Presidential election of 1880
Republican nomination
Following Grant's defeat for the nomination Puck magazine satirized Robert E. Lee's surrender to him at Appomattox by depicting Grant giving up his sword to Garfield.
Having just been elected to the Senate with Sherman's support, Garfield entered the 1880 campaign season committed to Sherman as his choice for the Republican presidential nominee. Even before the convention began, however, a few Republicans, including Wharton Barker of Philadelphia, thought Garfield the best choice for the nomination. Garfield denied any interest in the position, but the attention was enough to make Sherman suspicious of his lieutenant's ambitions. Besides Sherman, the early favorites for the nomination were Blaine and former President Grant, but several other candidates attracted delegates as well.
During this period, the Republican Party was split into two factions: The Stalwarts, who supported the existing federal government patronage system; and the Half-Breeds, who supported civil service reform. As the convention began, Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York (the floor leader for the Stalwarts, who supported former President Ulysses S. Grant), proposed that the delegates pledge to support the eventual nominee in the general election. When three West Virginia delegates declined to be so bound, Conkling sought to expel them from the convention. Garfield rose to defend the men, giving a passionate speech in defense of their right to reserve judgment. The crowd turned against Conkling, and he withdrew the motion. The performance delighted Garfield's boosters, who now believed more than ever that he was the only man who could attract a majority of the delegates' votes.
After speeches in favor of the other front-runners, Garfield rose to place Sherman's name in nomination; his nominating speech was well-received, but the delegates mustered little excitement for the idea of Sherman as the next president. The first ballot showed Grant leading with 304 votes and Blaine in second with 284; Sherman's 93 placed him in a distant third. Subsequent ballots quickly demonstrated a deadlock between the Grant and Blaine forces, with neither having the 379 votes needed for nomination. Jeremiah McLain Rusk, a member of the Wisconsin delegation, and Benjamin Harrison, an Indiana delegate, sought to break the deadlock by shifting a few of the anti-Grant votes to a dark horse candidate—Garfield. Garfield gained 50 votes on the 35th ballot, and the stampede began. Garfield protested to the other members of his Ohio delegation that he had not sought the nomination and had never intended to betray Sherman, but they overruled his objections and cast their ballots for him. In the next round of voting, nearly all the Sherman and Blaine delegates shifted their support to Garfield, giving him 399 votes and the Republican nomination. Most of the Grant forces backed the former president to the end, creating a disgruntled Stalwart minority in the party. To obtain that faction's support for the ticket, former New York customs collector Chester A. Arthur, a member of Conkling's political machine, was chosen as the vice presidential nominee.
Campaign against Hancock
Despite including a Stalwart on the ticket, animosity between the Republican factions carried over from the convention, and Garfield traveled to New York to meet with party leaders there. After convincing the Stalwart crowd to put aside their differences and unite for the coming campaign, Garfield returned to Ohio, leaving the active campaigning to others, as was traditional at the time. Meanwhile, the Democrats settled on their nominee, Major General Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania, a career military officer. Hancock and the Democrats expected to carry the Solid South, while much of the North was considered safe territory for Garfield and the Republicans; most of the campaign would involve a few close states, including New York and Indiana.
1880 electoral vote results
Practical differences between the candidates were few, and Republicans began the campaign with the familiar theme of waving the bloody shirt: reminding Northern voters that the Democratic Party was responsible for secession and four years of civil war, and that if Democrats held power they would reverse the gains of that war, dishonor Union veterans, and pay Confederate veterans pensions out of the federal treasury. With fifteen years having passed since the end of the war, and Union generals at the head of both tickets, the bloody shirt was of diminishing value in exciting the voters. With a few months to go before the election, the Republicans switched tactics to emphasize the tariff. Seizing on the Democratic platform's call for a "tariff for revenue only", Republicans told Northern workers that a Hancock presidency would weaken the tariff protection that kept them in good jobs. Hancock made the situation worse when, attempting to strike a moderate stance, he said, "The tariff question is a local question." The ploy proved effective in uniting the North behind Garfield. In the end, fewer than two thousand votes, of the more than 9.2 million popular votes cast, separated the two candidates, but in the Electoral College Garfield had an easy victory over Hancock, 214 to 155.
