WIST Quotations

Garfield, James A. -- “College Education,” Speech, Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (Jun 1867)

Dave — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 21:20:24 +0000

If hard work is not another name for talent, it is the best possible substitute for it.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
“College Education,” Speech, Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (Jun 1867)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- “Elements of Success,” speech at Spencerian Business College, Washington, DC (29 Jun 1869)

Dave — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 19:57:00 +0000

Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let everyone know that you have a reserve in yourself, — that you have more power than you are now using. If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
“Elements of Success,” speech at Spencerian Business College, Washington, DC (29 Jun 1869)
(Source)

Reprinted in in B. A. Hinsdale, ed., President Garfield and Education: Hiram College Memorial, ch. 8 (1882).

Garfield, James A. -- “Elements of Success,” speech, Spencerian Business College, Washington, D.C. (29 Jul 1869)

Dave — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:57:59 +0000

A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
“Elements of Success,” speech, Spencerian Business College, Washington, D.C. (29 Jul 1869)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- “Gustave Schleicher,” Speech, House of Representatives (17 Feb 1879)

Dave — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 16:14:26 +0000

The men who succeed best in public life are those who take the risk of standing by their own convictions.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
“Gustave Schleicher,” Speech, House of Representatives (17 Feb 1879)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- “Suffrage and Safety,” speech, Ravenna, Ohio (4 Jul 1865)

Dave — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 15:24:40 +0000

Let us not commit ourselves to the absurd and senseless dogma that the color of the skin shall be the basis of suffrage, the talisman of liberty.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
“Suffrage and Safety,” speech, Ravenna, Ohio (4 Jul 1865)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- “Suffrage and Safety,” speech, Ravenna, Ohio (4 Jul 1865)

Dave — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 16:13:48 +0000

In the great crisis of the war, God brought us face to face with the mighty truth, that we must lose our own freedom or grant it to the slave. In the extremity of our distress, we called upon the black man to help us save the Republic; and, amid the very thunders of battle, we made a covenant with him, sealed both with his blood and with ours, and witnessed by Jehovah, that, when the nation was redeemed, he should be free, and share with us its glories and its blessings. The Omniscient Witness will appear in judgment against us if we do not fulfill that covenant.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
“Suffrage and Safety,” speech, Ravenna, Ohio (4 Jul 1865)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- “Suffrage and Safety,” speech, Ravenna, Ohio (4 Jul 1865)

Dave — Fri, 04 Sep 2020 16:16:42 +0000

Have we done it? Have we given freedom to the black man? What is freedom? Is it mere negation? Is it the bare privilege of not being chained, of not being bought and sold, branded and scourged? If this is all, then freedom is a bitter mockery, a cruel delusion, and it may well be questioned whether slavery were not better.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
“Suffrage and Safety,” speech, Ravenna, Ohio (4 Jul 1865)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- “Suffrage and Safety,” speech, Ravenna, Ohio (4 Jul 1865)

Dave — Fri, 11 Sep 2020 17:27:27 +0000

But liberty is no negation. It is a substantial, tangible reality. It is the realization of those imperishable truths of the Declaration, “that all men are created equal”; that the sanction of all just government is “the consent of the governed.” Can these be realized until each man has a right to be heard on all matters relating to himself? The plain truth is, that each man knows his own interest best. It has been said, “If he is compelled to pay, if he may be compelled to fight, if he be required implicitly to obey, he should be legally entitled to be told what for; to have his consent asked, and his opinion counted at what it is worth. There ought to be no pariahs in a full-grown and civilized nation, no persons disqualified except through their own default.” I would not insult your intelligence by discussing so plain a truth, had not the passion and prejudice of this generation called in question the very axioms of the Declaration.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
“Suffrage and Safety,” speech, Ravenna, Ohio (4 Jul 1865)
(Source)

On extending the vote to newly-freed slaves.

Garfield, James A. -- “The Currency,” Speech, House of Representatives (15 May 1868)

Dave — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 14:50:48 +0000

Resolutions cannot nullify the truths of the multiplication table.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
“The Currency,” Speech, House of Representatives (15 May 1868)
(Source)

A favorite phrase of Garfield's regarding the dangers of inflation, e.g., "I will not vote against the truths of the multiplication table" (Letter to Harmon Austin (4 Feb 1874)).

Garfield, James A. -- (Attributed)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

If there is one thing upon this earth that mankind love and admire better than another, it is a brave man — it is the man who dares to look the devil in the face and tell him he is a devil.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
(Attributed)
(Source)

Quoted in The Phrenological Journal (Dec 1881).

Garfield, James A. -- Debate, House Appropriations Committee (22 Jun 1874)

Dave — Fri, 02 Oct 2020 15:46:11 +0000

The divorce between the church and the state ought to be absolute. It ought to be so absolute that no church property anywhere in any State or in the nation should be exempt from equal taxation; for if you exempt the property of any church organization, to that extent you impose a church tax upon the whole community.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Debate, House Appropriations Committee (22 Jun 1874)
(Source)

In the Congressional Record, 2(6):538 (1874).

