Assassination of James A. Garfield

On the morning of July 2, 1881, President James A. Garfield was shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C., less than four months into his presidency. The shooter, Charles J. Guiteau, was a disappointed and delusional office seeker who believed a campaign speech he had written and distributed entitled Garfield to a diplomatic post. After months of unsuccessful attempts to obtain such an appointment, and after being told by Secretary of State James G. Blaine never to raise the matter again, Guiteau purchased a revolver, stalked the President for weeks, and concluded he had been divinely commanded to kill him.

Guiteau shot Garfield twice from behind as the President entered the station's waiting room; one bullet grazed Garfield's shoulder and the other lodged behind his pancreas. Guiteau was apprehended at the scene by police officer Patrick Kearney and declared, "I am a Stalwart, and want Arthur for President," referencing the Republican factional rivalry between the Stalwarts and Half-Breeds.

Garfield was carried to the White House, where he was treated over the following weeks by physicians who repeatedly probed his wound with unwashed fingers and instruments in unsuccessful attempts to locate the bullet, likely worsening his condition. Inventor Alexander Graham Bell devised a metal detector to try to locate the bullet, but the effort was hampered by Garfield's metal bedframe and by the chief physician's insistence on searching only the wrong side of the body. Garfield's condition fluctuated over the summer as sepsis and infection set in, and his weight dropped substantially. On September 6, 1881, he was moved by train to a seaside cottage in Elberon, New Jersey, in hopes that the change of air might aid his recovery. He died there of a ruptured splenic artery aneurysm, following sepsis and bronchial pneumonia, at 10:35 p.m. on September 19, 1881. He was succeeded by Vice President Chester A. Arthur, who took the oath of office early the next morning.

Guiteau went to trial in November 1881, representing himself alongside his brother-in-law as counsel. The trial was one of the earliest high-profile American cases to consider an insanity defense; Guiteau argued that killing Garfield had been divinely ordained, while also, at times, arguing that malpractice rather than his shooting had caused death. The jury rejected the insanity defense and convicted him of Garfield's murder on January 25, 1882. His appeal was denied, and he was executed by hanging at the District of Columbia jail on June 30, 1882.

Garfield's assassination and prolonged medical ordeal contributed to the passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in January 1883. It also exposed gaps in constitutional procedure regarding presidential incapacity, an issue not formally addressed until ratification of the Twenty-fifth Amendment in 1967. The lack of any security detail protecting Garfield, consistent with practice for most presidents of the era, was later cited as a factor in the eventual creation of Secret Service presidential protection following the 1901 assassination of William McKinley.