Episode 6: James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur

A full transcript of this episode can be found here.

Show Notes

Overview:

Today’s episode is all about Presidents James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, was only in office six and a half months before he died from medical complications following a botched assassination. Just sixteen years after Lincoln’s death, Garfield was the second president assassinated. His vice president, Chester Arthur, served the remainder of his term.

Here’s a quick refresher on Garfield and Arthur. Garfield was born in 1831, graduated from Williams College in 1856, and returned to Ohio to teach. After studying to become a lawyer and gaining admittance to the Ohio bar, he won election the state senate. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Garfield became an outspoken advocate of abolition and joined the Ohio regiment. As an officer, he fought bravely in major battles and reached the rank of major general, before resigning his military post to take up a seat in the U.S House of Representatives in December 1863. Garfield initially supported the Radical Republicans in Congress, but later favored more conciliatory measures. In the 1880 election, Garfield won election to the U.S. Senate, but was never seated. Instead, he was drafted as the Republican compromise candidate on the 36th ballot. He won an easy victory in the general election and started his administration by emphasizing civil service reform, civil rights, and education. On July 2, 1881, he was shot by a disgruntled office seeker and died eleven weeks later from the unnecessary, harmful, and excruciating painful medical care administered by his doctors.

Garfield’s successor took a different path to high office. Arthur was born in 1829 in Vermont. He graduated from Union College in 1845, taught school and studied the law. In his legal career he won several civil rights and abolition cases. During the Civil War, Arthur served masterfully as inspector general and the quartermaster general of the New York state militia. After the war, Arthur spent the next fifteen years as a loyal Conkling machine man (the Republican opposition to the Democratic Tammany Hall machine), raising funds for Ulysses S. Grant’s candidacy. In return for his steady service, Grant appoint Arthur as Collector of the Custom House in the Port of New York, a lucrative position with control of 1,000 employees. In the 1880 election, Garfield and his supporters offered the Vice President position to Arthur as a way to unify the warring factions in the Republican Party. Arthur helped the ticket carry New York, which proved essential to the Republican victory.

We will learn from two experts about why Arthur’s presidency was dominated by civil service reform, debates over immigration, and conflict over Native American policy—and how the administration might have gone differently if Garfield had survived. For this episode, we spoke to two esteemed scholars. Todd Arrington and Dr. Katie Benton-Cohen helped us grapple with three critical themes:

First, the potential for greater civil rights under President Garfield and the opportunity lost with his assassination.
Second, the emergence of the southwest as a site of racial tension.
Third, the increasing role of immigration in racial relations.