Presidency, 1881
Cabinet and inauguration
Between his election and his inauguration, Garfield was occupied with assembling a cabinet that would establish peace between Conkling's and Blaine's warring factions. Blaine's delegates had provided much of the support for Garfield's nomination, and the Maine senator received the place of honor: Secretary of State. Blaine was not only the president's closest advisor, he was obsessed with knowing all that took place in the White House, and was even said to have spies posted there in his absence. Garfield nominated William Windom of Minnesota as Secretary of the Treasury, William H. Hunt of Louisiana as Secretary of the Navy, Robert Todd Lincoln as Secretary of War, and Samuel J. Kirkwood of Iowa as Secretary of the Interior. New York was represented by Thomas Lemuel James as Postmaster General. Garfield appointed Pennsylvania's Wayne MacVeagh, an adversary of Blaine's, as Attorney General. Blaine tried to sabotage the appointment by convincing Garfield to name an opponent of MacVeagh, William E. Chandler, as Solicitor General under MacVeagh. Only Chandler's rejection by the Senate forestalled MacVeagh's resignation over the matter.
Distracted by cabinet maneuvering, Garfield's inaugural address was not up to his typical oratorical standards. In one high point, Garfield emphasized the civil rights of African-Americans, saying "Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen." After discussing the gold standard, the need for education, and an unexpected denunciation of Mormon polygamy, the speech ended. The crowd applauded, but the speech, according to Peskin, "however sincerely intended, betrayed its hasty composition by the flatness of its tone and the conventionality of its subject matter."
Garfield's appointment of James infuriated Conkling, a factional opponent of the Postmaster General, who demanded a compensatory appointment for his faction, such as the position of Secretary of the Treasury. The resulting squabble occupied much of Garfield's brief presidency. The feud with Conkling reached a climax when the president, at Blaine's instigation, nominated Conkling's enemy, Judge William H. Robertson, to be Collector of the Port of New York. This was one of the prize patronage positions below cabinet level, and was then held by Edwin A. Merritt. Conkling raised the time-honored principle of senatorial courtesy in an attempt to defeat the nomination, to no avail. Garfield, who believed the practice was corrupt, would not back down and threatened to withdraw all nominations unless Robertson was confirmed, intending to "settle the question whether the president is registering clerk of the Senate or the Executive of the United States." Ultimately, Conkling and his New York colleague, Senator Thomas C. Platt, resigned their Senate seats to seek vindication, but found only further humiliation when the New York legislature elected others in their places. Robertson was confirmed as Collector and Garfield's victory was clear. To Blaine's chagrin, the victorious Garfield returned to his goal of balancing the interests of party factions, and nominated a number of Conkling's Stalwart friends to offices.
Supreme Court nomination
In 1880, President Hayes had nominated Stanley Matthews to the Supreme Court of the United States. The U.S. Senate declined to act on the Matthews nomination. In March 1881, Garfield re-nominated Matthews to the Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed Matthews to the high Court by a vote of 24-23. According to The New York Times, "opposition to Matthews's Supreme Court appointment ...stemmed from his prosecution in 1859 of a newspaper editor who had assisted two runaway slaves." Because Matthews was "a professed abolitionist at the time, the case was later framed as political expediency triumphing over moral principle." Matthews served on the Court until his death in 1889.
Reforms
Grant and Hayes had both advocated civil service reform, and by 1881, civil service reform associations had organized with renewed energy across the nation. Garfield sympathized with them, believing that the spoils system damaged the presidency and distracted from more important concerns. Some reformers were disappointed that Garfield had advocated limited tenure only to minor office seekers and had given appointments to his old friends, but many remained loyal and supported Garfield.
Corruption in the post office also cried out for reform. In April 1880, there had been a congressional investigation into corruption in the Post Office Department, in which profiteering rings allegedly stole millions of dollars, securing bogus mail contracts on star routes. After obtaining contracts with the lowest bid, costs to run the mail routes would be escalated and profits would be divided among ring members. That year, Hayes stopped the implementation of any new star route contracts. Shortly after taking office, Garfield received information from Attorney General MacVeagh and Postmaster General James of postal corruption by an alleged star route ringleader, Second Assistant Postmaster General Thomas J. Brady. Garfield demanded Brady's resignation and ordered prosecutions that would end in trials for conspiracy. When told that his party, including his own campaign manager, Stephen W. Dorsey, was involved, Garfield directed MacVeagh and James to root out the corruption in the Post Office Department "to the bone", regardless of where it might lead. Brady resigned and was eventually indicted for conspiracy. After two "star route" ring trials in 1882 and 1883, the jury found Brady not guilty.
