One bullet grazed his elbow, but a second lodged in the back of President James Garfield, who was shot July 2, 1881, as he waited in a Washington, D.C., train station. The assassin was Charles Guiteau, a free-love polygamist who had been a member the communist cult called “Oneida Community.”
President James Garfield had been in office only four months. Though not wounded seriously, unsterile medical practices trying to remove the bullet resulted in an infection. Alexander Graham Bell devised a metal detector to locate the bullet, but the metal bed frame confused the instrument. Two months before his 50th birthday, Garfield died on Sept. 19, 1881.
The next day, Secretary of State James Blaine wrote James Russell Lowell, U.S. Minister in London: “James A. Garfield, President of the United States, died. … For nearly eighty days he suffered great pain, and during the entire period exhibited extraordinary patience, fortitude, and Christian resignation. Fifty millions of people stand as mourners by his bier.”
Vice President Chester Arthur assumed the presidency and declared a national day of mourning, Sept. 22, 1881: “In His inscrutable wisdom it has pleased God to remove from us the illustrious head of the nation, James A. Garfield, late President of the United States. … It is fitting that the deep grief which fills all hearts should manifest itself with one accord toward the Throne of Infinite Grace … that we should bow before the Almighty … in our affliction.”
James Garfield had been a Disciples of Christ preacher at Franklin Circle Christian Church in Cleveland, 1857-58. Biographer Frank H Mason wrote in “The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield, Twentieth President of the United States” (Bret Harte Publisher: London, Trübner & Co., 1881): “(Garfield) delivered his powerful and convincing sermons from the pulpit with the consent and encouragement of the Church authorities.”
Garfield was principal of Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (Hiram College), 1857-1860, during which time he defended creation in a debate against evolution. Mason wrote that Garfield: “completely overwhelmed his opponent, who, after that defeat, abandoned his theory and gave up the fight against the inspiration of the Bible.”
Garfield became a lawyer in 1861, and a Major General during the Civil War. Elected to Congress, Garfield despised fiat paper “greenbacks,” supporting instead gold-silver backed currency.
Elected a U.S. Senator, James Garfield gave a stirring speech at the 1880 Republican National Convention opposing the rule that all delegates from each state were required to vote for the candidate with the majority of delegates: “There never can be a convention … that shall bind my vote against my will on any question whatever.”
Garfield won the crowd. In an unprecedented move, after 34 ballots, he was chosen as the Republican Presidential nominee over Ulysses S. Grant seeking a third term.
James Garfield stated in his inaugural address, March 4, 1881, just 200 days before his death: “Let our people find a new meaning in the divine oracle which declares that ‘a little child shall lead them,’ for our own little children will soon control the destinies of the Republic. … Our children … will surely bless their fathers and their fathers’ God that the Union was preserved, that slavery was overthrown, and that both races were made equal before the law.”
Republican President James Garfield appointed African-Americans to prominent positions:
- Frederick Douglass, recorder of deeds in Washington
- Robert Brown Elliot, special agent to the U.S. Treasury
- John M. Langston, Haitian minister
- Blanche K. Bruce, register to the U.S. Treasury
Garfield appointed as U.S. Minister to Turkey the Civil War General Lew Wallace, author of the famous novel “Ben-Hur – A Tale of Christ.”
Garfield described Otto von Bismark, who united German and served at its first Chancellor, 1871-1890: “I am struck with the fact that Otto von Bismarck, the great statesman of Germany, probably the foremost man in Europe today, stated as an unquestioned principle, that the support, the defense, and propagation of the Christian Gospel is the central object of the German government.”
Otto von Bismark saw the danger of socialism and instituted Germany’s Anti-Socialist Laws in 1878. When Kaiser Wilhelm II forced Bismark to resign, it precipitated World War I.
As a congressman, James Garfield had stated at the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1876: “Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature. … If the next centennial does not find us a great nation … it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.”
Garfield Assassination Causes Creation of Civil Service System
As historic as the murder of Garfield was, the creation of the Civil Service System has had a far greater impact on the lives of ordinary Americans. This replaced the so-called “spoils system” in which all employees of the U.S. government were appointed by, and served at the pleasure of, the president of the United States.
Garfield’s assassin, Charles Guiteau, has been written off by most historians as a deranged lone gunman (just like Lee Harvey Oswald, who killed J.F.K., and like most assassins of powerful political personalities), angry that Garfield had not named him ambassador to France. For at least a decade, there had been a push from “reformers” to replace the spoils system with a system in which government employees would be selected not for their political party, but rather on merit.
President Rutherford Hayes, elected in 1876 on the Republican ticket, was an advocate of a merit-based system, but was opposed by the “Stalwart” Republicans, led by Senator Roscoe Conkling, and no bill could pass Congress. Hayes issued an executive order that no employee of the federal government could be forced to make campaign contributions, or even participate in the election process.
At the time, the main source of revenue for the federal government was the tariff — taxes on incoming foreign goods — and this required the employment of many federal workers to collect the tariff. The Port of New York was an important point of entry of foreign goods into the country and the Collector of the Port, Chester Arthur, a protégé of Conkling, refused to obey the president’s order, leading to his eventual dismissal. Congress, however, refused to adopt any civil service system, as Hayes requested.
With the Republicans in control of the Congress, Democrats seized upon civil-service reform as an issue, with Democratic Senator George Pendleton of Ohio introducing a bill to create a civil service system, with merit examinations.
The next president was also a Republican — James Garfield. The Republicans picked Arthur — the man Hayes had fired at the New York Port — as Garfield’s running mate. Arthur became an unlikely advocate of civil service reform after Garfield’s assassination, as advocates used the tragedy to advance the Pendleton Act, which finally passed in 1883, by large margins of 38-5 in the Senate and 155-47 in the House of Representatives. At first, only about 10 percent of federal jobs were covered by the law, but more and more federal employees have fallen under its requirements since its passage.
At first glance it might appear logical that the government should hire its employees based on merit, rather than on politics. After all, what difference does it make whether a letter carrier is a Democrat or a Republican?
But the negatives of the creation of the civil service system are not as well understood. Prior to its passage, voters could throw out the employees of the incumbent party, if the bureaucracy was not responsive. Indeed, the civil service system is largely responsible for the rise of the modern bureaucratic state in which federal workers feel no need to respond to the citizens of the country. On the contrary, they have become the permanent government of the country, with many believing that while presidents come and go, they remain. These faceless and unelected bureaucrats make administrative rules that have the same effect as laws that affect the lives of millions of Americans, whom they often consider themselves the masters of rather than the servants of. They truly comprise the Fourth Branch of the Federal Government, a situation which no doubt would have repulsed the Founding Fathers.
Before the creation of the civil service system, campaign funds came from federal workers, who had a vested interest in their party winning the election, or alternatively, from those in the other party who wanted federal jobs. Today, wealthy donors have replaced these workers. It is difficult to see how this is a better situation.
At the time of the passage of the Pendleton Act, the federal government was quite small, and its powers were much more restricted. Today, with the explosion of areas in which the federal government can meddle in our affairs, an army of federal bureaucrats are needed to put all of these regulations into place.
Perhaps America would have gotten a bloated civil service system anyway. It was perhaps the first of the “progressive causes” that expanded the scope and size of the federal government, although it is not often thought of as part of the Progressive Era itself. But Charles Guiteau’s bullet not only killed a president — it also dealt a death blow to much of citizen control of its own government.
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