Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/151

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forced a reluctant Congress into a repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, in his contests from 1865 to 1868, actually ad- vanced his parliamentary leadership until Con- gress tied the hands of the president and gov- erned the country by its own will, leaving only perfunctory duties to be discharged by the ex- ecutive. With two hundred millions of patron- age in his hands at the opening of the contest, aided by the active force of Seward in the cabi- net, and the moral power of Chase on the bench, Andrew Johnson could not command the sup- port of one-third in either House against the parliamentary uprising of which Thaddeus Stevens was the animating spirit and the un- questioned leader.

From these three great men Garfield differed radically; differed in the quality of his mind, in temperament, in the form and phase of ambi- tion. He could not do w^hat they did, but he could do what they could not, and in the breadth of his Congressional work he left that which w41l longer exert a potential influence among men, and which, measured by the severe test of posthu- mous criticism, will secure a more enduring and more enviable fame.

Those unfamiliar with Garfield's industry, and ignorant of the details of his work, may in some degree measure them by the annals of Con- gress. No one of the generation of public men to which he belonged has contributed so much that will be valuable for future reference. His

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