Civil rights and education
Garfield believed that the key to improving the state of African American civil rights would be found in education aided by the federal government. During Reconstruction, freedmen had gained citizenship and suffrage that enabled them to participate in government, but Garfield believed their rights were being eroded by Southern white resistance and illiteracy, and was concerned that blacks would become America's permanent "peasantry." He answered by proposing a "universal" education system funded by the federal government. Congress and the northern white public, however, had lost interest in African-American rights, and federal funding for universal education did not find support in Congress during Garfield's term. Garfield also worked to appoint several African Americans to prominent positions: Frederick Douglass, recorder of deeds in Washington; Robert Elliot, special agent to the Treasury; John M. Langston, Haitian minister; and Blanche K. Bruce, register to the Treasury. Garfield believed that Southern support for the Republican party could be gained by "commercial and industrial" interests rather than race issues and began to reverse Hayes's policy of conciliating Southern Democrats. He appointed William H. Hunt, a carpetbagger Republican from Louisiana, as Secretary of the Navy. To break the hold of the resurgent Democratic Party in the Solid South, Garfield took patronage advice from Virginia Senator William Mahone of the biracial independent Readjuster Party, hoping to add the independents' strength to the Republicans' there.
Foreign policy and naval reform
Entering the presidency, Garfield had little foreign policy experience, so he leaned heavily on Blaine. Blaine, a former protectionist, now agreed with Garfield on the need to promote freer trade, especially within the Western Hemisphere. Their reasons were twofold: firstly, Garfield and Blaine believed that increasing trade with Latin America would be the best way to keep Great Britain from dominating the region. Secondly, by encouraging exports, they believed they could increase American prosperity. Garfield authorized Blaine to call for a Pan-American conference in 1882 to mediate disputes among the Latin American nations and to serve as a forum for talks on increasing trade. At the same time, they hoped to negotiate a peace in the War of the Pacific then being fought by Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. Blaine favored a resolution that would not result in Peru yielding any territory, but Chile, which by 1881 had occupied the Peruvian capital, Lima, rejected any settlement that restored the previous status quo. Garfield sought to expand American influence in other areas, calling for renegotiation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty to allow the United States to construct a canal through Panama without British involvement, as well as attempting to reduce British influence in the strategically located Kingdom of Hawaii. Garfield's and Blaine's plans for the United States' involvement in the world stretched even beyond the Western Hemisphere, as he sought commercial treaties with Korea and Madagascar. Garfield also considered enhancing the United States' military strength abroad, asking Navy Secretary Hunt to investigate the condition of the navy with an eye toward expansion and modernization. In the end, these ambitious plans came to nothing after Garfield was assassinated. Nine countries had accepted invitations to the Pan-American conference, but the invitations were withdrawn in April 1882 after Blaine resigned from the cabinet and Arthur, Garfield's successor, canceled the conference. Naval reform continued under Arthur, if on a more modest scale than Garfield and Hunt had envisioned, ultimately ending in the construction of the Squadron of Evolution.
Administration and cabinet
The Garfield Cabinet
Assassination
Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau, a disgruntled office seeker, at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. on July 2, 1881. After eleven weeks of intensive care Garfield died in Elberon, New Jersey, the second of four presidents to be assassinated, following Abraham Lincoln.
