Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1880 — A CASE Of MORAL SUICIDE. [ARTICLE]

A CASE Of MORAL SUICIDE.

tiarNfM, no a I’iiblic -Mon, < Unworthy of Public < Confidence. Conspicuous Examples of His Mor d Cowardice. . [Prom tho New York World.] Daniel Webster, in one of his speeches at Bostoii, in referring to the tergiversa tions of a certain public officer, said that when a man went back upon his friends it was called ingratitude, or upon hia enemies it was called revenge, but when a man went back on his own principles which he had avowed it ought to be called jnoral suicide. Daniel Webster referred to John Tyler, but he might have used even stronger Language lmd he lived to witness four of. the conspicuous tergiversations .of Gen. Garticld npon decid' d questions of principle. One was iuregard to ‘'reconstruction ono in regard to the disputed election of 1876/ due in regard to freedom of eleetions, and,one in regard to reviving the issues of tine war. On New Year’s day, 1867, ; Gen. .Garfield wrote’to his friend <iwpd*ta*|*«»'» '■ ■iiiii*iftiits*> . I am less satlsiled with tho present aspect of pnbljCjiijfairH thaU 1 luv'e la-eil for a long lime,. itßpesiri' to see prevail meet f>an heretof<>i-4 afid arc U|ira|V'iU '*Mp-iuH*Wiflg <iverborfio.tiw|>op w cfout aniJiMraronsaibß. In re^.runce SWetcrtwiould ailftpt n' * ' Jw<Wßt n Wwllf ; l | ” 3e H- and ibfs quite pofim--91 1 SB Of public Jjle. the utterance of these, brave words, Gen. Garfield was in line with the extremists iriff i'ynf’g tbeTLitrth' with special statutes on reconstruction ; and when the Southern Btates ’lisul adopted the Constitutional amendments lie still kept them, as long as his vote could keep them, from representation. ITe even introduced the bill which was intended to abolish Gen. Hancock’s office as Major General in punishment for that Gener«#f*B pT,!(JflPah«Qforcement of Gen. Garfield’s avowed pi'hioipkwv- w e||AjMiNb 1 - 11, 187(vGen. Garfiled wrote snd*Siiisdales«, the I’l-eriidentv telegraphed me requesting lrte (o go to New Orleaits and remaia.nntil the iPt, is counted, acting as a witness ot the count. I was a good •deal: e*ifmrrnßigid by the retpiesti;; I did not and I might find myielf altdbeifttkl with violent partiAn Republicans who meant could opr. side hi, 1 ight or wrong. ■'/* i's ,? '•

