United States. This selection was a very significant one in several
ways; Lincoln was a very strong opponent of slavery, and his candidature
showed the southern slaveowners that if the Republicans were successful
in the contest, a vigorous move against the slave-holding oligarchy
would at once be made. But it was also significant in the fact that
Lincoln was a western man; it was a sign that the farmers and grangers
of the agricultural west were beginning to wake up politically and throw
themselves into the full current of American State affairs. On both
these grounds, Lincoln's nomination must have been deeply interesting to
Garfield, whose own life had been so closely similar, and who was
destined, twenty years later, to follow him to the same goal.

Lincoln was duly elected, and the southern states began to secede. The
firing upon Fort Sumter by the South Carolina secessionists was the
first blow struck in that terrible war. Every man who was privileged to
live in America at that time (like the present writer) cannot recall
without a glow of recollection the memory of the wild eagerness with
which the North answered that note of defiance, and went forth with
overpowering faith and eagerness to fight the good fight on behalf of
human freedom. Such a spontaneous outburst of the enthusiasm of humanity
has never been known, before or since. President Lincoln immediately
called for a supply of seventy-five thousand men. In the Ohio Senate,
his message was read amid tumultuous applause; and the moment the sound
of the cheers died away, Garfield, as natural spokesman of the
republican party, sprang to his feet, and moved in a short and
impassioned speech that the state of Ohio should contribute twenty
thousand men and three million dollars as its share in the general
preparations. The motion was immediately carried with the wildest
demonstrations of fervour, and Ohio, with all the rest of the North,
rose like one man to put down by the strong hand the hideous traffic in