In the summer of 1862 the Nineteenth Congressional District of Ohio elected Garfield to Congress. He hesitated about leaving the army, but, being urged by his friends that it was his duty to serve his country in the House of Representatives, he took his seat December, 1863. Among such men as Colfax, Washburn, Conkling, Allison, and others, he at once took an honorable position. He was made chairman of military affairs, then of banking and currency, of appropriations, and other committees. On the slavery question he had always been outspoken. He said, on the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery: "All along the coast of our political sea these victims of slavery lie like stranded wrecks broken on the headlands of freedom. How lately did its advocates, with impious boldness, maintain it as God's own; to be venerated and cherished as divine! It was another and higher form of civilization. It was the holy evangel of America dispensing its mercies to a benighted race, and destined to bear countless blessings to the wilderness of the West. In its mad arrogance it lifted its hand to strike down the fabric of the Union, and since that fatal day it has been 'a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.' Like the spirit that Jesus cast out, it has, since then, been 'seeking rest and finding none.' It has sought in all the corners of the republic to find some hiding-place in which to shelter itself from the death it so richly deserves. It sought an asylum in the untrodden territories of the West, but with a whip of scorpions indignant freemen drove it thence. I do not believe that a loyal man can now be found who would consent that it should again enter them. It has no hope of harbor there. It found no protection or favor in the hearts or consciences of the freemen of the republic, and has fled for its last hope of safety behind the shield of the Constitution. We propose to follow it there, and drive it thence, as Satan was exiled from heaven.... To me it is a matter of great surprise that gentlemen on the other side should wish to delay the death of slavery. I can only account for it on the ground of long continued familiarity and friendship.... Has she not betrayed and slain men enough? Are they not strewn over a thousand battle-fields? Is not this Moloch already gorged with the bloody feast? Its best friends know that its final hour is fast approaching. The avenging gods are on its track. Their feet are not now, as of old, shod with wool, nor slow and stately stepping, but winged like Mercury's to bear the swift message of vengeance. No human power can avert the final catastrophe."