forests of his country which were in many cases being recklessly destroyed; and he advocated strenuous laws against the practice of polygamy in Utah. Another matter which attracted his attention was the prohibiting of military interference at elections. Congress passed an act to this effect; but the President vetoed it. He believed that "the elections should be free from forcible interference," and that "no soldiery either of the United States or of the State militia should be present at the polls to perform the duties of the ordinary civil police force," but at the same time he maintained that "there should be no denial of the right of the National government to employ its military force on any day and at any place in case such employment is necessary to enforce the Constitution and laws of the United States."

During his term as President no great international questions stirred the country; however, several minor questions came up and from the able way the President handled them there is no doubt but that he would have been a wise President at a time of great crisis. The first foreign question that came before his notice was through a bill which Congress passed to restrict the immigration of Chinese to the United States. The President vetoed this bill; he had no doubt that there were evils due to the unrestricted immigration of the Chinese, but it would not do for his country to override existing treaties, even with what was considered a weak power, without giving due notice to that power. On this question he rose to the dignity of his office and showed himself an excellent diplomat. He declared that the "abrogation of a treaty by one of the contracting parties is justifiable only upon reasons both of the highest justice and of the highest necessity." To

abrogate a treaty due notice should be given, the day should be fixed in advance and, in this case, China ought to have been given an opportunity of speaking. The bill which had passed Congress he believed, "would be regarded by the enlightened judgment of mankind as the denial of the obligation of the National faith."

The only other matter of international importance which came before his attention was the Panama Canal project, and on this matter he adhered to the National attitude of " American control." His position was that which has been definitely arrived at by the two great nations concerned, England and the United States, in the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty. "The United States," he said, "cannot consent to the surrender of this control to any European Power or to any combination of European Powers. If existing treaties between the United States and other nations, or if the rights of sovereignty or property of other nations, stand in the way of this policy-a contingency which is not apprehended suitable steps should be taken by just and liberal negotiations to promote and establish the American policy on this subject, consistently with the rights of the nations to be affected by it. An inter-oceanic canal across the American isthmus will be the great ocean thoroughfare between our Atlantic and our Pacific shores and virtually a part of the coast line of the United States. No other great Power would, under similar circumstances, fail to assert a rightful control over a work so closely and vitally affecting its interests and welfare."

In his last annual message to Congress, December 6, 1880, President Hayes emphasised the positions he had taken in his inaugural address four years pre

viously. He had changed in no way during his term of office; he had taken no step backward, but was still ardent for peace within the Union, for righteous government, for sound money, and for maintaining a dignified and honourable position in international affairs.

No other President who had occupied the White House had been more vigorously attacked by his enemies than had Hayes. At the same time he was not in favour with a large section of the Republican party. His civil service reform made him many enemies and there was no thought of urging upon him the necessity of standing for a second term. However, much good had been done during his term of office. He had taken up the reins of government at a time when there was great depression in business, and when he retired from the government to his Fremont home after the inauguration of his successor there was a general revival in trade and commerce that augured well for the future.

In the early seventies General Hayes had had a desire to live in retirement, free from the busy world of men and politics. He had now an opportunity to realise this desire and until January 17, 1893, he lived quietly in his Ohio home. He could not, however, be idle, and the closing years of his life were spent in noble philanthropic work. He was not without reward; Harvard University, Yale College Johns Hopkins University, and Kenyon College all honoured him with the degree of LL. D. Other honours were bestowed upon him, but what he valued most was a realisation towards the end of his life, that the men who had reviled him for the course he had pursued during his presidential career were

gradually beginning to acknowledge that he had ever acted for the right.

While he was not a man of great intellectual force, he was in many ways one of the strongest presidents of the latter half of the century,-one quite capable of grappling with the most serious crisis that might have arisen. He was unbending without being stubborn, and it would have been as easy for the politicians to have made a tool of Abraham Lincoln as of Rutherford Birchard Hayes.

CHAPTER XVII.

PRESIDENT JAMES A. GARFIELD.

(ONE ADMINISTRATION, 1881-.)

NOTHING Could be more uncertain than a Presidential nomination. It has been shown on several previous occasions that the most unlikely prominent politician in the country was the one chosen to lead his party to victory. This was peculiarly the case at the convention which met in Chicago in 1880, and which selected James A. Garfield to be the standard bearer of the great Republican party. He was a comparatively unknown man, having gone to the convention an ardent supporter of John Sherman, and to his own surprise and the surprise of the nation was selected over General Grant, James G. Blaine, and others.

General Garfield was born in Orange, Cayuga County, Ohio, November 19, 1831. His father, Abraham Garfield, was, however, an Easterner, a native of New York State, but one whose ancestors were originally of the Puritan stock of Massachusetts. His mother, Eliza Ballou was born in New Hampshire. She was a descendant of the Huguenots and her family had fled from France to New England to escape persecution in their native land. It will be