Guiteau had followed various professions in his life, but in 1880 had determined to gain federal office by supporting what he expected would be the winning Republican ticket. He composed a speech, "Garfield vs. Hancock", and got it printed by the Republican National Committee. One means of persuading the voters in that era was through orators expounding on the candidate's merits, but with the Republicans seeking more famous men, Guiteau received few opportunities to speak. On one occasion, according to Kenneth D. Ackerman in his book about Garfield's candidacy and assassination, Guiteau was unable to finish his speech due to nerves. Guiteau, who considered himself a Stalwart, deemed his contribution to Garfield's victory sufficient to justify the position of consul in Paris, despite the fact that he spoke no French, nor any foreign language. Guiteau has since been described by one medical expert as possibly being a narcissistic schizophrenic; neuroscientist Kent Kiehl assessed him as being a clinical psychopath
One of President Garfield's more wearying duties was seeing office seekers, and he saw Guiteau at least once. White House officials suggested to Guiteau that he approach Blaine, as the consulship was within the Department of State. Blaine also saw the public regularly, and Guiteau became a regular at these sessions. Blaine, who had no intention of giving Guiteau a position he was unqualified for and had not earned, simply stated that the deadlock in the Senate over Robertson's nomination made it impossible to consider the Paris consulship, which required Senate confirmation. Once the New York senators had resigned, and Robertson had been confirmed as Collector, Guiteau pressed his claim, and Blaine told him he would not receive the position.
Guiteau came to believe he had lost the position because he was a Stalwart. The office-seeker decided that the only way to end the internecine warfare in the Republican Party was for Garfield to die—though he had nothing personal against the president. Arthur's succession would restore peace, he felt, and lead to rewards for fellow Stalwarts, including Guiteau.
The assassination of Abraham Lincoln was deemed a fluke due to the Civil War, and Garfield, like most people, saw no reason why the president should be guarded; Garfield's movements and plans were often printed in the newspapers. Guiteau knew the president would leave Washington for a cooler climate on July 2, and made plans to kill him before then. He purchased a gun he thought would look good in a museum, and followed Garfield several times, but each time his plans were frustrated, or he lost his nerve. His opportunities dwindled to one—Garfield's departure by train for New Jersey on the morning of July 2, 1881.
Guiteau concealed himself by the ladies' waiting room at the Sixth Street Station of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad, from where Garfield was scheduled to depart. Most of Garfield's cabinet planned to accompany him at least part of the way. Blaine, who was to remain in Washington, came to the station to see him off. The two men were deep in conversation and did not notice Guiteau before he took out his revolver and shot Garfield twice, once in the back and once in the arm. The time was 9:30 a.m. The assassin attempted to leave the station, but was quickly captured. As Blaine recognized him and Guiteau made no secret of why he had shot Garfield, the assassin's motivation to benefit the Stalwarts reached many with the early news of the shooting, causing rage against that faction.
Treatment and death
Garfield was struck by two shots; one glanced off his arm while the other pierced his back, shattering a rib and embedding itself in his abdomen. "My God, what is this?" he exclaimed. Guiteau, as he was led away, stated, "I did it. I will go to jail for it. I am a Stalwart and Arthur will be President."
Among those at the station was Robert Todd Lincoln, who was deeply upset, thinking back to when his father Abraham Lincoln was assassinated 16 years earlier. Garfield was taken on a mattress upstairs to a private office, where several doctors examined him, probing the wound with unwashed fingers. At his request, Garfield was taken back to the White House, and his wife, then in New Jersey, was sent for. Blaine sent word to Vice President Arthur in New York City, who received threats against his life because of his animosity toward Garfield and Guiteau's statements.
Although Joseph Lister's pioneering work in antisepsis was known to American doctors, with Lister himself having visited America in 1876, few of them had confidence in it, and none of his advocates were among Garfield's treating physicians. The physician who took charge at the depot and then at the White House was Doctor Willard Bliss. A noted physician and surgeon, Bliss was an old friend of Garfield, and about a dozen doctors, led by Bliss, were soon probing the wound with unsterilized fingers and instruments. Garfield was given morphine for the pain, and asked Bliss to frankly tell him his chances, which Bliss put at one in a hundred. "Well, Doctor, we'll take that chance."
