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| | Finally, when Blaine realized he could not win, he and Sherman withdrew their candidacies and threw there support behind a "dark horse" candidate, James Garfield. Garfield was finally elected on the 36th ballot! In other words, the delegates met for days in a hot summer convention center, without air conditioning, and debated and voted 36 times before nominating James Garfield, who was a former Union general and a current Republican congressman. | | Finally, when Blaine realized he could not win, he and Sherman withdrew their candidacies and threw there support behind a "dark horse" candidate, James Garfield. Garfield was finally elected on the 36th ballot! In other words, the delegates met for days in a hot summer convention center, without air conditioning, and debated and voted 36 times before nominating James Garfield, who was a former Union general and a current Republican congressman. |
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| − | So Congressman James Garfield was nominated by the Republican Party for president in 1880. To appease the Stalwarts and try to earn their support, Garfield picked a Stalwart, Chester Arthur, as his Vice President. Then a deranged Stalwart assassinated Garfield soon after he was elected, so that fellow Stalwart Chester Arthur could become president. This discredited the Stalwart movement and Arthur himself promoted a civil service system whereby the victors cannot fire and replace government workers with his supporters. | + | So Congressman James Garfield was nominated by the Republican Party for president in 1880. To appease the Stalwarts and try to earn their support, Garfield picked a Stalwart, Chester Arthur, as his Vice President. |
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| | + | Then a deranged Stalwart assassinated Garfield soon after he was elected, so that fellow Stalwart Chester Arthur could become president. This discredited the Stalwart movement and Arthur himself promoted a civil service system whereby the victors cannot fire and replace government workers with his supporters. |
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| | + | But Garfield did not compromise after he was sworn into office. He appointed an anti-Stalwart and arch-rival of Senator Conkling to run the New York Customs House, which was a big position that Conkling had expected to fill based on patronage. Garfield insulted Conkling on purpose in order to establish that the president had control over these positions based on merit, rather than local senators based on patronage. Conkling contested the nomination and tried to block it in the U.S. Senate. Conkling even arranged for the Senate to confirm all of Garfield's uncontested nominations except this one; Garfield responded by withdrawing all those other nominations except the one that Conkling opposed! That forced the other senators to choose between Conkling and all the nominees, who were friends of other senators. Conkling, having been checkmated, resigned in protest in the expectation that he would be reappointed by the New York legislature to his position. Fed up, however, the New York legislature refused to reappoint him (in those days U.S. Senators were picked by the legislatures rather than elected by the people), and Conkling was gone from the Senate. The issue had thereby been resolved in Garfield's favor and against the Stalwarts.<ref>http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jg20.html</ref> |
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| | + | But then tragedy struck Garfield. On July 2, 1881, in a railroad station in Washington, D.C., an embittered attorney who had unsuccessfully sought a consular post shot President Garfield. Garfield then lived for several weeks as experts from around the country examined his wound, and tried to get the bullet out. Garfield even asked Alexander Graham Bell to develop a device (an induction-balance electrical gadget) to find the bullet. Nothing worked, and all the doctors who probed Garfield's wound had the effect of infecting him. This was before doctors took better care to sterilize instruments and wash their hands to remove all germs. |
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| | + | Garfield was removed to the "Jersey shore" (the ocean-front property along the coast of New Jersey) to recuperate. The helped at first, but ultimately an infection in the wound killed him on September 19, 1881, when he died from an internal hemorrhage. |
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| − | Led by Sen. Roscoe Conkling of NY, who resigned in protest when Garfield appointed anti-Stalwart to key govt job"
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| | Chester Arthur "1881-84: Stalwart, abolitionist, NY atty, never elected before or after, ineffective" | | Chester Arthur "1881-84: Stalwart, abolitionist, NY atty, never elected before or after, ineffective" |