James Garfield’s Presidency Part 5: Fallout
Every presidential assassination is a shock. For some men, it improves their reputation. Abraham Lincoln became a martyr, the Jesus Christ of American history, dying on the altar of the nation for its past sins. How he would have handled Reconstruction will never be known; certainly his current admirers think he would have embraced racial equality, while others point to the actual policies he embraced. The bigger question is how he would have balanced reunification, his primary goal, with racial justice.
As for John F. Kennedy, his presidency became a marker of innocence lost and, for others, a marker of lost possibilities. Forgotten of course was that his White House was not a paragon of innocence and his record was, to any honest observer, rather spotty. By contrast, William McKinley was granted no greatness in his death, even if his reputation has never been poor. Garfield, though, died only a few months into his presidency and only right after defeating Conkling and Grant, or at least letting them defeat themselves. Martyrdom, fame, and honor were denied him, and rating Garfield as a president is as futile as rating William Henry Harrison. Their terms were cut too short. Yet Garfield’s death had an agony and a pathos that makes it compelling, and his assassin attained a reputation as perhaps the most bizarre of any presidential assailant.
Arthur had the White House renovated. Grant had done something similar in his time, but Arthur brought in even more posh trappings to the executive mansion. Alcohol, banned since Lucy Hayes entered the White House, was brought back. When a temperance advocated asked him about it, Arthur shot back, “Madam, I may be President of the United States, but my private life is nobody’s damn business.”
Only two weeks into his presidency, Conkling came to see Arthur and tried to have Robertson removed. Arthur rebuffed him, saying he felt “morally bound to continue the policy of the former President.” Conkling referred to Arthur as “His Accidency” and “the stalled ox of the White House.” Arthur wanted his friend back and offered Conkling a place on the supreme court, but he refused. Conkling instead became the country’s premiere corporate lawyer. What both seemed to not notice was that Robertson proved less reformed minded than many supposed.
Grant gave Arthur unasked for advice and badgered him about several nominees. Grant was ignored, although Arthur eventually put Grant on the army retired list with full pay. Meanwhile, most Stalwarts turned their backs on Arthur, while others thought Conkling was a shadow president who picked Arthur’s cabinet. Hayes at one time said, “Arthur for President! Conkling the power behind the throne, superior to the throne!” Many could not shake that judgment, even as Arthur surprised the observant by being his own man. He pushed civil service reform, oversaw upgrades to the United States Navy, and avoided corruption.
Grant, as he did so often, trusted an unscrupulous man, and this time it cost him. He wrote his memoirs as he was dying, both to provide for his family and codify what would in time be the North’s unofficial military narrative of the war. He also generally avoided some of the pettiness that typified his personal life. In 1880 Grant called Hancock “a vain, weak man. He is the most selfish man I know.” Yet, in his memoirs, Grant declared, “Hancock stands the most conspicuous figure of all the general officers who did not exercise a separate command. He commanded a corps longer than any other one, and his name was never mentioned as having committed in battle a blunder for which he was responsible. He was a man of very conspicuous personal appearance. Tall, well-formed and, at the time of which I now write, young and fresh-looking, he presented an appearance that would attract the attention of an army as he passed. His genial disposition made him friends, and his personal courage and his presence with his command in the thickest of the fight won for him the confidence of troops serving under him. No matter how hard the fight, the 2d corps always felt that their commander was looking after them.”
Conkling and Grant were not the only ones advising Arthur and being frustrated. Guiteau sent a letter where he wanted Conkling for State, Morton for Treasury, and Storrs for Attorney General. Arthur of course did not answer him. Instead, Guiteau was found guilty in one of America’s most controversial and bizarre trials. The transcript ran for over 2,600 pages. He survived two murder attempts before being hanged. As befitting a theologian, Guiteau was allowed to read from The Bible before he met his end. More comically, he sang a wretched song that he penned, making a good case for being America’s worst wordsmith:
“I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad. I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad. ?I am going to the Lordy, Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah! ?I am going to the Lordy!
I love the Lordy with all my soul, ?Glory hallelujah! And that is the reason I am going to the Lord. Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah! ?I am going to the Lord.
I saved my party and my land, ?Glory hallelujah! But they have murdered me for it, And that is the reason I am going to the Lordy. Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah! ?I am going to the Lordy!
I wonder what I will do when I get to the Lordy, I guess that I will weep no more When I get to the Lordy! ? Glory hallelujah!
I wonder what I will see when I get to the Lordy, I expect to see most splendid things, Beyond all earthly conception, When I am with the Lordy! Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah! ? I am with the Lord.”