N eVerthdleßSphisCmharrassnKai t yielded, and did Hot SVeU retiil’n when he found llMself among tile Visiting statesmen. Orleatja, or when tic afterwarij t l&mU op the electoral og|ipgio n at Yyiisliiqgton “ associated (■pWPvinlonf. 'p&prtisdu/Repu 1 ili<-a 11 s who meant to cmihfc our sklo in, riglit or tW*4ng.” . jAnrt: oily .tdjweek iaftcr the of fclllg letter to Bpnsdalife he was Writh g from New.Orl'eaus td his friend Hill, of. Boston, in a frame of mind wkM WHter tofs^'amenable Bpeeifie and unuuswerable critiSt ex-Gov. Hendryjkn recently e. in nft speech aj| Garfield Went Ney'’ Oifea.n? to'Aiasist his party In mnkifjg Up ayaKo, and after his return qashifigtqrij of all hts assoeiitert he was the only mati who took his Boat flpon the Electoral Oomnussion. By every sentiment of fair play he Hjiduld have been excluded from the jurybox. By his own sworn statement of what he did in New Orleans Garfield had charge of the returns from West Feliciana parish. In one of the inner rooms of Packard’s Custom House he did hia work, examined the affidavits, and, when they were not sufficiently full, he prepared or had prepared additional interrogatories to bring them within the rules adopted by the Returning Board. The testimony so received by Garfield went back to the Returning Board, and the result was that West Feliciana with its Democratic majority was thrown out. In Washington Gartiold’s vote was that Congress could not go behind tho returns thus made. As agent for his party he helped to make returns by manipulating the evidence ; and, as juryman for the nation, he held such evidence rs conclusive and binding. On April ‘2l, 1880, Gen. Garfield again wrote h*> his friend Hinsdale, and in the course of tho letter said : I am just now in antagonism with my own party in legislation in reference to the election Indeed, of the Bayard bill as to Federal participation! in elections, Gen. Garfield was practically an author, for 110 had entirely favored its principle, its thCOrt tgid its formulas at the time of its introduction, and it was in regard to tlfis measure that he wrote himself down as “ in antagonism to his own party.” , NevertUyless, when the vote came nponilie l>il|his vbte went r.jfbn the roll with liis ! part.y cffllcagues, against #jpedips and declarations. 4 few dhyfe before the meeting of the Cl#:ago| Coiivcntiftn Gqn. Garfield, in tl» course of a speech iivCongrpas, said: The man who attempts to get up a political excitement in this country on the old sectional without a party and f filV'f had lumself become a Uimßlfßite upbhj ft* plaJform which had JK) otlrfcivital idea. m. it;tiiap an attempt L glil**ii/,fJt*e issues ikitinti War, fifteen years after its conclusion.'Gen. Garfield tomwh Tjmtfsrwwtir ecation of liad To all appearances GBllestlyrele|>wcat,eflp|tom his place in iSb eSS his no has .been called for a speech at a serenade or iqion a car platform. The inference from any one of these actions would be and ought to be injurious to Gen. Garfield as a public man. But when these things are considered together no inference can possibly be drawn from them except that Gen. Garfield as a public man is not entitled to public confidence. His is a caseof moral suicide, to repeat Webster’s phrase, and it proceeds from moral cowardice, as all snicMcAi mav be said; to proceed cp whrdiee. 'ffi < u Acft a -partisan - frain the temper of his mind. He is both too scholarly and too Apathetic a man to ‘lose his head in times qf nos. more than ordinary exciteineat. He ist a partisan because he is a moral toward and be cause h.e cannot withstand the pressure of whose knowledge is less| aq d v#i(|ielvills|*ft-4 than «e « (fee of these it is given always Toaee the right and to admire it, too; TofcaffieUie wrong, 4d yt fee wrong pursne. thing that is known of Gen. Garfield’s public career. But his intelligence generally suffices to make him at least “ see tU§ right,” and his weakness always ah

lows him to be, bullied into doing wrong. His political nse to his party has been to furnish plausible reasons for what violent and tiiisorUpuioiis men like Thftddeus Stevens and. Zach Chantllef had forced him into doing. He knew, ns well when he was Trying to remove Hancock as when he wrote to Hinsdale bemoaning the exeesses'of the extreme men in his party, that the policy which Gen. Hancock was pursuing in Louisiana was the only lawful and the only patriotic policy for the commander of a military district to ptlrsue. He knew, fts well when he was cooking affidavits in New Orleans or ruling out the evidence of the cookery before the Electoral Commission, as he did when he was communicating to Hinsdale his fears of the violent partisans who “meant to count our side in, right or wrong,” that Tilden had been elected President. He was simply driven by the violent partisans whom he was too timid to oppose, as he was driven by them into voting against his own proposition on the Deputy Marshals bill, and as he would most asfKredly bo vtiwu i s them if the voters of the country were misguided into electing him to the Presidency. One at least of the charges against his personal integrity owes most of its sting to the same moral weakness. If when Ames told the story of Gen. Garfield’s * connection Avitli Credit Mobilier Gen. Garfield had come out like a man and confessed the truth, lie would have been thought guilty, at most, of an indiscretion. It was his prevarication on the stand and his attempt to induce Ames to assist him in getting it accepted that ruined him before the country. Whenever an emergency has confronted him he has met it in the same shuffling and timid way. After announcing, sorpetimes in the private oftf of Hinsdale and sometimes to the public, what ought to he done, he has fallen into the rear ranks of the men who were advancing to do the precisely opposite thing, and has “followed a multitude to do evil.” What sort of man is this for a position in which courage and aggressive honesty are the first requisites ?