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In this new season of life, I am determined to read as the spirit moves me. In the past, I sincerely appreciated everything I read, well-chosen in educating my four favorite students, along with our many field trip endeavors. But I always knew the purpose and how it would best fit into the course of education.

I picked up Destiny of the Republic with no such purpose or foresight as I knew not what to expect. What I did know is that the end of this true story was heartbreaking. And what could be accomplished in just six months in office?

However, the value of a person extends beyond what they accomplished or how and when they died. The value of a person rests in how they lived. So I chose to read about this little-known President. Who was the man, and how did he live?

Legacy of a Man

With only a few months in office, James Garfield’s legacy certainly was not made in his position as President of the United States. As it should be for us all, his legacy was made in how he lived, which for him started in the home. Here is a flavor.

“With his daughter and four sons gathered around his feet, he read for hours without rest, eager to introduce them to his favorite works, from Shakespeare plays to The Arabian Knights to Audubon’s detailed descriptions of the woodchuck, the brown pelican, and the ferruginous thrush.“

In His Own Words

Some of his statements shed much light on Garfield’s depth of spirit.

I would rather be beaten in RIGHT than succeed in WRONG.

This is our only revenge…the immortal principles of truth and justice…shall stand equal before the law.

The Destiny of the republic is to be decreed…by…firesides, where thoughtful voters…with the calm thoughts inspired by love and home and country, with the history of the past, the hopes of the future, the reverence for great men who have adorned and blessed our nation in days gone by, burning in their hearts—there God prepares the verdict which will determine the wisdom of our work tonight.

You were not made free merely to be allowed to vote, but in order to enjoy an equality of opportunity in the race of life…Permit no man to praise you because you are black, nor wrong you because you are black. Let it be known that you are ready and willing to work out your own material salvation by your own energy, your own worth, your own labor.

Light itself is a great corrector. A thousand wrongs and abuses that are grown in the darkness disappear like owls and bats before the light of day.

There is no horizontal stratification of society like the rocks in the earth, that hold one class down below forevermore, and let another come to the surface to stay there forevermore. Our Stratification is like the ocean, where every individual drop is free to move, and where from the sternest depths of the mighty deep any drop may come up to glitter on the highest wave that rolls.

Reflections

In Destiny of the Republic, I learned historical facts of President Garfield’s life as much as I learned about his inadequate medical care he received after he had been shot. As an interesting sidebar, were the efforts of a young Alexander Graham Bell to invent a machine to help in the President’s care that ultimately helped the care of others.

I found it all very interesting. Previously, I had never considered or even knew about the story of the life of James A. Garfield. Candace Millard has introduced me to someone I want to know better.

Having learned the structure of Garfield’s life and some of its details, I hope to learn more about the inner man. He was known as the Preacher President. I would like to know more about that. There is also the book Civil War Letters of James A. Garfield, which sounds intriguing. Some of the best sources to determine the inner person, of course, can be found in their own words.

I am left with these thoughts of President Garfield—a family man, a spiritual man, though not perfect—gregarious living life to the fullest—a self-learner, driven and determined in his pursuits, intelligent, from a “rags to riches” life, and interestingly, he was thought to have begun the healing of a divided nation post-civil war—being seen as a president of both the North and South.

His legacy to his family may have remained hidden in their hearts. But his legacy to his nation may have been in a coming together of the North and South as one nation once again. The nation as a whole saw him as their president; they were horrified when he was shot, anxious for weeks for his recovery, and grieved his ultimate death. And they did so together as one nation and one people.