The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield: Twentieth President of the United States, Including Full and Accurate Details of His Eventful Administration, Assassination, Last Hours, Death, Etc., Together with Notable Extracts from His Speeches and LettersBrown, E. E. (Emma Elizabeth)
History
The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield: Twentieth President of the United States, Including Full and Accurate Details of His Eventful Administration, Assassination, Last Hours, Death, Etc., Together with Notable Extracts from His Speeches and Letters
Brown, E. E. (Emma Elizabeth)
Garfield, James A. (James Abram), 1831-1881; Presidents -- United States -- Biography
Now, I tell you, young man, don't vote the Republican ticket just
because your father votes it. Don't vote the Democratic ticket, even if
he does vote it. But let me give you this one word of advice, as you are
about to pitch your tent in one of the great political camps. Your life
is full and buoyant with hope now, and I beg you, when you pitch your
tent, pitch it among the living and not among the dead. If you are at
all inclined to pitch it among the Democratic people and with that
party, let me go with you for a moment while we survey the ground where
I hope you will not shortly lie. It is a sad place, young man, for you
to put your young life into. It is to me far more like a graveyard than
like a camp for the living. Look at it! It is billowed all over with the
graves of dead issues, of buried opinions, of exploded theories, of
disgraced doctrines. You cannot live in comfort in such a place. Why,
look here! Here is a little double mound. I look down on it and I read,
"Sacred to the memory of Squatter Sovereignty and the Dred Scott
decision." A million and a half of Democrats voted for that, but it has
been dead fifteen years--died by the hand of Abraham Lincoln, and here
it lies. Young man, that is not the place for you.
But look a little farther. Here is another monument--a black tomb--and
beside it, as our distinguished friend said, there towers to the sky a
monument of four million pairs of human fetters taken from the arms of
slaves, and I read on its little headstone this: "Sacred to the memory
of human slavery." For forty years of its infamous life the Democratic
party taught that it was divine--God's institution. They defended it,
they stood around it, they followed it to its grave as a mourner. But
here it lies, dead by the hand of Abraham Lincoln. Dead by the power of
the Republican party. Dead by the justice of Almighty God. Don't camp
there, young man.
But here is another--a little brimstone tomb--and I read across its
yellow face in lurid, bloody lines these words: "Sacred to the memory of
State Sovereignty and Secession." Twelve millions of Democrats mustered
around it in arms to keep it alive; but here it lies, shot to death by
the million guns of the Republic. Here it lies, its shrine burnt to
ashes under the blazing rafters of the burning Confederacy. It is dead!
I would not have you stay in there a minute, even in this balmy night
air, to look at such a place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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