In 1884 Blaine decided to beat Arthur for the nomination, relying on an alliance of Stalwarts and Garfield loyalists who believed the conspiracy theory that they were fighting a Conkling presidency. Others were disappointed that Arthur did not do more as a reformer. By then the Stalwarts hated Conkling so embracing Blaine was not a stretch. Platt, once considered a mere side-kick, became New York’s political leader. When Platt saw Conkling arguing with Stephen Jay Gould, Platt said, “If you would like to come up-stairs to my office, Mr. Gould, you will be welcome. But as for you, sir, you may go to the devil!” Platt, Logan, and other old Stalwarts rallied to Blaine in 1884 and most openly spurned Conkling. Grant, in his last political act, endorsed Blaine in 1884 and publicly ended their feud, although he did not campaign for him. Blaine’s nomination was perhaps for the best. Bright’s disease claimed Arthur in 1886. A much affected Conkling attended the funeral.
Conkling would have some revenge even as his power in New York waned. He refused to support Blaine, even as Blaine implored, “Can Conkling be induced to speak for us? It would be an immense thing for us. How can he be induced to do it?” Conkling told them “I am out of politics” and “No, thank you, I don’t engage in criminal practice.” Conkling advised Grover Cleveland and helped to dredge up scandals over Blaine’s railroad deals in the 1870s. Conkling even got a few Stalwarts to turn away from Blaine. It would be a stretch to say Conkling was why Cleveland won, but he helped make him the first Democrat since 1861 to reside in the White House. Conkling seemingly asked Cleveland for nothing. Watching Blaine lose was payment enough.
Revenge can be sweet and is sometimes called the purest of motivations, but it looks pale next to power and glory. Garfield’s death haunted Conkling and ended his tenure as America’s most powerful politician. Garfield beat Grant, ignored Conkling’s advice after he fought for his election, laughed at his fall, and then in death forever stained him. Conkling implored in his last years, “How can I speak into a grave? How can I do battle with a shroud? Silence is a duty and a doom.” Conkling died a man of power and influence who got some revenge on his old foe, but he knew Garfield’s ascendancy and death caused his fall. Roscoe Conkling, “the Warwick of the Grant Administration,” saw his life’s story forever tied to the untimely death of James Garfield.
Thanks for this series. Here in Hawaii it is an important period, beginning with the Reciprocity Treaty in 1875 and its extension in 1884 which also gave the US rights to develop Pearl Harbor. This period saw the increasing domination of US economy on that of Hawaii, and hence interest in US politics and how it would affect Hawaii.
I’ve very much enjoyed this series, not least because I feel that so few Americans are familiar with Presidential history from the death of Lincoln to the death of McKinley. I must say, though, that it distresses me how Lincoln has been made into a Marble Man, with over 1,000 biographies penned on him, and the lectures on him spoken in hushed tones with angelic choirs cooing in the background as the light shines from his halo. I’m not a Lincoln-hater – there are some who even insist he was a Socialist, which is ridiculous. I admire him greatly and think that despite his many faults and errors – not one of which Doris Kearns-Goodwin has ever seemed to uncover in her voluminous research – he was one of our best Presidents. But just as we are doing a grave disservice to America in this current era of destroying/rewriting Civil War history, we’re doing it by glossing over Lincoln’s failures. He bungled from the minute he was in office, tripping into war; throughout the conflict he kept giving high command to Republican Party favorites, which got tens of thousands of Federal soldiers needlessly killed; he was a complete political animal and hypocrite regarding slavery, allowing it to continue where it served his purposes, pretending to stamp it out where it served his purposes, all the while using it to mask the true cause of the war – the desire by the Federal Government, Bankers and Industrialists in the North to destroy Federalism and crush the South. He was also, despite being generally wise in other areas, painfully credulous in military matters, which allowed generals like Grant, Sherman and Sheridan to run rings around him.
And no, this is not “Lost Cause” rambling – these issues were predicted from 1789 forward and they all came true, because they were real. Anyone can look this up…if Google hasn’t deleted it already. Lincoln was a great man and a great President, and I think had he lived we would never have had Jim Crow – which was invented in the North and practiced just as assiduously for decades there as it was in the South; and we wouldn’t have had the Klan; and we wouldn’t have had 12 years of denigrating occupation of the South called “Reconstruction.” But it’s time to stop rewriting Civil War history with Saint Abe reimagining America, because that is a total falsehood, and it robs us of a much more rich and fascinating Civil War history. The reason we’re being robbed of it is because it is complex and contradictory – and most of the academics and publishing houses are too lazy, corrupt and bigoted to make it known to America.