfield of Ohio : The Available Man (1970) by John M. Tyler

Death

“Indeed, we can find no more instructive lesson on the whole question of suffrage than the history of its development in the British empire. For more than four centuries, royal prerogative and the rights of the people of England have waged perpetual warfare. Often the result has appeared doubtful, often the people have been driven to the wall, but they have always renewed the struggle with unfaltering courage. Often have they lost the battle, but they have always won the campaign. Amidst all their reverses, each generation has found them stronger, each half-century has brought them its year of jubilee, and has added strength to the bulwark of law and breadth to the basis of liberty. This contest has illustrated again and again the saying that 'eternal vigilance is the price of liberty'. The growth of a city, the decay of a borough, the establishment of a new manufacture, the enlargement of commerce, the recognition of a new power, have, each in its turn, added new and peculiar elements to the contest. Hallam says: 'It would be difficult, probably, to name any town of the least consideration in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which did not, at some time or other, return members to Parliament. This is so much the case, that if, in running our eyes along the map, we find any seaport, as Sunderland or Falmouth, or any inland town, as Leeds or Birmingham, which has never enjoyed the elective franchise, we may conclude at once that it has emerged from obscurity since the reign of Henry VIII.'”

James A. Garfield

Constitutional History of England, Chap. XIII
1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

People , Law , History , Courage

“I thank you, fellow-citizens, for this magnificent demonstration. In so far as I represent in my heart and life the great doctrines for which you fought, I accept this demonstration as a tribute to my representative character. [Applause. ] In the strength of your hands, in the fervor of your hearts, in the firmness of your faith, in all that betokens greatness of manhood and nobleness of character, the Republic finds its security and glory. [Applause. ] I do not enter upon controverted questions. The time, the place, the situation forbid it. I respect the traditions that require me to speak only of those themes which elevate us all. Again I thank you for the kindness and enthusiasm of your greeting.”

James A. Garfield

Tremendous cheering.
1880s, Speech to the 'Boys in Blue' (1880)

Life , Faith , Question , Time

“My God! What is there in this place that a man should ever want to get into it?”

James A. Garfield

Diary (8 June 1881) as quoted in Garfield (1978) by Allen Peskin, Ch. 24
1880s

God

“I have had many troubles, but the worst of them never came.”

James A. Garfield

As quoted in The Power of Choice (2007) by Joyce Guccione, p. 49

“I thank you doctor, but I am a dead man.”

James A. Garfield

To a doctor treating his wound. Quoted in John Whitcomb, Claire Whitcomb "Real Life at the White House", Routledge, 2002, p. 177
1880s

Dead

“I am glad to be able to fortify my position on this point by the great name and ability of Theophilus Parsons, of the Harvard Law School. In discussing the necessity of negro suffrage at a recent public meeting in Boston, he says: "Some of the Southern States have among their statutes a law prohibiting the education of a colored man under a heavy penalty. The whole world calls this most inhuman, most infamous. And shall we say to the whites of those States, 'We give you complete and exclusive power of legislating about the education of the blacks; but beware, for if you lift them by education from their present condition, you do it under the penalty of forfeiting and losing your supremacy?' Will not slavery, with nearly all its evils, and with none of its compensation, come back at once? Not under its own detested name; it will call itself apprenticeship; it will put on the disguise of laws to prevent pauperism, by providing that every colored man who does not work in some prescribed way shall be arrested, and placed at the disposal of the authorities; or it will do its work by means of laws regulating wages and labor. However it be done, one thing is certain: if we take from the slaves all the protection and defence they found in slavery, and withhold from them all power of self-protection and self-defence, the race must perish, and we shall be their destroyers."”

