James A. Garfield: The Great President Who Never Was|5-Minut…
James Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, had all the makings of a great president. So why didn’t he turn into one? Louis Picone, author of The President Is Dead!, responses this terrible concern.
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Script:
In 1881, James Garfield ended up being the second US president to be assassinated. While Abraham Lincoln died a martyr sixteen years earlier for union and liberty, Garfield was killed for a less remarkable cause: civil service reform.
While that doesn’t appear like a big offer now, it was then. When most federal government positions were gotten through political connections, this was a time.
This practice, known as “patronage” or the “spoils system,” was the way both Republicans and Democrats held power. It created a lot of celebration loyalty– you owed your job to the celebration– but likewise led to a great deal of incompetence and corruption.
Garfield was the first president to seriously challenge this system– he took on the celebration managers who doled out jobs and rather appointed qualified civil servants on the basis of benefit.
This courageous act expense America’s twentieth president his life.
James Garfield was born on November 19, 1831 near Cleveland, Ohio.
His father died before James was two, leaving his strong-willed mother Eliza to raise him and his 3 siblings alone.
His mother and his older brother Thomas acknowledged that there was something special about James, and they made every possible sacrifice to get him an education.
James didn’t disappoint them. He was an excellent student with an extraordinary work ethic. It wasn’t enough for him to simply master a topic. He had to be the best in his school. And, usually, he was.
He put himself through college by studying throughout the day and working as a janitor by night. The very same year he graduated– 1856– he joined the brand-new anti-slavery Republican Party. A committed abolitionist, he got himself chose to the Ohio State Senate in 1859 at age 28.
When the Civil War started in 1861, Garfield abandoned politics to sign up with the Union Army.
As fate would have it, Garfield turned into one of the very first significant Union war heroes. He accomplished that status by defeating Confederate forces at the Battle of Middle Creek in Kentucky in January 1862. Relative to future fights, it was a small affair, however it was among the very first times that the Union could claim a triumph, and it dispelled the idea that the South was invincible.
Throughout the war, his fellow Ohioans elected him to your home of Representatives. Garfield felt uneasy about accepting the honor. He didn’t desire any person to believe he was running away from the battleground. It took President Abraham Lincoln to persuade him otherwise. Lincoln’s argument was simple: he had adequate generals; he needed more support in Congress.
It wasn’t long before everyone recognized Garfield’s manifold talents. He was a dazzling legislator, a master of details, and likewise known as the nicest person in Washington– too great, numerous thought, to be considered presidential wood. Garfield had no ambitions to be president, so he didn’t care. He enjoyed to rise to the chairmanship of the powerful Appropriations Committee and, ultimately, House Minority Leader.
His profession course changed when the Republican Convention in 1880 deadlocked between former President Ulysses Grant and Maine Senator James G. Blaine.
Grant was backed by New York machine employer Senator Roscoe Conkling, a strong defender of the spoils system.
Civil service reformers backed Blaine.
After 33 tallies, neither side might get the upper hand.
On the 34th ballot, nearly out of no place, the Wisconsin delegation elected Garfield. That sufficed to get the ball rolling. Over the next two ballots, Garfield’s delegate count escalated to 399, enough to make him the celebration’s candidate.
Nobody was more stunned than Garfield.
The basic election was practically as significant. Garfield won by the slimmest of margins, beating Democratic candidate Winfield Scott Hancock by a mere 8,000 votes out of 9 million cast. The electoral count, however, was decisive– 214 to 155.
Boss Conkling presumed that Garfield, now in power, would simply pay lip service to civil service reform.
He was wrong.
Garfield chose pro-reform advocate William Robertson to run the New York Customs House– the motherlode of patronage, a position Conkling had actually long controlled.
It turned out that the boss’s influence was less than he thought. The party backed the new president.
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James Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, had all the makings of a fantastic president. As fate would have it, Garfield ended up being one of the very first significant Union war heroes. Garfield had no ambitions to be president, so he didn’t care. Over the next two ballots, Garfield’s delegate count skyrocketed to 399, enough to make him the party’s nominee.
Garfield won by the slimmest of margins, beating Democratic prospect Winfield Scott Hancock by a mere 8,000 votes out of 9 million cast.
