"Had Garfield gone to the bar for a living, his gift of oratory, his strong analytical powers, and his ability to do hard work, would soon have made him eminent. In the few law cases he took during vacation seasons he held his own with some of the best lawyers of the country. In one of them his ability to grasp successfully with an unexpected situation was signally demonstrated. The case was tried in Mobile, and involved the ownership of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. Garfield had prepared himself upon an important and difficult question of law involved, and felt a comfortable sense of readiness for the trial; but after he reached Mobile the court ordered the consolidation of three suits concerning the road, and the question upon which he had prepared himself passed wholly out of sight; and, as he wrote to a friend, 'the whole entanglement of an insolvent railroad twenty-five years old, lying across four states and costing $20,000,000, came upon us at once.' He was assigned the duty of summing up the case for his side. During the trial he did five days and five nights of the hardest work he ever did in his life. Then he made his argument and won the case." It will be remembered that when at college, Garfield always took an active part in political discussions, although he did not cast a vote until four years after his majority. At that time the new Republican party was formed on the anti-slavery platform, with Fremont and Dayton as their candidates. Garfield heartily sympathized with this party that "drew its first inspiration from that fire of liberty which God has lighted in every human heart," and from that time forward became its earnest and ready champion. During the campaign of 1856 he was constantly called upon for speeches and lectures. A pupil at Hiram at that time says:-- "He would attend to his duties at the Institute through the day, jump into a buggy at night, taking me or some other student to keep him company, put his arm around me, talk all the way to the place where the meeting was to be held, be it ten or twenty miles. It would not be conversation on politics, but on history, general literature, or some great principle. He was always welcomed upon the platform, and after speaking would return, taking up the theme we had dropped, getting home in the small hours in the morning. "At nine o'clock the next day he would be in the school as fresh as ever. When Sunday came he would have a sermon as fresh and vigorous as if it had been the study of the week. All the while he was carrying on the study of law and attending to the duties incumbent on him as the president of the Institute, keeping up a course of general reading, and his acquaintance with the classics." In 1859, only three years after his graduation, the faculty of Williams College honored Garfield with an invitation to deliver the master's oration at Commencement. The able, brilliant speaker was constantly in demand, and he won fresh laurels wherever he went.