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Biographies of Working Men by Grant Allen
page 118 of 142 (83%)
that his attitude towards ourselves was almost always one of latent
hostility; but it is impossible for anybody to deny that his conduct was
uniformly guided by high principle, and a constant deference to what he
regarded as the right course of action.

In 1880, when General Garfield had already risen to be the acknowledged
leader of the House of Representatives, his Ohio supporters put him in
nomination for the upper chamber, the Senate. They wished Garfield to
come down to the state capital and canvas for support; but this the
General would not hear of. "I never asked for any place yet," he said,
"except the post of bell-ringer and general sweeper at the Hiram
Institute, and I won't ask for one now." But at least, his friends
urged, he would be on the spot to encourage and confer with his
partisans. No, Garfield answered; if they wished to elect him they must
elect him in his absence; he would avoid all appearance, even, of
angling for office. The result was that all the other candidates
withdrew, and Garfield was elected by acclamation.

After the election he went down to Ohio and delivered a speech to his
constituents, a part of which strikingly illustrates the courage and
independence of the backwoods schoolmaster. "During the twenty years
that I have been in public life," he said, "almost eighteen of it in the
Congress of the United States, I have tried to do one thing. Whether I
was mistaken or otherwise, it has been the plan of my life to follow my
conviction, at whatever personal cost to myself. I have represented for
many years a district in Congress whose approbation I greatly desired;
but though it may seem, perhaps, a little egotistical to say it, I yet
desired still more the approbation of one person, and his name was
Garfield. He is the only man that I am compelled to sleep with, and eat
with, and live with, and die with; and if I could not have his
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