In the year preceding the date which this letter bears, the sweet romance of his youth reached its fruition, in the marriage of Garfield to Lucretia Rudolph. During the years which of necessity elapsed since the first-whispered vows, on the eve of his departure to Williams, the loving, girlish heart had been true. They began life, “for better for worse,” in an humble cottage fronting on the waving green of the college campus. In their happy hearts rose no picture of another cottage, fronting on the ocean, where, in the distant years, what God had joined man was to put asunder. Well for them was it that God veiled the future from them. But the enormous activities already enumerated of this man did not satisfy his unexhausted powers. The political opinions formed at college began to bear fruit. In those memorable years just preceding the outbreak of the Rebellion—the years “when the grasping power of slavery was seizing the virgin territories of the West, and dragging them into the den of eternal bondage;” the years of the underground railroad and of the fugitive slave law; of the overseer and the blood-hound; the years of John Brown’s heroic attempt to incite an insurrection of the slaves themselves, such as had swept every shackle from San Domingo; of his mockery trial, paralleled only by those of Socrates and Jesus, and of his awful martyrdom,—the genius of the man, whose history this is, was not asleep. The instincts of resistance to oppression, and of sympathy for the oppressed, which he inherited from his dauntless ancestry, began to stir within him. As the times became more and more stormy, his spirit rose with the emergency, and he threw his strength into political speeches. Already looked upon as the rising man of his portion of the State, it was natural that the people should turn to him for leadership. In 1859, he was nominated and elected to the State Senate, as member from Portage and Summit counties. The circumstances attending Garfield’s first nomination for office are worthy to be recounted. It was in 1859, an off year in politics. Portage County was a doubtful battle-field; generally it had gone Democratic, but the Republicans had hopes when the ticket was fortified with strong names. The convention was held in August, in the town of Ravenna. There was a good deal of beating about to find a suitable candidate for State Senator. At length a member of the convention arose and said: “Gentlemen, I can name a man whose standing, character, ability and industry will carry the county. It is President Garfield, of the Hiram school.” The proposition took with the convention, and Garfield was thereupon nominated by acclamation.