James A. Garfield

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) was born in a log cabin in Ohio, worked his way through college, became a teacher, preacher and college president and served as a Union general in the Civil War. He spent 17 years in the House of Representatives, where he became a leading Republican voice on finance. In 1880 he went to the Republican convention to nominate another candidate and emerged as the compromise nominee on the 36th ballot, then narrowly won the presidency. His brief term was dominated by a struggle with New York Senator Roscoe Conkling over patronage. On July 2, 1881, he was shot by Charles Guiteau, a disappointed office seeker, and he died on September 19.

Garfield served too briefly to leave a substantial policy record, and historians usually decline to rank him or place him in the middle. His assassination by an office seeker strengthened the movement for civil service reform and helped produce the Pendleton Act of 1883 under his successor, Chester Arthur. Admirers point to his rise from poverty, his intellectual range and his strong public support for the citizenship and education of Black Americans at a time when many Republicans were retreating from Reconstruction. Critics note his association with the Credit Mobilier railroad scandal as a congressman, though he denied wrongdoing. Historians also emphasize that his death owed much to unsanitary medical treatment by his doctors.