Garfield, James A. -- Diary (1876)

Dave — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 17:24:43 +0000

Nobody but radicals have ever accomplished anything in a great crisis. Conservatives have their place in the piping times of peace; but in emergencies only rugged issue men amount to much.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Diary (1876)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- Inaugural address (4 Mar 1881)

Dave — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 14:58:57 +0000

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.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Inaugural address (4 Mar 1881)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- Inaugural address (4 Mar 1881)

Dave — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 20:48:15 +0000

The will of the nation, speaking with the voice of battle and through the amended Constitution, has fulfilled the great promise of 1776 by proclaiming “liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof.” 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.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Inaugural address (4 Mar 1881)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- Letter of Acceptance, Republican nomination for President (10 Jul 1880)

Dave — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 21:08:47 +0000

Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Letter of Acceptance, Republican nomination for President (10 Jul 1880)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- Letter of Acceptance, Republican nomination for President (10 Jul 1880)

Dave — Fri, 20 Nov 2020 18:54:16 +0000

Whatever help the nation can justly offer should be generously given to aid the States in supporting common schools; but it would be unjust to our people, and dangerous to our institutions, to apply any portion of the revenues of the nation, or of the States, to the support of sectarian schools. The separation of the Church and the State on everything related to taxation should be absolute.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Letter of Acceptance, Republican nomination for President (10 Jul 1880)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- Letter to B. A. Hinsdale (21 Apr 1880)

Dave — Fri, 23 Oct 2020 14:22:40 +0000

All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Letter to B. A. Hinsdale (21 Apr 1880)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- Letter to B. A. Hinsdale (30 Apr 1874)

Dave — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 17:22:51 +0000

The worst days of darkness through which I have ever passed have been greatly alleviated by throwing myself with all my energy into some work relating to others.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Letter to B. A. Hinsdale (30 Apr 1874)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- Letter to Burke Aaron Hinsdale (1 Jan 1867)

Dave — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 14:11:32 +0000

I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not be a fool, which, if I may judge by the exhibitions around me, is a matter of no small difficulty.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Letter to Burke Aaron Hinsdale (1 Jan 1867)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- Letter to Professor Demmon (16 Dec 1871)

Dave — Fri, 18 Sep 2020 16:32:04 +0000

The lesson of History is rarely learned by the actors themselves.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Letter to Professor Demmon (16 Dec 1871)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- Speech at Arlington National Cemetery, Decoration Day (30 May 1868)

Dave — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 19:35:16 +0000

I am oppressed with a sense of the impropriety of uttering words on this occasion. If silence is ever golden, it must be here, beside the graves of fifteen thousand men, whose lives were more significant than speech, and whose death was a poem, the music of which can never be sung. With words we make promises, plight faith, praise virtue. Promises may not be kept, plighted faith may be broken, and vaunted virtue be only the cunning mask of vice. We do not know one promise these men made, one pledge they gave, one word they spoke: but we do know they summed up and perfected, by one supreme act, the highest virtues of men and citizens. For love of country they accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and their virtue. For the noblest man that lives, there still remains a conflict. He must still withstand the assaults of time and fortune, must still be assailed with temptations, before which lofty natures have fallen; but with these the conflict ended, the victory was won, when death stamped on them the great seal of heroic character, and closed a record which years can never blot.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Speech at Arlington National Cemetery, Decoration Day (30 May 1868)
(Source)

A speech by Garfield, then a Congressman and a former Union Major General in the Civil War, for the first Decoration Day (later Memorial Day) ceremonies.

Garfield, James A. -- Speech to the “Boys in Blue,” Madison Square Park, New York City (6 Aug 1880)

Dave — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 16:53:32 +0000

Gentlemen, ideas outlive men; ideas outlive all earthly things. You who fought in the war for the Union fought for immortal ideas, and by their might you crowned the war with victory. But victory was worth nothing except for the truths that were under it, in it, and above it.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Speech to the “Boys in Blue,” Madison Square Park, New York City (6 Aug 1880)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- Speech, Chatauqua (1 Apr 1880)

Dave — Fri, 08 Jan 2021 18:17:17 +0000

I would rather be defeated than make capital out of my religion.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Speech, Chatauqua (1 Apr 1880)
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- Speech, House of Representatives (4 Apr 1871)

Dave — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 14:43:15 +0000

I can hardly believe that any person can be found who will not admit that every one of these provisions is just. They are all asserted, in some form or other, in our Declaration or organic law. But the Constitution limits only the action of Congress, and is not a limitation on the States. This amendment supplies that defect, and allows Congress to correct the unjust legislation of the States, so far that the law which operates upon one man shall operate equally upon all. Whatever law punishes a white man for a crime shall punish the black man precisely in the same way and to the same degree. Whatever law protects the white man shall afford equal protection to the black man. Whatever means of redress is afforded to one shall be afforded to all. Whatever law allows the white man to testify in court shall allow the man of color to do the same. These are great advantages over their present codes.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Speech, House of Representatives (4 Apr 1871)
(Source)

On the proposed 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which forbade to each state the ability to "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."