James A. Garfield

President of the United States (1881)

• Born: November 19, 1831
• Birthplace: Orange Township, Ohio
• Died: September 19, 1881
• Place of death: Elberon, New Jersey

During his nearly two-decade-long political career as a congressman and as president of the United States, Garfield played a key role in every issue of national importance. As party leader, he helped resolve the factionalism within the Republican Party and enabled the Republicans to lead the United States into the twentieth century.

Early Life

Born in a log cabin, James Abram Garfield was the son of Abram and Eliza Garfield, members of the Disciples of Christ Church, which had been founded by Alexander Campbell. Abram died in 1833, thus leaving Eliza a widow, the sole provider for her family. Next to hunting, reading was young Garfield’s greatest interest. He liked history and fiction, especially stories of the American Revolution and stories of the sea.

At the age of sixteen, Garfield went to Cleveland, where he was shocked and disappointed by a drunken captain to whom he had applied for work. On that same day, August 16, 1848, Garfield secured a job as driver with his cousin on a canal boat that carried goods between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. After six weeks of working on the canal, Garfield became quite ill and returned home. During his recuperation, his mother and Samuel Bates, a schoolteacher, convinced Garfield of the importance of education. Garfield enrolled and studied at Geauga Academy in Chester, where he became the academy’s prize Latin student. He originally planned to spend the winter months at the academy and the spring and summer months on the canal, but after he absorbed himself in his studies, he decided to forget the canal life.

In the fall of 1851, Garfield enrolled in the newly established Western Reserve Eclectic Institute at Hiram, Ohio, where he plunged into his studies with a fierce determination to excel. His popularity and prominence at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute were based on his scholastic ability as well as his physical prowess. His commanding physical appearance—he stood almost six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a massive head topped by a shock of unruly tawny hair—and his ability to outrun and outwrestle his schoolmates instilled automatic respect. This, combined with his serious demeanor, which gave an impression of quiet dignity, and his unaffected friendliness contributed to Garfield’s popularity. Enjoying success as a debater, Garfield discovered that he possessed the ability to sway an audience, and the oratorical techniques that he learned during this period prepared him to become one of the most effective political speakers of his time.

In 1853, Garfield began preaching at neighboring churches. The following year, having completed his studies at the Eclectic Institute, he enrolled in Williams College. There, he was elected president of two major campus organizations—the Philogian Society, a literary society, and the Equitable Fraternity, an organization designed to combat the influence of the Greek fraternities. In addition, in spite of his Campbellite beliefs, Garfield was elected president of the Mills Theological Society, a Calvinist organization. He was also elected editor of the Williams Quarterly, a pioneer college journal of exceptional quality, to which he contributed extensively. Garfield never lost an election at Williams College or any election in which he was a candidate through the rest of his life. On August 7, 1856, he was graduated from Williams College with honors in a ceremony that included his delivering an oration on the conflict between matter and spirit.

Life’s Work

As an inspiring and electrifying evangelist, Garfield preached continually during the last of the series of so-called Great Awakenings—periodic religious revivals that had begun in the colonial era. In 1857, at the age of twenty-six, Garfield was elected president of Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, defeating his former teacher, the institute’s oldest and most distinguished faculty member. As president, Garfield made the Eclectic Institute the educational center of the region, changing a sectarian academy into an institution that welcomed students of all denominations.

Garfield believed educational curricula should reflect the trends of the time and serve as a medium through which students could prepare for successful living. He sponsored teacher-training workshops and seminars on teaching methods and school administration, and he prepared a series of lectures on American history, a subject that had not been included in the curricula of American colleges.

Garfield did not confine himself to administrative duties; he taught a full load of classes in a style designed to encourage students to think independently. Garfield’s kindness and immense vitality, his readiness to praise, his deep concern for the overall welfare of his students, his enthusiasm, his ability to introduce his students to the meaning of education and the high ideals of life, and his participation with them in the extracurricular activities, especially athletic events, inspired great loyalty. The Eclectic Institute prospered under Garfield’s leadership. On November 11, 1858, Garfield married Lucretia Rudolph, daughter of Zeb Rudolph, a pioneer Hiram Disciple and one of the school’s most prominent trustees.

Moved by Garfield’s prominent background and popularity, the Republican Party of the Twenty-sixth Ohio Senatorial District nominated him for the state senate on August 23, 1859. He won the seat handily on October 11. This feat ultimately led him to the center stage of the national political arena. Garfield distinguished himself on a number of key issues, especially those pertaining to slavery and the impending crisis—the Civil War. He stood strong against slavery and, shedding his pacifism, believed that war was the best solution to the problem of slavery. When the war began, he took an active role in raising troops and persuaded the governor of his state to appoint him lieutenant colonel in the Twenty-fourth Ohio Infantry; later, he was put in charge of the Forty-second Ohio Volunteer Infantry as a full colonel. Learning about Garfield’s commission, the young men of Hiram, who held Garfield in the highest esteem, enthusiastically joined the Forty-second Ohio Volunteer Infantry to follow and fight with their hero.

