"An act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese"
and of "An act making appropriations for the construction, repair, and
preservation of certain works on rivers and harbors, and for other
purposes," are interesting and effective papers.

The latter half of the period comprised in this volume, as already
stated, covers the Administration of Cleveland. His accession to the
Presidency marked the return of the Democratic party to power. No
Democrat who had been chosen by his party had held the office since the
retirement of Buchanan, in 1861. President Cleveland's papers fill 558
pages of this volume, occupying more space than any other Chief
Magistrate, Andrew Johnson being next with 457 pages. At an early date
after Mr. Cleveland's inauguration he became involved in an important
and rather acrimonious discussion with the Senate on the subject of
suspensions from office. The Senate demanded of him and of the heads of
some of the Executive Departments the reasons for the suspension of
certain officials and the papers and correspondence incident thereto. In
an exhaustive and interesting paper he declined to comply with the
demand. His annual message of December, 1887, was devoted exclusively to
a discussion of the tariff. It is conceded by all to be an able
document, and is the only instance where a President in his annual
message made reference to only one question. His vetoes are more
numerous than those of any other Chief Executive, amounting within the
four years to over three hundred, or more than twice the number in the
aggregate of all his predecessors. These vetoes relate to almost all
subjects of legislation, but mainly to pension cases and bills providing
for the erection of public buildings throughout the country.

James D. Richardson.

July 4, 1898.

James A. Garfield

March 4, 1881, to September 19, 1881

James A. Garfield

James Abram Garfield was born in Orange, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, November
19, 1831. His father, Abram Garfield, was a native of New York, but of
Massachusetts ancestry; descended from Edward Garfield, an English
Puritan, who in 1630 was one of the founders of Watertown. His mother,
Eliza Ballou, was born in New Hampshire, of a Huguenot family that fled
from France to New England after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes
in 1685. Garfield, therefore, was from lineage well represented in the
struggles for civil and religious liberty, both in the Old and in