Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/139

 BLAINE

ON THE DEATH OF GARFIELD »

(1882)

Bom in 1830, died in 1893; elected to Congress in 1863, serving untU

1876; Speaker of the House from 1869 to 1875; Senator from Maine

in 1876-81; Secretary of State in 1881 and again in 1889; unsuccessful

candidate for President in 1884.

Fob the second time in this generation the great departments of the government of the United States are assembled in the Hall of Rep- resentatives, to do honor to the memory of a murdered president. Lincoln fell at the close of a mighty struggle, in which the passions of men had been deeply stirred. The tragical ter- mination of his great life added but another to the lengthened succession of horrors which had marked so many lintels with the blood of the firstborn. Garfield was slain in a day of peace, when brother had been reconciled to brother, and when anger and hate had been banished from the land.

From the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth till the uprising against Charles I., about twenty thousand emigrants came from old England to New England. As they came in pursuit of intel-

' Delivered in the House of Representatives, February 27, 1882. Aoridged.

Ill

�� �