At the outset of Garfield’s military service, General Don Carlos Buell assigned him command of the Eighteenth Brigade and gave him the responsibility of planning the campaign to drive the Confederate army out of eastern Kentucky. In spite of the fact that Garfield had no military education or military experience, he accepted the task, presenting a plan that Buell accepted. Under Garfield’s leadership, the Confederate forces were driven out of Kentucky.

Assuming control of the administration of eastern Kentucky after the conclusion of the campaign, Garfield pursued a policy of reconciliation. Promoted to brigadier general, he served outstandingly as chief of staff under General William S. Rosecrans, commander of the Army of the Cumberland. Garfield reached the peak of his military career in the Chattanooga campaign, fighting in one of the epic battles of military history, the Battle of Chickamauga. Garfield’s outstanding achievements in the Kentucky campaign led his friends and the Republican Party of the Nineteenth Congressional District to nominate him as their representative to Congress on September 2, 1862. While still in the army carrying out his military duties and without participating in the campaign, he won the right to represent the Nineteenth District by an impressive victory, in the congressional election of October, 1862.

Beginning with the election of 1862, Garfield easily won nine consecutive terms, splendidly serving the people of the Nineteenth District for the next eighteen years as chairman of the Military Affairs Committee (in which capacity he was the first to introduce a bill that proposed a reserve officer training corps, or ROTC program for the colleges), chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee, and chairman of the powerful and prestigious Appropriations Committee.

When the Democratic Party won a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives in the congressional election of 1874, Garfield assumed the leadership of the Republican minority in the House. Having lost his chairmanships, he skillfully and relentlessly spoke out against the policies of the Democratic Party. As a member of a bipartisan committee selected to investigate the 1876 presidential election in the state of Louisiana, Garfield submitted a thorough report based on data presented to him by the election board and interviews he held with those who participated in the election and those denied participation, especially voters who were terrorized by white secret societies such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, and the Rifle Clubs. His report helped influence the election board to nullify Samuel Tilden’s majority, and Rutherford B. Hayes was granted the electoral votes of Louisiana.

The 1876 election ended in an intense controversy involving the returns of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. This situation produced a political stalemate that set the stage for a potential crisis that might have led the opposing parties back to the battlefields in a new civil war. Garfield served as a member of a special Electoral Commission to elect the president and participated in the historic conference that led to the compromise between the leaders of the Republican Party and the southern Democrats. These actions resolved the impending crisis, and Hayes became the nineteenth president of the United States.

On March 29, 1879, Garfield established himself as the outstanding leader of the Republican Party when he delivered one of the most dynamic speeches in the history of Congress. The Democrats’ dogged advocacy of the principle of states’ rights motivated Garfield to present his greatest speech—a speech that upheld the principle of federalism and inspired the Republicans to quit squabbling and act together as a strong united party. This speech influenced his state’s legislature to elect him to serve in the US Senate, and ultimately led to his nomination and election as president of the United States.

In 1880, Garfield was elected to serve as a delegate to the Seventh National Nominating Convention of the Republican Party, which met in Chicago. He came to the convention without any intention of seeking the nomination, but because of his great popularity, he was considered a dark-horse candidate. On the thirty-sixth ballot, the deadlocked delegates chose Garfield, hoping that he could unify the party. In a move that displeased a large number of Republicans, but as a means of placating the highly disappointed Stalwarts, who had supported Ulysses S. Grant for a third term, the imperious political boss of the New York Republican Party, Chester Alan Arthur, was selected as the party’s candidate for vice president.

In November, Garfield’s ability to control the various factions of his party and brilliantly manage his campaign resulted in his winning the presidency in the closest presidential election of the century. In view of the fact that he did nothing either before or during the convention to obtain his party’s nomination (he strongly opposed the effort that culminated in his nomination) and the fact that his party had all but self-destructed since the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Garfield achieved a magnificent victory.

On July 2, 1881, only a few months after his inauguration, Garfield was shot by a crazed office-seeker, Charles Guiteau. He died on September 19, 1881. It is widely believed that Garfield’s death was partly due to the incompetence of his physicians, who probed his bullet wound with their unwashed fingers.

Significance

Garfield’s election to the presidency was the crowning achievement of a spectacular and glorious career that began as the driver of a towboat on the Ohio Erie Canal. His was a classic American success story, brought to a tragically premature end.

The legacy of Garfield’s brief term suggests what he might have accomplished had he lived to complete it. He laid the foundation for the development of a more independent and vigorous presidency that proved vital for a nation destined to become one of the most powerful nations in the world. The Pendleton Act of 1883, which led to the end of the spoils system in the federal government, was the logical conclusion of his efforts.

Bibliography

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