General James A. Garfield would have become Senator from Ohio in 1881 had not his election transferred him to the Presidency. The fifty years of his life covered a career that was typically American. The son of a New England emigrant, he was born in the Connecticut Reserve in Ohio. He worked his way from the farm through the log school to college. His service on the towpath of the Ohio Canal, in the course of his education, became a strong adjunct to his popularity among the common people. He taught Latin and Greek after leaving college, studied law, worked into politics, and went to the front upon the call for troops. He left the war a major-general to enter Congress, in 1863, where he sat until his election to the Senate in 1880. He was the friend of John Sherman and had been the manager of his campaign. Like his friend, and like most Ohio Republicans, he believed that the tariff was one of the bases of prosperity in his State. In his campaign a young Cleveland merchant named Hanna raised funds among the local manufacturers on the plea that Republican success and their interests would go hand in hand. In his inaugural address, however, Garfield said nothing of the new issue which was threatening to enter politics, but dwelt upon the supremacy of law, the status of the South, hard money, religious freedom, and the civil service. The Republican party had been left broken and in hostile camps by President Hayes; Garfield tried in his Cabinet to change this and "to have a party behind him." The State Department went to his rival and ally, Blaine, whose personal following was larger than that of any other American politician. The independent Republicans, who had seceded in 1872 and had muttered ever since, were pleased by the elevation of Wayne MacVeagh, a Pennsylvania lawyer, to the post of Attorney-General. A friend of Conkling, who had made a striking record in the New York Post-Office through two terms, Thomas L. James, became Postmaster-General. The sensibilities of the West, always jealous of the East in matters of finance, were appeased by the selection of William L. Windom, of Minnesota, as Secretary of the Treasury, for "any Eastern man would be accused of being an agent or tool of the 'money kings' and 'gold-bugs' of New York and Europe." The Cabinet as a whole was received with favor, but the harmony which its members promised was soon disturbed.