James A. Garfield idézet
oldal 4

James Abram Garfield az Egyesült Államok 20. elnöke 1881-ben. Abraham Lincoln után ő volt a második olyan elnök, akit meggyilkoltak. 6 hónapot és 15 napot töltött hivatalában.

1859 és 1861 között Ohio állam szenátora volt.

1861-ben csatlakozott az unió hadseregéhez, majd 1863-ban vezérőrnagyként felhagyott a katonáskodással.

1862-ben megválasztották a kongresszus tagjává, és 1878-ig minden második évben újraválasztották. 1880-ban elnyerte a Republikánus Párt elnökjelöltségét, és szintén fényes katonai múltat felmutató demokrata kihívójával, Winfield Scott Hancockkal szemben megnyerte az elnökválasztást.

Elnöksége során megpróbált közvetíteni a Republikánus Párt két nagy frakciója között. Ő a „Half-Breeds” csoport vezetője volt, míg a politikai egyezkedések eredményeként kinevezett alelnöke, Chester A. Arthur a „Stalwarts” csoportot képviselte. A Half-Breeds támogatta a polgári szolgálatot és Hayes elnök viszonylag puha politikáját az egykori konföderációs államokkal szemben, míg a Stalwarts tagjai a kemény politika elkötelezettjei voltak.

Többen valószínűsítik, hogy halálát is részben a két csoport közötti feszültségek okozták[forrás?]. 1881. július 2-án délelőtt lőtte meg a Stalwarts-szimpatizáns Charles J. Guiteau, aki tette után Arthur elnökségét éltette. Guiteau elmebeteg volt, és dühítette, hogy kérelmét az Egyesült Államok párizsi konzuli pozíciójának betöltésére többször is visszautasították, nem lévén megfelelő képzettsége. Tettéért 1882. június 30-án felakasztották.

A merénylet okozta sebesülése nem volt túlságosan súlyos, két lövés érte, egyik a vállán, egy pedig a hátán, amin keresztül a golyó a hasnyálmirigy mögött állt meg, de a kor orvosi és technikai színvonala miatt az elnököt gyakorlatilag félrekezelték, például fertőtlenítés nélkül próbálták kezelni a sebesüléseit, és végső soron ez vezetett a halálához is. Az orvosai, hogy megtalálják az elnök testében a golyót, Alexander Graham Bellt hívták segítségül, aki a fémdetektor ősatyjával, az indukciós mérleggel próbálta meg megtalálni a lövedéket. Ám a szerkezet folyamatos háttérzaja miatt nem tudták megtalálni az idegen testet. Mint később kiderült, az elnök egy akkoriban még ritkaságszámba menő rugós matracon feküdt, ez zavarta az indukciós mérleget. Az elnököt ezen kívül rektálisan, vagyis a végbélen keresztül próbálták meg táplálni, amire orvosai szerint az emésztőrendszere sérülése miatt volt szükség, az orvosai ráadásul rivalizáltak is a saját helyesnek vélt orvosi módszerük védelmében. A fertőzésekkel, gyulladásokkal és vérmérgezéssel küszködő elnököt így sikerült két hónapig életben tartani, de végül szeptember 18-án elhunyt, halálát igazából az orvosok hozzá nem értése okozta, akik gyakorlatilag halálra éheztették. Wikipedia  

✵ 19. november 1831 – 19. szeptember 1881
James A. Garfield fénykép
James A. Garfield: 129   idézetek 0   Kedvelés

James A. Garfield: Idézetek angolul

“I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not be a fool, which, if I may judge by the exhibitions around me, is a matter of no small difficulty.”

In a letter to Burke Aaron Hinsdale (1 January 1867); quoted in The Life of Gen. James A. Garfield (1880) by Jonas Mills Bundy, p. 77
1860s

“The President is the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think.”

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

“I mean to make myself a man, and if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything else.”

A Dictionary of Thoughts : Being A Cyclopedia Of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 327
Változat: I mean to make myself a man, and if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything else.

“The chief duty of government is to keep the peace and stand out of the sunshine of the people.”

Letter to H. N. Eldridge (12 December 1869) as quoted in Garfield (1978) by Allen Peskin, Ch. 13
1860s
Változat: The chief duty of government is to keep the peace and stand out of the sunshine of the people.

“A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.”

"Elements of Success," Speech at Spencerian Business College, Washington, D.C. (29 July 1869); in President Garfield and Education : Hiram College Memorial (1881) by B. A. Hinsdale, p. 326 http://books.google.com/books?id=rA4XAAAAYAAJ
1860s
Változat: A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.

“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.'”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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."”

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

“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?”

1860s, Speech in the House of Representatives (1866)
Kontextus: 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?
Kontextus: 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.

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

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

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

"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

Hasonló szerzők

Abraham Lincoln fénykép
Abraham Lincoln 77
amerikai jogász, politikus, az Amerikai Egyesült Államok 16…
Theodore Roosevelt fénykép
Theodore Roosevelt 15
amerikai politikus, az Amerikai Egyesült Államok 26. elnöke…
Thomas Alva Edison fénykép
Thomas Alva Edison 35
amerikai elektrotechnikus, üzletember, feltaláló
Thomas Carlyle fénykép
Thomas Carlyle 7
skót író, filozófus, történész, 1795-1881
Mark Twain fénykép
Mark Twain 123
amerikai író, újságíró, humorista
Bonaparte Napóleon fénykép
Bonaparte Napóleon 17
francia tábornok, hadvezér, politikus, császár
Anton Pavlovics Csehov fénykép
Anton Pavlovics Csehov 21
orosz író, drámaíró, orvos