Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

by Candice Millard

Even in the South, where he had once been hated and feared as an abolitionist and Union general, there was a surprising pride in Garfield’s presidency. Although he had made it clear from the moment he took office, even in his inaugural address, that he would not tolerate the discrimination he knew was taking place in the South, what he promised was not judgment and vengeance but help. The root of the problem, he believed, was ignorance, and it was the responsibility, indeed “the high privilege and sacred duty,” of the entire nation, North and South, to educate its people. Garfield’s plan was to “give the South, as rapidly as possible, the blessings of general education and business enterprise and trust to time and these forces.” The South had taken him at his word, and, for the first time in decades, had accepted the president of the North as its president as well. With Garfield in the White House, the New York Times wrote, Southerners “felt, as they had not felt before for years, that the Government … was their Government, and that the chief magistrate of the country had an equal claim upon the loyal affection of the whole people.”