Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/133

 GARFIELD

��service twenty-five years ago, — who courageously confronted the slave power in the days of peril on the plains of Kansas, when first began to fall the red drops of that bloody shower which finally swelled into the deluge of gore in the late Rebellion. Pie bravely stood by young Kansas, and, returning to his seat in the national Legis- lature, his pathway through all the subsequent years has been marked by labors worthily per- formed in every department of legislation.

You ask for his monument. I point you to twenty-five years of national statutes. Not one great, beneficent law has been placed on our stat- ute-books without his intelligent and powerful aid. He aided in formulating the laws to raise the great armies and navies which carried us through the war. His hand was seen in the workmanship of those statutes that restored and brought back "the unity and married calm of States." His hand was in all that great legisla- tion that created the war currency, and in all the still greater work that redeemed the promises of the government and made the currency equal to gold.

When at last he passed from the halls of legis- lation into a high executive office, he displayed that experience, intelligence, firmness, and poise of character, which have carried us through a stormy period of three years, with one-half the public Press crying "Crucify him!" and a hos- tile Congress seeking to prevent success. In all this he remained unmoved until victory crowned 105

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