United States

Garfield had not been closely identified with either the Stalwarts or the Half-Breeds, the two major factions within the Republican Party, but, upon becoming president, he upset the Stalwarts by naming the Half-Breed Blaine secretary of state. He gave even more serious offense to the Stalwart faction by appointing as collector of customs at New York a man who was unacceptable to the two senators from that state, Conkling and Thomas Platt, who showed their displeasure by resigning their Senate seats, expecting to be reelected triumphantly by the legislature of New York; but in this they were disappointed.

James A. Garfield.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

The tragic climax to this intraparty strife came on July 2, 1881, when Garfield was shot in Washington, D.C., by a disappointed and mentally deranged office seeker and Stalwart supporter. For two months the president lingered between life and death. He died on September 19 and was succeeded by Vice President Arthur.

Print showing the attempted assassination of President James A. Garfield in July 1881.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (cph 3a10265)

Arthur’s accession to the presidency caused widespread concern. He had held no elective office before becoming vice president, and he had been closely associated with the Stalwart wing of the party. It was assumed that, like others in that group, he would be hostile to civil service reform, and his nomination for the vice presidency had been generally regarded as a deliberate rebuke to President Hayes. The members of Garfield’s Cabinet immediately tendered their resignations, but Arthur asked them to continue in office for a time. By mid-April 1882, however, all but one of the Cabinet officers had been replaced.

Arthur, Chester A.Chester A. Arthur taking the presidential oath after the death of Pres. James Garfield, 1881.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (file no. LC-USZ62-7615)

Arthur soon surprised his critics and the country by demonstrating an unexpected independence of his former political friends. In his first annual message to Congress, in December 1881, he announced his qualified approval of legislation that would remove appointments to the federal civil service from partisan control. In January 1883 Congress passed and Arthur signed the Pendleton Civil Service Act, which established the Civil Service Commission and provided that appointments to certain categories of offices should be made on the basis of examinations and the appointees given an indefinite tenure in their positions.

Political cartoon of Chester A. Arthur by Joseph Keppler.Drawing by Joseph Ferdinand Keppler/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (file no. LC-DIG-ppmsca-15781)

By 1884, when the next presidential election was held, Arthur’s administration had won the respect of many who had viewed his accession to office with misgivings. It had not, however, gained him any strong following among the leaders of his party. The foremost candidate for the Republican nomination was the perennially powerful Blaine, who, despite opposition from those who believed he was too partisan in spirit or that he was vulnerable to charges of corrupt actions while speaker of the house many years before, was nominated on the fourth ballot.

The Democratic candidate, Gov. Grover Cleveland of New York, was in many respects the antithesis of Blaine. He was a relative newcomer to politics. He had been elected mayor of Buffalo in 1881 and governor of New York in 1882. In both positions he had earned a reputation for political independence, inflexible honesty, and an industrious and conservative administration. His record made him an attractive candidate for persons who accepted the dictum that “a public office is a public trust.” This was, in 1884, a valuable asset; and it won for Cleveland the support of a few outstanding Republicans and some journals of national circulation that usually favoured Republican nominees for office.

Grover ClevelandLibrary of Congress, Washington, D.C.

As in 1880, the campaign was almost devoid of issues of public policy: only the perennial question of the tariff appeared to separate the two parties. Cleveland had not served in the army during the Civil War, and Republicans made an effort to use this fact, together with the power of the South in the Democratic Party, to arouse sectional prejudices against Cleveland. During the campaign it was revealed that Cleveland, a bachelor, was the father of an illegitimate son, an indiscretion that gave the Republicans a moral issue with which to counteract charges of corruption against their own candidate.