Over the next few days, Garfield made some improvement, as the nation viewed the news from the capital and prayed. Although he never stood again, he was able to sit up and write several times, and his recovery was viewed so positively that a steamer was fitted out as a seagoing hospital to aid with his convalescence. He was nourished on oatmeal porridge (which he detested) and milk from a cow on the White House lawn. When told that Indian chief Sitting Bull, a prisoner of the army, was starving, Garfield said, "Let him starve," then, "Oh, no, send him my oatmeal." X-radiation (or X-ray) usage, which likely would have helped the president's physicians determine exactly where the bullet was lodged in his body, would not be invented for another fourteen years. Alexander Graham Bell tried to locate the bullet with a primitive metal detector. He was not successful, although the invention had been effective when tested on others. The problem was that Bliss limited the extent of its use on Garfield, taking control of the experiment and ensuring that he remained in charge. Because Bliss thought that the bullet rested in someplace that it did not, the detector was unable to locate it. Shortly after the first attempt, Bell returned for another test after enhancing the abilities of his invention. The test resulted in a noise around the area that Bliss believed to be where the bullet was lodged, despite the sound being different from what Bell heard in his previous tests. Bliss took this as confirmation that the bullet was where he declared it to be. Bliss wrote in a bulletin that the test was a success, and that it was "now unanimously agreed that the location of the ball has been ascertained with reasonable certainty, and that it lies, as heretofore stated, in the front wall of the abdomen, immediately over the groin, about five inches below and to the right of the navel."
One means of keeping the president comfortable in Washington's summer heat was one of the first successful air conditioning units: air that was propelled by fans over ice and then dried had reduced the temperature in the sickroom by 20 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celsius). Engineers from the navy, along with some scientists, worked together to develop this version of air conditioning in an attempt to help the president recover. There were some issues, such as it made excessive noise and immensely increased the humidity in Garfield's room, but the engineers worked hard to find solutions for these problems in their efforts to ease Garfield's suffering.
Beginning on July 23, Garfield took a turn for the worse. His temperature increased to 104 °F (40 °C); doctors, concerned by an abscess that had developed by the wound, operated and inserted a drainage tube. This initially seemed to help, and Garfield, in his bed, was able to hold a brief cabinet meeting on July 29, though members were under orders from Bliss to discuss nothing that might excite Garfield. Doctors probed the abscess, which went into Garfield's body, hoping to find the bullet; they most likely only made the infections worse. Garfield performed only one state act in August, signing an extradition paper. By the end of the month, the president was much more feeble than he had been, and his weight had decreased from 210 pounds (95 kg) to 130 pounds (59 kg).
Garfield had long been anxious to escape hot, unhealthy Washington, and in early September the doctors agreed to move him to Elberon, part of Long Branch, New Jersey, where his wife had recovered earlier in the summer. He left the White House for the last time on September 5, traveling in a specially cushioned railway car; a spur line to the Francklyn Cottage, a seaside mansion given over to his use, was built in a night by volunteers. There, Garfield could see the ocean as officials and reporters maintained what became (after an initial rally) a death watch. Garfield's personal secretary, Joe Stanley Brown, wrote 40 years later, "to this day I cannot hear the sound of the low slow roll of the Atlantic on the shore, the sound which filled my ears as I walked from my cottage to his bedside, without recalling again that ghastly tragedy."
On September 18, Garfield asked Colonel A.F. Rockwell, a friend, if he would have a place in history. Rockwell assured him he would, and told Garfield he had much work still before him. But his response was, "No, my work is done." The following day, Garfield, by then also suffering from pneumonia and heart pains, marveled that he could not pick up a glass despite feeling well, and went to sleep without discomfort. He awoke that evening around 10:15 p.m. complaining of great pain in his chest to his chief of staff and friend General David Swaim, who was watching him, as he placed his hand on his breast over his heart. The president then requested a drink of water from Swaim. After finishing his glass, Garfield said, "Oh Swaim, this terrible pain – press your hand on it." As Swaim obligingly put his hand on Garfield's chest, Garfield's hands went up reflexively. Clutching his heart, he exclaimed, "Oh, Swaim, can't you stop this? Oh, oh, Swaim!" Swaim ordered another attendant to send for Bliss, who found him unconscious. Despite efforts to revive him, Garfield never awoke, and he died at 10:30 p.m., aged 49. Learning from a reporter of Garfield's death, Chester A. Arthur took the presidential oath of office administered by New York Supreme Court Justice John R. Brady.
