Returning from a remarkable tour around the world, General Grant became in 1880 a candidate for a third-term nomination. The deadlock in the republican convention between him and Mr. Blaine was broken by the nomination of James A. Garfield, of Ohio. Chester A. Arthur, of New York, was the vice-presidential candidate. The Democrats nominated the hero of Gettysburg, the brave and renowned General W. S. Hancock, of Pennsylvania, and William H. English, of Indiana. Garfield was elected, receiving 214 electoral votes against 155 for Hancock. Hancock carried every southern State; Garfield every northern State except New Jersey, Nevada, and California.
President Garfield had hardly entered upon his high duties when he was cut down by the hand of an assassin. On the morning of July 2, 1881, the President entered the railway station at Washington, intending to take an eastern trip. Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed office-seeker, crept up behind him and fired two bullets at him, one of which lodged in his back. The President died on September 19th, after weeks of suffering. Vice-President Arthur succeeded to the presidency, and had an uneventful but respectable administration.
Guiteau’s trial began in November and lasted more than two months. The defence was insanity. The assassin maintained that he was inspired to commit the deed, and that it was a political necessity. The “stalwart” Republicans, headed by Senator Conkling, had quarrelled with the President over certain appointments unacceptable to the New York senator; Guiteau pretended to think the removal of Mr. Garfield necessary to the unity of the party and the salvation of the country. The prosecution showed that Guiteau had long been an unprincipled adventurer, greedy for notoriety; that he first conceived of killing the President after his hopes of office were finally destroyed; and that he had planned the murder several weeks in advance. Guiteau was found guilty, and executed at Washington on June 30, 1882. The autopsy showed no disease of the brain.
James A. Garfield.
From a photograph by C. M. Bell, Washington, D. C.
Although it had no logical connection with the “spoils” system, the assassination of President Garfield called the attention of the whole country to the crying need of reform in the civil service. Ever since the days of President Jackson, in 1829, appointments to the minor federal offices had been used for the payment of party debts and to keep up partisan interest. This practice incurred the deep condemnation of Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and others, but no practical steps toward reform were taken till 1871. The abuses of the spoils system had then become so flagrant that Congress created a civil service commission, which instituted competitive examinations to test the merits of candidates for office in the departments at Washington. President Grant reported that the new methods “had given persons of superior capacity to the service’” But Congress, always niggardly in its appropriations for the work of the commission, after 1875 cut them off altogether, and the rules were suspended.
Under President Hayes civil service reform made considerable progress in an irregular way. Secretary Schurz enforced competitive examinations in the Interior department. They were also applied by Mr. James to the New York Post-office, and, as the result, one-third more work was done with less cost. Similar good results followed the enforcement of the “merit system” in the New York custom-house after 1879. President Hayes also strongly condemned political assessments upon office-holders, but with small practical effect.
The alarming increase of corruption in political circles generally, after the war, helped to create popular sentiment for reform. Corrupt “rings” sprang up in every city. The “whiskey ring,” composed of distillers and government employees, assumed national proportions in 1874, cheating the Government out of a large part of its revenue from spirits. Liberal appropriations for building a navy were squandered.
During the campaign of 1872, the Democrats charged several prominent Congressmen with having taken bribes, in 1867-68, to vote for legislation desired by the Union Pacific Railroad. At the request of the accused, an examination was had by a House committee. The committee’s report in 1873 recommended the expulsion of Representatives Oakes Ames and James Brooks. Mr. Ames was accused of selling to Congressmen at reduced rates, with intent to influence their votes, shares of stock in the “Credit Mobilier,” a corporation for the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. Mr. Brooks, who was a government director in the railroad, was charged with receiving such shares. The House did not expel the two members, but severely condemned them. Shadows of varying density fell upon many prominent politicians and darkened their subsequent careers.
The tragic fate of President Garfield, following these and other revelations of political corruption, brought public sentiment on civil service reform to a head. A bill prepared by the Civil Service Reform League, and introduced by Senator Pendleton, of Ohio, passed Congress in January, 1883, and on the 16th received the signature of the President.