Justice and judgment are the establishment of His throne! Mercy and truth shall go before His face! Fellow citizens! God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives!"[85] The speech, with no mention or praise of Lincoln, was, according to Garfield biographer Robert G. Caldwell, "quite as significant for what it did not contain as for what it did."[86] In the following years, Garfield had more praise for Lincoln; a year after Lincoln's death, Garfield said, "Greatest among all these developments were the character and fame of Abraham Lincoln," and in 1878 he called Lincoln "one of the few great rulers whose wisdom increased with his power".[87]

Reconstruction[edit]
In 1864, the U.S. Senate passed the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery throughout the Union. The bill failed to pass the House by a two-thirds majority until January 31, 1865, when it was then sent to the states for ratification. The Amendment opened other issues concerning African American civil rights. Garfield asked, "[What] is freedom? Is it the bare privilege of not being chained?...If this is all, then freedom is a bitter mockery, a cruel delusion."[88][d]
Garfield supported black suffrage as firmly as he supported abolition.