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James Garfield Presidential $1 Coin — 20th President, March 4, 1881 – September 19, 1881
• Born: 19 November 1831
• Birthplace: Cuyahoga County, Ohio
• Died: 19 September 1881 (assassination)
• Best Known As: President of the United
States, March-September 1881
James Garfield was the last President born in a log cabin. He was born in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, in 1831. He later graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts and returned to the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (later Hiram College) in Ohio as a classic’s professor and then its president. He was elected to the Ohio state senate in 1859. In 1862, he was elected to Congress and served 18 years. His Presidency was impactful, but cut short after 200 days when he was assassinated.
He is remembered for combatting corruption and reasserting the power of the President, which comes from the people, over cronyism and nepotism. Historical records may not have documented clearly whether President Garfield loved lasagna or if he hated Mondays, but they are clear that President Garfield worked for the American people, not the financial interests of the richest Americans.
After Abraham Lincoln's election as president, several Southern states announced their secession from the Union to form a new government, the Confederate States of America. Garfield read military texts while anxiously awaiting the war effort, which he regarded as a holy crusade against the Slave Power. In April 1861, the rebels bombarded Fort Sumter, one of the South's last federal outposts, beginning the Civil War. Although he had no military training, Garfield knew his place was in the Union Army.
In 1862, when Union military victories had been few, he successfully led a brigade at Middle Creek, Kentucky, against Confederate troops. At 31, Garfield became a brigadier general, two years later a major general of volunteers.
At the 1880 Republican National Convention, delegates chose Garfield, who had not sought the White House, as a compromise presidential nominee on the 36th ballot. In the 1880 presidential election, he conducted a low-key front porch campaign and narrowly defeated Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock. Garfield's accomplishments as president included a resurgence of presidential authority against senatorial courtesy in executive appointments, purging corruption in the Post Office, and appointing a Supreme Court justice. He enhanced the powers of the presidency when he defied the powerful New York senator Roscoe Conkling by appointing William H. Robertson to the lucrative post of Collector of the Port of New York, starting a fracas that ended with Robertson's confirmation and Conkling's resignation from the Senate. Garfield advocated agricultural technology, an educated electorate, and civil rights for African Americans. He also proposed substantial civil service reforms, which were passed by Congress in 1883 and signed into law by his successor, Chester A. Arthur, as the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act.
President Garfield’s importance to the American system of governance and the American meritocratic system cannot be understated, even if his tenure as President was brief.
On July 2, 1881, Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed and delusional office seeker, who was enraged when he did not get a government job he felt entitled to, which helped bring about the Pendleton Act, moving American politics from a spoils system to a meritocratic system, assassinated Garfield at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington. The wound was not immediately fatal, but he died on September 19, 1881, from infections caused by his doctors. Guiteau was executed in June 1882.
Secretary of the Treasury appointed by President Garfield:
• No Secretary of the Treasury was appointed during President Garfield’s term.
Mint Directors appointed under President Garfield:
• William Windom (Minnesota) – March 8, 1881 – November 13, 1881
Coinage legislation under President Garfield:
• No coinage legislation was enacted during President Garfield’s term