its creation and had agreed to make it the final arbiter. But nevertheless they again raised the cry of fraud, not against the Commission, but against the Republican party for its high-handed methods in counting the electors of the southern States for Hayes by the aid of Federal troops. Mr. Tilden had received a popular majority in the election of a quarter of a million, and, as his followers claimed, a clear majority of the electors, if honestly counted. That the Republicans had stolen the presidency was fully believed by a vast majority of the Democrats, and the same theory has many supporters to this day.

It is not for the writer of this chapter to pronounce any opinion on the merits of this question. Indeed, it is only after the chief actors in such a contest have all passed away that the critical historian can probe it to the bottom without awakening in his readers a sense of partisan bias in himself.

President Hayes felt keenly the accusation of his opponents that he was a fraudulent President, nor did he cease to feel it as long as he lived. But whatever his personal opinion in the matter, it is difficult to see how he could have

done otherwise than obey the mandate of his party when it called upon him to be installed into the great office. A refusal on his part, had he been inclined to refuse, would no doubt have led to more serious complications. Hayes made an excellent President not great, nct brilliant, but honest and patriotic in the highest sense; and not even his enemies could find any fault with him, except that he had accepted an office to which his election was doubtful.

The great relief at the end of the contest was felt on every hand. Boast as we may of our conservatism, it is certain that this disputed presidential election brought us to the verge of a precipice the height and depth of which not even the wisest could foresee.

CHAPTER XII

THE GARFIELD TRAGEDY

TWICE in the history of our National Government has our chief magistrate suffered death at the hands of an assassin.1 The first of these two sad events took place at the close of the great war, when the blood of both sides was still at boiling point. But notwithstanding the fact that the people were long familiar with violence, with bloodshed and death, the shock to the country at the taking-off of the beloved President was greater than could be measured. The assassin, a man of intelligence and talent, was

1 An attempt was made to assassinate President Jackson in 1835. He was attending the funeral of a member of Congress, when in the midst of the crowd a man snapped two pistols at his breast, both of which missed fire. The President rushed upon the would-be assassin with his cane. The man was taken into custody, was found to be a demented Englishman named Lawrence, and was placed in an asylum. The President's escape was very narrow, as both pistols were afterward fired at the first trial.

insanely devoted to the cause of the South, and seemed to believe that by this act he would avenge the wrongs of the people who had failed to achieve victory on the battle-field.

The second occurred in time of peace, and had its origin in a political feud within the party to which the President belonged, and in the chimerical brain of a half-witted fanatic, who was senseless enough to believe that he would be made a hero for his deed by the faction that had opposed the President. It is to this event

and the conditions that produced it that we devote this chapter.

The Blaine-Conkling Feud

The Garfield tragedy had its origin about fourteen years before it occurred, in a quarrel between two Republican leaders while both were members of the House of Representatives. In 1863 a young editor from Maine, a native of Pennsylvania, made his first appearance on the floor of the Lower House, and began a career of party leadership unparalleled since the rise of the matchless Henry Clay half a century before. His name was

James G. Blaine. In the course of our history not more than three men - Jefferson, Jackson, and Clay - can be ranked with Blaine as party leaders. Mr. Blaine had descended from a prominent family with whom the Father of his Country was on friendly terms. There was nothing in Mr. Blaine's boyhood to mark him as a youth of extraordinary promise. He received a good education, spent his early manhood as a teacher, and became editor of the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, Maine, at the age of twenty-four. He was not long in his new position until he was recognized by the community as a keen and able political writer. Within three years we find him in the legislature of his adopted State. In 1862 he was elected to the Lower House of Congress. This was in the midst of the troublous war times, and Congress was not without powerful leaders, but Mr. Blaine was not long in stepping to the front, and proving himself one of the most powerful.

Another young Republican leader of remarkable talent was Roscoe Conkling of New York. Mr. Conkling had sat in the House for some