be personally oppressed.

One day Mr. Conkling in the Senate had one of the New York
appointments pleasing to him taken up and confirmed, leaving half a
dozen others, about evenly divided between his own and the President's
favorites. Then came a crisis; and it was represented to the President
that he should pull those appointments out of the Senate at once,
before Conkling's power was further exhibited; and that if he did not,
the bootblacks at Willard's would know that the Senator, and not the
President, was first in affairs. The appointments were withdrawn, and
it was perfectly understood that this withdrawal signified that the
President would not allow men to be discriminated against because they
were opposed to Conkling at Chicago. A letter came from General Grant
in Mexico, addressed to Senator Jones of Nevada, and was published,
reflecting upon Garfield's course; and at once the President wrote
to the Old Commander defending his administration. This was done as a
matter of personal respect. General Grosvenor of Ohio happened to be
in the President's room when he mailed a copy of his letter to
General Grant, and read the duplicate that was reserved. It was a very
respectful and decisive statement. This letter was personal to General
Grant, and the rush of events caused it to be reserved and finally
forgotten, except by the few who knew enough of it to value it as an
historical document.

There were but a few days of the four months between the inauguration
of President Garfield and his assassination that he could be said to
have had any enjoyment out of the great office. It brought him only
bitter cares, venomous criticisms, lurking malice, covert threats
ambushed in demands that were unreasonable if not irrational. He felt
keenly the accusation that he had been nominated when his duty was due
another; and he was aware that friends had given color to accusation
by a zeal that was unseemly. He was pathetic in his anxiety to be very
right; and only the assurance that Conkling was implacable took the
sting out of the haughty presumption he encountered in that severe
gentleman, whose egotism was so lofty it was ever imposing, when it
would have been absurd in any one else.

During the summer and autumn of the campaign and the winter following,
President Garfield was subject to attacks of acute indigestion that
were distressing; and it was remembered with concern that he had at
Atlantic City suffered from a sunstrok