According to some historians and medical experts, Garfield might have survived his wounds had the doctors attending him had at their disposal today's medical research, knowledge, techniques, and equipment. Standard medical practice at the time dictated that priority be given to locating the path of the bullet. Several of his doctors inserted their unsterilized fingers into the wound to probe for the bullet, a common practice in the 1880s. Historians agree that massive infection was a significant factor in President Garfield's demise. Biographer Peskin stated that medical malpractice did not contribute to Garfield's death; the inevitable infection and blood poisoning that would ensue from a deep bullet wound resulted in damage to multiple organs and spinal bone fragmentation. Rutkow, a professor of surgery at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, has argued that starvation also played a role. Rutkow suggests that "Garfield had such a nonlethal wound. In today's world, he would have gone home in a matter of two or three days." The conventional narrative regarding James A. Garfield's post-shooting medical condition was challenged by Theodore Pappas and Shahrzad Joharifard in a 2013 article The American Journal of Surgery. They argued that Garfield died from a late rupture of a splenic artery pseudoaneurysm (that initially developed shortly after Guiteau's shooting of Garfield, thus preventing Garfield from bleeding to death immediately after he was shot by Guiteau but instead allowing him to live for an additional 80 days). They also argued that the symptoms that Garfield suffered in the last couple of months of his life were actually caused by acute cholecystitis. Based on Garfield's autopsy report, the authors speculate this condition developed as a result of his doctors accidentally puncturing his bladder in July 1881, three or four weeks after he was shot by Guiteau. Pappas and Joharifard say this caused the decline in Garfield's condition that was visible starting from July 23, 1881.
Guiteau was indicted on October 14, 1881, for the murder of the president. Guiteau declared that he was not responsible for the death of Garfield. He admitted to the shooting but not the killing. In his defense, Guiteau wrote: "General Garfield died from malpractice. According to his own physicians, he was not fatally shot. The doctors who mistreated him ought to bear the odium of his death, and not his assailant. They ought to be indicted for murdering James A. Garfield, and not me." In a chaotic trial in which Guiteau often interrupted and argued, and in which his counsel used the insanity defense, the jury found him guilty on January 5, 1882, and he was sentenced to death by hanging. Guiteau might have had neurosyphilis, a disease that causes physiological mental impairment. He was executed on June 30, 1882.
Funeral, memorials and commemorations
Garfield's funeral train left Long Branch on the same special track that brought him there, traveling over tracks blanketed with flowers and past houses adorned with flags. His body was transported to the Capitol and then continued on to Cleveland for burial. More than 70,000 citizens, some waiting over three hours, passed by Garfield's coffin as his body lay in state at the United States Capitol rotunda; later, on September 25, 1881, in Cleveland, more than 150,000—a number equal to the entire population of that city—likewise paid their respects. His body was temporarily interred in a vault in Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery until his permanent memorial was built.
Memorials to Garfield were erected across the country. On April 10, 1882, seven months after Garfield's death, the U.S. Post Office issued a postage stamp in his honor, the second stamp issued by the U.S. to honor an assassinated president. In 1884, sculptor Frank Happersberger completed a monument on the grounds of the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers. In 1887, the James A. Garfield Monument was dedicated in Washington. Another monument, in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, was erected in 1896. In Victoria, Australia, Cannibal Creek was renamed Garfield in his honor.
On May 19, 1890, Garfield's body was permanently interred, with great solemnity and fanfare, in a mausoleum in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland. Attending the dedication ceremonies were former President Hayes, President Benjamin Harrison, and future president William McKinley. Garfield's Treasury Secretary, William Windom, also attended. Harrison said that Garfield was always a "student and instructor" and that his life works and death would "... continue to be instructive and inspiring incidents in American history." Three panels on the monument display Garfield as a teacher, Union major general, and orator; another shows him taking the presidential oath, and a fifth shows his body lying in state at the Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C.
Garfield's murder by a deranged office-seeker awakened public awareness of the need for civil service reform legislation. Senator George H. Pendleton, a Democrat from Ohio, launched a reform effort that resulted in the Pendleton Act in January 1883. This act reversed the "spoils system" where office seekers paid up or gave political service to obtain or keep federally appointed positions. Under the act, appointments were awarded on merit and competitive examination. To ensure the reform was implemented, Congress and Arthur established and funded the Civil Service Commission. The Pendleton Act, however, covered only 10% of federal government workers. For Arthur, previously known for having been a "veteran spoilsman," civil service reform became his most noteworthy achievement.
