James Gillespie Blaine was an American statesman and Republican politician who represented Maine in the United States House of Representatives from 1863 to 1876, serving as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1869 to 1875, and then in the United States Senate from 1876 to 1881. Blaine twice served as Secretary of State, first in 1881 under President James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur, and then from 1889 to 1892 under President Benjamin Harrison. He is one of only two U.S. Secretaries of State to hold the position under three separate presidents, the other being Daniel Webster. Blaine unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for President in 1876 and 1880 before being nominated in 1884. In the 1884 general election, he was narrowly defeated by Democratic nominee Grover Cleveland. Blaine was one of the late 19th century's leading Republicans and a champion of the party's moderate reformist faction, later known as the "Half-Breeds".
James Abram Garfield was the 20th president of the United States, serving from March 1881 until his assassination in July led to his death in September that year. A preacher, lawyer, and Civil War general, Garfield served nine terms in the United States House of Representatives and is the only sitting member of the House to be elected president. Before his candidacy for the presidency, he had been elected to the U.S. Senate by the Ohio General Assembly—a position he declined when he became president-elect.
Imperial presidency is a term applied to the modern presidency of the United States. It became popular in the 1960s and served as the title of a 1973 book by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., who wrote The Imperial Presidency to address two concerns: that the presidency was uncontrollable and that it had exceeded its constitutional limits. According to professor of political science Thomas E. Cronin, author of The State of the Presidency, "imperial presidency" is a term used to define a danger to the American constitutional system by allowing presidents to create and abuse presidential prerogatives during national emergencies. This was based on: (1) presidential war powers vaguely defined in the Constitution, and (2) secrecy – a system used that shielded the Presidency from the usual checks and balances afforded by the legislative and judicial branches.
Charles Julius Guiteau was an American man who assassinated James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, in 1881. Guiteau believed he had played a major role in Garfield's election victory, for which he should have been rewarded with a consulship. He felt frustrated and offended by the Garfield administration's rejections of his applications to serve in Vienna or Paris to such a degree that he decided to kill Garfield and shot him at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. Garfield died 79 days later from infections related to the wounds. In January 1882, Guiteau was sentenced to death for the crime and was hanged five months later.
The Stalwarts were a faction of the Republican Party that existed briefly in the United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age during the 1870s and 1880s. Led by U.S. Senator Roscoe Conkling—also known as "Lord Roscoe"—Stalwarts were sometimes called Conklingites. Other notable Stalwarts included Benjamin Wade, Charles J. Folger, George C. Gorham, Chester A. Arthur, Thomas C. Platt, and Leonidas C. Houk. The faction favored Ulysses S. Grant, the eighteenth President of the United States (1868–1876), running for a third term in the 1880 United States presidential election.
A front porch campaign is a low-key electoral campaign used in American politics in which the candidate remains close to or at home where they issue written statements and give speeches to supporters who come to visit. The candidate largely does not travel around or otherwise actively campaign. The presidential campaigns of James A. Garfield in 1880, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, William McKinley, and Warren G. Harding are perhaps the best-known front porch campaigns.
Frank Hatton was an American politician and newspaperman. He was a Union Army veteran of the American Civil War, served as United States Postmaster General, and later edited The Washington Post.
Robert Roberts Hitt was an American diplomat and Republican politician from Illinois. He served briefly as assistant secretary of state in the short-lived administration of James A. Garfield but resigned alongside Secretary of State James G. Blaine after Garfield's assassination in 1881. He returned to Washington to represent Northwestern Illinois in the United States House of Representatives from 1882 to his death. After 1885, he was the senior Republican on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, which he chaired from 1889 to 1891 and 1895 until his death in 1906.
The 1880 Republican National Convention convened from June 2 to June 8, 1880, at the Interstate Exposition Building in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Delegates nominated James A. Garfield of Ohio and Chester A. Arthur of New York as the official Republican Party candidates for president and vice president in the 1880 presidential election.
On July 2, 1881, James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, was shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C., resulting in his death in Elberon, New Jersey, two and a half months later on September 19, 1881. The shooting occurred less than four months into his term as president. He was the second American president to be assassinated, following Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Charles J. Guiteau was convicted of Garfield's murder and executed by hanging one year after the shooting.
Chester A. Arthur's tenure as the 21st president of the United States began on September 19, 1881, when he succeeded to the presidency upon the assassination of President James A. Garfield, and ended on March 4, 1885. Arthur, a Republican, had been vice president for 199 days when he succeeded to the presidency. In ill health and lacking the full support of his party by the end of his term, Arthur made only a token effort for the Republican presidential nomination in the 1884 presidential election. He was succeeded by Democrat Grover Cleveland.
The inauguration of James A. Garfield as the 20th president of the United States was held on Friday, March 4, 1881, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 24th inauguration and marked the commencement of the only four-year term of James A. Garfield as president and Chester A. Arthur as vice president. Garfield was assassinated 199 days into this term, and Arthur ascended to the presidency. Chief Justice Morrison Waite administered the presidential oath of office.
At 2:15 a.m. Eastern Time on September 20, 1881, Chester A. Arthur was inaugurated the 21st president of the United States. The inauguration marked the commencement of Chester A. Arthur's only term as president. The presidential oath of office was administered by New York Supreme Court Justice John R. Brady at Arthur's private residence in New York City. Two days later, Arthur took part in a second inauguration in Washington, D.C., with the oath administered by Morrison Waite, the Chief Justice of the United States. Arthur became president following the death of his predecessor James A. Garfield, who had been assassinated by a troubled office seeker, Charles J. Guiteau.
Chester Alan Arthur was the 21st president of the United States, serving from 1881 to 1885. He was a Republican lawyer from New York who previously served as the 20th vice president under President James A. Garfield. Assuming the presidency after Garfield's assassination, Arthur's presidency saw the largest expansion of the U.S. Navy, the end of the so-called "spoils system", and the implementation of harsher restrictions for migrants entering from abroad.
Julia Isabella Sand (1848–1933) was an American woman who corresponded with President Chester A. Arthur, beginning in late August 1881. Arthur saved twenty-three letters, all of which were discovered in 1958 after his grandson, Chester Alan Arthur III, sold his grandfather's papers to the Library of Congress. The last surviving letter is dated September 15, 1883.
John Sherman was an American politician from Ohio who served in federal office throughout the Civil War and into the late nineteenth century. A member of the Republican Party, he served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. He also served as Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of State. Sherman sought the Republican presidential nomination three times, coming closest in 1888, but was never chosen by the party.
The 1880 United States elections occurred during the Third Party System, and elected the members of the 47th United States Congress. Republicans retained the presidency and took control of the House. An unclear partisan situation prevailed in the Senate. As the first presidential election after the end of Reconstruction, this election saw the first occurrence of the Democratic Party sweeping the Southern United States; the party would carry an overwhelming majority of Southern states well into the 20th century.
The 1835 State of the Union Address was delivered by the 7th president of the United States, Andrew Jackson, on December 8, 1835, to the 24th United States Congress. This was Jackson's seventh annual message, and he used it to reflect on both domestic successes and challenges as his presidency neared its conclusion. He emphasized the nation's growing prosperity, highlighting the "unexampled growth and prosperity" of the United States, and stressed the importance of unity to avoid the internal conflicts that had disrupted other nations.