James A. Garfield

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

World , Education , School , Law

“After nearly a quarter of a century of prosperity under the Constitution, the spirit of slavery so far triumphed over the early principles and practices of the government that, in 1812, South Carolina and her followers in Congress succeeded in inserting the word 'white' in the suffrage clause of the act establishing a territorial government for Missouri. One by one the Slave States, and many of the free States, gave way before the crusade of slavery against negro citizenship. In 1817, Connecticut caught the infection, and in her constitution she excluded the negro from the ballot-box. In every other New England State his ancient right of suffrage has remained and still remains undisturbed. Free negroes voted in Maryland till 1833; in North Carolina, till 1835; in ennsylvania, till 1838. It was the boast of Cave Johnson of Tennessee that he owed his election to Congress in 1828 to the free negroes who worked in his mills. They were denied the suffrage in 1834, under the new constitution of Tennessee, by a vote of thirty-three to twenty-three. As new States were formed, their constitutions for the most part excluded the negro from citizenship. Then followed the shameful catalogue of black laws; expatriation and ostracism in every form, which have so deeply disgraced the record of legislation in many of the States.”

James A. Garfield

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

Law , Way , Parting , Box

“The last act of Democratic domination in this Capitol, eighteen years ago, was striking and dramatic, perhaps heroic. Then the Democratic Party said to the Republicans, '; but the people of this country, refusing to be coerced by threats or violence, voted as they pleased, and lawfully elected Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States.”

James A. Garfield

1870s, Speech (1879)

People , Country

“But liberty is no negation. It is a substantive, tangible reality. It is the realization of those imperishable truths of the Declaration 'that all men are created equal', that the sanction of all just government is 'the consent of the governed'. Can these truths be realized until each man has a right be to heard on all matters relating to himself?”

James A. Garfield

1860s, Speech in the House of Representatives (1866)
Context: Have we done it? Have we given freedom to the black man? What is freedom? Is it mere negation? Is it the bare privilege of not being chained, of not being bought and sold, branded and scourged? If this is all, then freedom is a bitter mockery, a cruel delusion, and it may well be questioned whether slavery were not better. But liberty is no negation. It is a substantial, tangible reality. It is the realization of those imperishable truths of the Declaration, 'that all men are created equal'; that the sanction of all just government is 'the consent of the governed.' Can these be realized until each man has a right to be heard on all matters relating to himself?
Context: In the great crisis of the war, God brought us face to face with the mighty truth, that we must lose our own freedom or grant it to the slave. In the extremity of our distress, we called upon the black man to help us save the Republic; and, amid the very thunders of battle, we made a covenant with him, sealed both with his blood and with ours, and witnessed by Jehovah, that, when the nation was redeemed, he should be free, and share with us its glories and its blessings. The Omniscient Witness will appear in judgment against us if we do not fulfill that covenant. Have we done it? Have we given freedom to the black man? What is freedom? Is it mere negation? Is it the bare privilege of not being chained, of not being bought and sold, branded and scourged? If this is all, then freedom is a bitter mockery, a cruel delusion, and it may well be questioned whether slavery were not better. But liberty is no negation. It is a substantial, tangible reality. It is the realization of those imperishable truths of the Declaration, 'that all men are created equal'; that the sanction of all just government is 'the consent of the governed.' Can these be realized until each man has a right to be heard on all matters relating to himself? The plain truth is, that each man knows his own interest best It has been said, 'If he is compelled to pay, if he may be compelled to fight, if he be required implicitly to obey, he should be legally entitled to be told what for; to have his consent asked, and his opinion counted at what it is worth. There ought to be no pariahs in a full-grown and civilized nation, no persons disqualified except through their own default.' I would not insult your intelligence by discussing so plain a truth, had not the passion and prejudice of this generation called in question the very axioms of the Declaration.

Men , Truth , Reality

“Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.”

James A. Garfield

Speech in the House of Representatives (June 1874), in The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield (1881) by E. E. Brown, p. 437 http://books.google.com/books?id=vCAFAAAAYAAJ
1870s

World

“I am inclined to believe that the sin of slavery is one of which it may be said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission.”

James A. Garfield

Source: Diary (8 June 1881)

“Most human organizations that fall short of their goals do so not because of stupidity or faulty doctrines, but because of internal decay and rigidification. They grow stiff in the joints. They get in a rut. They go to seed.”