A marble statue of Garfield by Charles Niehaus was added to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the Capitol in Washington D.C., a gift from the State of Ohio in 1886.
On March 2, 2019, the National Park Service erected exhibit panels in Washington to mark the site of the assassination.
Garfield's casket lying in state at the Capitol Rotunda
Garfield Memorial at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio
Garfield Monument, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco by Frank Happersberger
First Garfield postage stamp, 1882
Legacy and historical view
For a few years after his assassination, Garfield's life story was seen as an exemplar of the American success story—that even the poorest boy might someday become President of the United States. Peskin noted that, "In mourning Garfield, Americans were not only honoring a president; they were paying tribute to a man whose life story embodied their own most cherished aspirations." As the rivalry between Stalwarts and Half-Breeds faded from the scene in the late 1880s and after, so too did memories of Garfield. Beginning in 1882, the year after Garfield's death, the U.S. Post Office began issuing postage stamps honoring the late president. Despite his short term as president, nine different issues were printed over the years. In the 1890s, Americans became disillusioned with politicians, and looked elsewhere for inspiration, focusing on industrialists, labor leaders, scientists, and others as their heroes. Increasingly, Garfield's short time as president was forgotten.
The 20th century saw no revival for Garfield. Thomas Wolfe deemed the presidents of the Gilded Age, including Garfield, "lost Americans" whose "gravely vacant and bewhiskered faces mixed, melted, swam together." The politicians of the Gilded Age faded from the public eye, their luster eclipsed by those who had influenced America outside of political office during that time: the robber barons, the inventors, those who had sought social reform, and others who had lived as America rapidly changed. Current events and more recent figures occupied America's attention: according to Ackerman, "the busy Twentieth Century has made Garfield's era seem remote and irrelevant, its leaders ridiculed for their very obscurity."
Garfield's biographers, and those who have studied his presidency, tend to think well of him, and that his presidency saw a promising start before its untimely end. Historian Justus D. Doenecke, while deeming Garfield a bit of an enigma, chronicles his achievements, "by winning a victory over the Stalwarts, he enhanced both the power and prestige of his office. As a man, he was intelligent, sensitive, and alert, and his knowledge of how government worked was unmatched." Yet Doenecke criticizes Garfield's dismissal of Merritt in Robertson's favor, and wonders if the president was truly in command of the situation even after the latter's confirmation. According to Caldwell, writing in 1931, "If Garfield lives in history, it will be partly on account of the charm of his personality—but also because in life and in death, he struck the first shrewd blows against a dangerous system of boss rule which seemed for a time about to engulf the politics of the nation. Perhaps if he had lived he could have done no more." Rutkow writes, "James Abram Garfield's presidency is reduced to a tantalizing 'what if.'"
Peskin believes Garfield deserves more credit for his political career than he has received:
True, his accomplishments were neither bold nor heroic, but his was not an age that called for heroism. His stormy presidency was brief, and in some respects, unfortunate, but he did leave the office stronger than he found it. As a public man he had a hand in almost every issue of national importance for almost two decades, while as a party leader he, along with Blaine, forged the Republican Party into the instrument that would lead the United States into the twentieth century.
Notes
Church of Christ, Christian Church, and Disciples of Christ were names that were used interchangeably amongst members of a unified movement until the turn of the 20th century when they separated.
Biographer Allan Peskin speculated this may have been infectious hepatitis.
Until the ratification of the Twentieth Amendment in 1933, Congress convened annually in December.
In a July 1865 letter to Governor Jacob Dolson Cox, Garfield wrote that he felt "a strong sense of repugnance when I think of the negro being made our political equal and I would be glad if they could be colonized, sent to heaven, or got rid of in any decent way ... but colonization has proved a hopeless failure everywhere."
Garfield typically won two or three times his Democratic opponents' votes.
In October 1883, the War of the Pacific was settled without American involvement, with the Treaty of Ancón.
The words vary in some sources
"Doctor" was his given name.
No comments:
Post a Comment