James A. Garfield on United States
← Back to James A. Garfield ProfileAmidst the grief following Lincoln's assassination, James Garfield's speech, though subject to varied accounts, articulated a vision of justice rooted in future security, not mere revenge.
“For mere vengeance I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere revenge. But for security of the future I would do every thing.”
“To grant suffrage to the black man in this country is not innovation, but restoration. It is a return to the ancient principles and practices of the fathers.”
“The colonists were struggling not only against the armies of a great nation, but against the settled opinions of mankind; for the world did not then believe that the supreme authority of government could be safely intrusted to the guardianship of the people themselves... The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the full rights of citizenship is the most important political change we have known since the adoption of the Constitution of 1787. No thoughtful man can fail to appreciate its beneficent effect upon our institutions and people. It has freed us from the perpetual danger of war and dissolution. It has added immensely to the moral and industrial forces of our people. It has liberated the master as well as the slave from a relation which wronged and enfeebled both. It has surrendered to their own guardianship the manhood of more than 5,000,000 people, and has opened to each one of them a career of freedom and usefulness... There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States. Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen.”