James A. Garfield.
James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur were publicly inaugurated President and Vice-President of the United States March 4, 1881.
President Garfield in his inaugural address promised full and equal protection of the Constitution and the laws for the negro, advocated universal education as a safeguard of suffrage, and recommended such an adjustment of our monetary system “that the purchasing power of every coined dollar will be exactly equal to its debt-paying power in all the markets of the world.” The national debt should be refunded at a lower rate of interest, without compelling the withdrawal of the National Bank notes, polygamy should be prohibited, and civil service regulated by law.
An extra session of the Senate was opened March 4. On the 5th, the following cabinet nominations were made and confirmed: Secretary of State, James G. Blaine, of Maine; Secretary of the Treasury, William Windom, of Minnesota; Secretary of the Navy, William H. Hunt, of Louisiana; Secretary of War, Robert T. Lincoln, of Illinois; Attorney-General, Wayne MacVeagh, of Pennsylvania; Postmaster-General, Thomas L. James, of New York; Secretary of the Interior, Samuel J. Kirkwood, of Iowa.
In this extra session of the Senate Vice-President Arthur had to employ the casting vote on all questions where the parties divided, and he invariably cast it on the side of the Republicans. The evenness of the parties caused a dead-lock on the question of organization, for when David Davis, of Illinois, voted with the Democrats, the Republicans had not enough even with the Vice-President, and he was not, therefore, called upon to decide a question of that kind. The Republicans desired new and Republican officers; the Democrats desired to retain the old and Democratic ones.