Destiny of the Republic

This chapter describes the Centennial International Exhibition, held in Philadelphia in 1876. In attendance was a congressman from Ohio, James Garfield, and his family. Millard briefly explains how he was born into poverty, only to make a success of himself “with a passionate love of learning that would define his life” (8). Garfield was especially keen to visit the Machinery Hall, as he held a special regard for science and its role in progress. Millard describes America at its centennial as being in need of such progress as a way to overcome its difficult past. Barely more than a decade had passed since the Civil War, and the effects of slavery were still being dealt with. Millard briefly sketches out how Garfield’s personal history intersected with this, as well as his fight for equal rights for freed slaves.

She then segues to portraying two of the many presenters at the fair, “whose ideas would not only change the world, but had the unique potential to save Garfield’s life” (11). The two were Alexander Graham Bell, a Scotsman whose telephone wowed the judges, and Joseph Lister, a British surgeon whose work on the importance of sterilizing wounds and medical instruments in order to kill germs was met with decidedly less excitement. 

This chapter backs up to the beginning and relates the highlights of Garfield’s boyhood and rise as a young man. He was born to farmers in Ohio, the youngest of four children. The crucial event of his childhood happened when he was just 2 years old: his father died after battling a wildfire on the family’s land. From then on, Garfield’s mother and eldest brother worked hard to provide for the family and, while they managed to soldier on, they lived in poverty throughout Garfield’s youth. He was to be the one they invested in to the extent they could, allowing him to continue with school even when, as he became older, they could have used his labor on the farm. However, he had other ideas, and left at age 16 to find a job on a canal boat. Not long after, though, he returned home, when a late-night accident sent him into the water alone, with the rest of the crew asleep. He managed to survive by sheer luck, which he took as a sign from God that he was destined for greater things.

After his return, he enrolled at a small preparatory school in Ohio. Too poor to pay tuition, he took a job as the school’s janitor in exchange for attending classes. In his first year, he discovered both a love and a talent for study; by the second year, he was helping to teach as an assistant professor while he continued to take his own classes. He went to Williams College in Massachusetts, graduating with honors, after which he returned to his Ohio school to teach. He was president of the school by age 26.

Garfield briefly became a state senator before the Civil War broke out, and then joined the Union Army and commanded the 42nd regiment. In that role, he led his men to victory in Kentucky, preserving control of an important border state for the Union. He was elected to the US Congress in 1862, though he stayed in the army for more than a year until he actually served in that role. He had been a staunch abolitionist before the war and after it became a champion of the freed slaves–supporting, for example, an end to the law requiring blacks to obtain a pass to walk the streets of the nation’s capital. 

The topic of this chapter is the 1880 Republican National Convention, held in Chicago in June to choose that party’s candidate for president. There were three main nominees: former president Ulysses S. Grant, John Sherman (the incumbent Treasury secretary), and James Blaine (a senator from Maine). Garfield attended to introduce and formally nominate Sherman, a fellow Ohioan. Grant was a member of the branch of the party known as Stalwarts, who took a hard line against former Confederate states and were in favor of the spoils system, in which government jobs were given to political supporters. Sherman and Blaine belonged to the opposing branch called the Half-Breeds, who desired a more conciliatory approach to the South and reformation of the spoils system.

Millard explains Garfield’s predicament in not wholeheartedly believing in Sherman but feeling obliged to support him. Moreover, he hadn’t prepared his speech in advance and worried about finding the time to do so. However, she foreshadows what is to come by describing his considerable gifts for public speaking, becoming a “skilled rhetorician” already as a young man. Millard also gives much background about Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, who would nominate Grant. Conkling, a rousing speaker with a somewhat off-putting manner, worked not only for Grant to win the nomination but to make sure Blaine was denied it. (Conkling and Blaine had been bitter rivals after a dust-up in Congress over a decade earlier.)

After Conkling whipped up the crowd with his speech, Garfield sought to calm it, arguing that their fervor would not decide the candidate’s ultimate success or failure, but rather the logic and deliberation of families across the nation. When nominations had ended and voting began, it soon became clear that the delegates were quite divided. No one received a majority, and ballot after ballot returned deadlocked results. At some point, Garfield’s name was entered into the voting although he only received a single vote for a number of ballots. Then, suddenly, his votes increased to seventeen. He tried to protest that he was not a nominee and did not wish to be. However, the momentum picked up until, on the 36th ballot, he collected more than enough votes needed to win. He had unwittingly become the party’s official candidate for president. Millard describes him as stunned and silent for the remainder of that night.

This chapter shifts focus to tell the story of Charles Guiteau’s upbringing and career through the moment of the accident described in the Prologue. His mother died when he was young and he was raised by a strict and religious father. As a young man, Guiteau went to live at Oneida Community in New York, founded and run by John Humphrey Noyes, staying for a total of about seven years (with a gap of four months near the end, when he left and returned). His time there was tumultuous, as he did not see himself as regular member of the community. Instead, he felt that he was “an envoy of the true God,” and as such should be exempt from the menial tasks shared by others (56). Noyes did not agree. He was not well accepted by the other members either: he was a frequent target of the criticisms that they practiced and, although the community practiced free love, it seems he was not involved in many trysts. In fact, the women nicknamed him “Charles Gitout” (57).

After he left Oneida, he spent a year doing no work while living off a small inheritance. When the money ran out, he studied law and was able to pass the New York bar exam. For almost fifteen years afterward, he practiced law in New York and Chicago and attempted a series of other ventures, including becoming a traveling evangelist and starting a newspaper. The common thread running through each of them was that after an enthusiastic beginning, they were short-lived and he moved on to something else, or to another city. He also tried raising money through lawsuits filed against Oneida Community and the New York Herald newspaper, both of which failed.

It had become clear to all he was in contact with, including his family, that he was mentally ill and losing his grip on reality. His sister, Frances, was his last benefactor until Guiteau threatened her with an ax during one of his visits in 1875. After that, she had planned to have him committed to an asylum in Chicago, but he disappeared before she could arrange it. For five years, Guiteau bounced from city to city, until ending up in Boston in 1880. It was there that he began paying attention to politics, deciding that he would win himself a high-level appointment in the next Republican administration. That’s when he decided to go to their campaign headquarters in New York, setting sail on the Stonington.

Millard turns back to Garfield in Chapter 5, relating the events of the summer and fall of 1880, leading to his election as president. He spent the campaign season at his farm in Ohio because at that time it was considered unseemly for a presidential candidate to campaign for himself. Instead, others did so on his behalf. He did, however, greet and make speeches to the many visitors who traveled to his farm—up to 5,000 people per day.

His opponents brought up an old scandal that he had initially been implicated in. He was ultimately absolved of any wrongdoing, but that didn’t stop the Democrats from trying to sway public opinion by reminding voters of his supposed involvement. His Democratic opponent was Winfield Scott Hancock, a general of the Union Army who was highly regarded personally, but who had never held elected office. This, and the fact that the Democratic Party was still tainted from the Civil War days, worked against Hancock. Freed slaves were heavily in favor of Garfield, stemming from his record over the years, and the famous orator Frederick Douglass gave a speech on his behalf in New York. In the end, after a close vote, Garfield was elected the nation’s 20th president.