A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 8, part 1: James A. Garfield
History
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 8, part 1: James A. Garfield
Garfield, James A. (James Abram), 1831-1881; Presidents -- United States; United States -- History -- Sources; United States -- Politics and government
At this time and
subsequently was its candidate for Speaker. Was elected to the United
States Senate January 13, 1880. Attended the Republican convention which
met at Chicago in June, 1880, where he opposed the renomination of
President Grant and supported Senator Sherman. On the thirty-sixth
ballot the delegates broke, their ranks, and, rushing to General
Garfield, he was unanimously nominated for President on June 8, 1880.
Was elected November 2, 1880, receiving 214 electoral votes to 144 that
were cast for Winfield S. Hancock. Was shot July 2, 1881, by an assassin
in the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station, in Washington, and died
from the effects of the wound September 19 at Elberon, N.J. He was
buried at Cleveland, Ohio.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
Fellow-Citizens: We stand to-day upon an eminence which overlooks a
hundred years of national life--a century crowded with perils, but
crowned with the triumphs of liberty and law. Before continuing the
onward march let us pause on this height for a moment to strengthen our
faith and renew our hope by a glance at the pathway along which our
people have traveled.
It is now three days more than a hundred years since the adoption of the
first written constitution of the United States--the Articles of
Confederation and Perpetual Union. The new Republic was then beset with
danger on every hand. It had not conquered a place in the family of
nations. The decisive battle of the war for independence, whose
centennial anniversary will soon be gratefully celebrated at Yorktown,
had not yet been fought. The colonists were struggling not only against
the armies of a great nation, but against the settled opinions of
mankind; for the world did not then believe that the supreme authority
of government could be safely intrusted to the guardianship of the
people themselves.
We can not overestimate the fervent love of liberty, the intelligent
courage, and the sum of common sense with which our fathers made the
great experiment of self-government. When they found, after a short
trial, that the confederacy of States was too weak to meet the
necessities of a vigorous and expanding republic, they boldly set it
aside, and in its stead established a National Union, founded directly
upon the will of the people, endowed with full power of
self-preservation and ample authority for the accomplishment of its
great object.
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