James A. Garfield

John William Gardner, No easy victories (1968), p. 39
Misattributed

Stupidity

“Gentlemen, ideas outlive men; ideas outlive all earthly things. You who fought in the war for the Union fought for immortal ideas, and by their might you crowned the war with victory. [Great applause. ] But victory was worth nothing except for the truths that were under it, in it, and above it. We meet tonight as comrades to stand guard around the sacred truths for which we fought. [Loud and prolonged cheers. ] And while we have life to meet and grasp the hand of a comrade, we will stand by the great truths of the war. ["Good," "good," and loud cheers. ] Many convictions have sunk so deep into our hearts that we can never forget them. Think of the elevating spirit of the war itself. We gathered the boys from all our farms and shops and stores and schools and homes, from all over the Republic. They went forth unknown to fame, but returned enrolled on the roster of immortal heroes. [Great applause. ] They went in the spirit of the soldiers of Henry at Agincourt, of whom he said. 'For he today that sheds his blood with me. Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile. This day shall gentle his condition.'”

James A. Garfield

1880s, Speech to the 'Boys in Blue' (1880)

Life , Men , War , Truth

“During the war of the Revolution, and in 1788, the date of the adoption of our national Constitution, there was but one State among the thirteen whose constitution refused the right of suffrage to the negro. That State was South Carolina. Some, it is true, established a property qualification; all made freedom a prerequisite; but none save South Carolina made color a condition of suffrage. The Federal Constitution makes no such distinction, nor did the Articles of Confederation. In the Congress of the Confederation, on the 25th of June, 1778, the fourth article was under discussion. It provided that 'the free inhabitants of each of these States — paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted — shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States.' The delegates from South Carolina moved to insert between the words 'free inhabitants' the word 'white', thus denying the privileges and immunities of citizenship to the colored man. According to the rules of the convention, each State had but one vote. Eleven States voted on the question. One was divided; two voted aye; and eight voted no. It was thus early, and almost unanimously, decided that freedom, not color, should be the test of citizenship.”

James A. Garfield

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

War , Justice , Color , Question

“It is not manly to lie even about Satan.”

James A. Garfield

1880s, Garfield's Words (1882)

Lie

“Not in Chicago, in the heat of June, but at the ballot-boxes of the Republic, in the quiet of November, after the silence of deliberate judgment, will this question be settled. And now, gentlemen of the Convention, what do we want?”

James A. Garfield

1880s, Speech Nominating John Sherman for President (1880)

Question , Silence , Box

“If hard work is not another name for talent, it is the best possible substitute for it.”

James A. Garfield

"College Education," an address before the Literary the Eclectic Institute (June 1867), in President Garfield and Education : Hiram College Memorial (1881) by B. A. Hinsdale, p. 312 http://books.google.com/books?id=rA4XAAAAYAAJ
1860s

“Bear with me, fellow-citizens, while I urge still another consideration. By the Constitution, only three fifths of the slaves were counted in forming the basis of Congressional representation. The Proclamation of Emancipation adds the other two fifths, which at the next census will be more than two millions. If the negro be denied the franchise, and the size of the House of Representatives remain as now, we shall have fifteen additional members of Congress from the States lately in rebellion, without the addition of a single citizen to their population, and we shall have fifteen less in the loyal States. This will not only give six members of Congress to South Carolina, four sevenths of whose people are negroes, but it will place the power of the State, as well as the destiny of 412,000 black men, in the hands of the 20,000 white men, less than the number of voters in our own Congressional district, who, under the restricted suffrage of that undemocratic State, exercise the franchise. Such an unjust and unequal distribution of power would breed perpetual mischief. The evils of the rotten borough system of England would be upon us.”

James A. Garfield

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

Men , People , Exercises , Evil

“It is related in ancient fable that one of the gods, dissatisfied with the decrees of destiny, attempted to steal the box in which were kept the decrees of the Fates; but he found that it was fastened to the throne of Jupiter by a golden chain, and to remove it would pull down the pillars of heaven. So is the sacred ballot-box, which holds the decrees of freemen, linked by the indissoluble bond of necessity to the pillars of the Republic; and he who tampers with its decrees, or plucks it away from its place in our temple, will perish amid the ruins he has wrought.”

James A. Garfield

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

God , Fate , Box