The Garfield Assassination

The politically motivated shooting of President James A. Garfield in 1881 paved the way for much needed government reform.

Garfield’s assailant was Charles Guiteau, a mental defective who felt betrayed for not being awarded a government job after campaigning for Garfield’s election. Believing that Vice President Chester A. Arthur was more politically agreeable to his agenda, Guiteau decided to personally replace Garfield with Arthur.

Garfield Opposes the Stalwarts

Both Guiteau and Arthur were “Stalwarts,” or the radical wing of the Republican Party. The Stalwarts opposed the “Half-Breeds,” which were more moderate Republicans. Garfield was a Half-Breed who sought to unite the two factions with policies that shared common ground. But when he refused to appoint Stalwarts to key federal jobs, he angered many politicians. Among them was influential Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York.

Conkling led the Stalwarts in Congress, and he expected Garfield to reward him with federal jobs since Conkling had helped deliver New York’s crucial electoral votes in the presidential election. Garfield instead appointed one of Conkling’s political enemies as New York City customs collector, which controlled most of the country’s import revenue.

Conkling retaliated by urging fellow senators to vote down Garfield’s appointments. When this failed, Conkling resigned from the Senate in protest, confident the New York legislature and his fellow Stalwarts would back him. But this backfired when most Stalwarts in Congress sided with Garfield. This only made diehard Stalwarts like Charles Guiteau angrier.

At that time, federal jobs were often awarded by “patronage,” or having the right connection, rather than merit. It was an unwritten rule that the president was required to share the spoils of his office by granting jobs to those who did political favors for him, such as helping him get elected. Many expected to be rewarded with such jobs, and when it became apparent that Guiteau was being shut out of the “spoils system,” he took matters into his own hands.

Guiteau Shoots Garfield

On July 2, Garfield entered the Sixth Street Station of the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad in Washington, en route to a summer vacation. Garfield had no protection, as no president except Abraham Lincoln had ever used security before. Guiteau approached the president from behind and fired two shots. The first grazed Garfield’s arm and shoulder, and the second lodged in his back, barely missing the spinal cord.

Guiteau tried hurrying out of the station, but he was apprehended by police officer Patrick Kearney. After fending off a growing mob calling for Guiteau’s lynching, Kearney brought the assailant to a nearby police station. He confessed to the crime and declared, “I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts. Arthur is president now!”

Meanwhile, Garfield was taken to the White House where doctors tried finding the bullet in his back. With no x-ray technology, they could only guess where it was, so they dug and probed for several weeks without anesthesia. They then tried using a primitive metal detector invented by Alexander Graham Bell to find the bullet, but the device would not work because of the metal springs in Garfield’s bed.

The doctors finally resolved that they could only hope the wound would heal on its own. In the meantime, they tried making Garfield as comfortable as possible in the oppressive summer heat of Washington. Navy engineers loaded ice into vents in Garfield’s sickroom and pumped air over the ice through cotton filters. This was the first practical air conditioning system, and it kept the room at a cool 77 degrees. Although doctors still could not locate the bullet, Garfield’s condition seemed to be improving.

Garfield Lingers

President Garfield’s improvement proved temporary. His body began deteriorating from starvation and infection due to doctors probing for the bullet with dirty hands. He lingered for two months before he was moved to his seaside home in New Jersey. Doctors hoped that leaving swampy Washington and taking in the ocean air would help. But by that time, Garfield had withered from 210 to 130 pounds.

At 10:35 p.m. on September 19, Garfield died at his New Jersey home. An autopsy revealed the bullet was actually lodged in his pancreas after hitting his spine, nearly a foot away from where doctors believed it was. Also revealed was that the original gunshot wound had healed; Garfield officially died from blood poisoning caused by constant probing without sterilization.

The country had essentially functioned without a president for over two months. From the time of his shooting until his death, Garfield’s only official presidential act was signing an extradition paper.

Political Reform

President Garfield’s death sparked the greatest outpouring of national grief up to that time. Garfield was mourned more than Lincoln, mainly because Garfield was relatively popular in both North and South. Homes, businesses, and government buildings were draped in black. After about 150,000 mourners paid their last respects, Garfield was laid to rest in Cleveland.

One of the most sensational trials of the 19th century ended with the hanging of Charles Guiteau. He had pleaded insanity and argued that the doctors, not his bullet, had killed Garfield. Guiteau had shot the president in an effort to return the Stalwarts to political power. Ironically, his act produced the opposite effect.

Garfield was succeeded by Chester Arthur, and being a Stalwart, he was expected to reverse many of Garfield’s appointments to appease his political cronies. However, the Stalwarts were bitterly denounced in the press for supposedly encouraging the toxic atmosphere that produced a fanatic like Guiteau, and thus Arthur decided it was politically expedient to avoid Stalwart influence.

To the Stalwarts’ dismay, Arthur avoided political cronyism and vetoed pork-barrel legislation. Most importantly, Arthur signed the historic Pendleton Civil Service Act, which required federal jobs to be filled by merit instead of patronage, a standard that still exists today. That it took an assassination to reform the federal government was tragic.