Garfield Assassination Causes Creation of Civil Service System

Today marks the anniversary of the assassination of President James Abram Garfield in 1881, an act which led directly to the passage of the Pendleton Act of 1883, which created the United states Civil Service System. Equally historic as the murder of Garfield was, the creation of the Civil Service System has had a far greater affect on the lives of ordinary Americans.

President Garfield was at the railway station in Washington, D.C. (not Union Station, which did not open until 1907), fix to take a brief trip back to his abode state of Ohio, when his assassin, Charles Guiteau, shot him from backside. Garfield did not die immediately, but lingered for xi weeks, during which fourth dimension multiple doctors worked to find the bullet, which had lodged in his dorsum.

Medical hygiene was not well understood at the fourth dimension, and Garfield adult an infection that finally killed him. Vice President Chester Alan Arthur succeeded Garfield in the presidency earlier Garfield died, merely could have no action as president every bit the Constitution did non provide for what to do when a president is still living, but is incapacitated. The situation with Garfield, and the later disabling stroke suffered by President Woodrow Wilson, were both cited during the discussions of the 25th Amendment, which details what to do in a situation of presidential incapacity.

The 25thursday Subpoena would not be adopted until almost a century later, in the aftermath of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Since Kennedy lived for well-nigh half an hour after a bullet had destroyed much of his brain, the specter was raised of what would have been done had Kennedy lived, but in a vegetative state?

Another — more than immediate — impact of the Garfield bump-off was that information technology led to the cosmos of the U.S. Civil Service System. This replaced the so-called "spoils system" in which all employees of the U.Due south. government were appointed past, and served at the pleasure of, the president of the United States.

Garfield's assassin, Charles Guiteau, has been written off by most historians as a deranged lone gunman (just similar Lee Harvey Oswald, who killed J.F.Grand., and like most assassins of powerful political personalities), angry that Garfield had not named him ambassador to French republic. For at to the lowest degree a decade, there had been a push button from "reformers" to replace the spoils organisation with a system in which government employees would be selected not for their political party, but rather on merit.

President Rutherford Hayes, elected in 1876 on the Republican ticket, was an abet of a merit-based organization, but was opposed by the "Stalwart" Republicans, led past Senator Roscoe Conkling, and no beak could laissez passer Congress. Hayes issued an executive gild that no employee of the federal government could be forced to make campaign contributions, or even participate in the election process.

At the time, the main source of revenue for the federal government was the tariff — taxes on incoming foreign goods — and this required the employment of many federal workers to collect the tariff. The Port of New York was an important point of entry of foreign goods into the country and the Collector of the Port, Chester Arthur, a protégé of Conkling, refused to obey the president'southward order, leading to his eventual dismissal. Congress, nevertheless, refused to adopt any ceremonious service system, as Hayes requested.

With the Republicans in control of the Congress, Democrats seized upon ceremonious-service reform as an issue, with Democratic Senator George Pendleton of Ohio introducing a bill to create a civil service system, with merit examinations.

The next president was too a Republican — James Garfield. The Republicans picked Arthur — the human being Hayes had fired at the New York Port — as Garfield's running mate. Arthur became an unlikely abet of civil service reform after Garfield's bump-off, as advocates used the tragedy to advance the Pendleton Deed, which finally passed in 1883, by big margins of 38-5 in the Senate and 155-47 in the House of Representatives. At get-go, only about x percent of federal jobs were covered by the police force, but more and more than federal employees have fallen under its requirements since its passage.

At start glance it might appear logical that the regime should hire its employees based on merit, rather than on politics. After all, what departure does it brand whether a letter of the alphabet carrier is a Democrat or a Republican?

Simply the negatives of the creation of the civil service system are not as well understood. Prior to its passage, voters could throw out the employees of the incumbent political party, if the bureaucracy was not responsive. Indeed, the civil service system is largely responsible for the ascent of the modern bureaucratic country in which federal workers feel no need to answer to the citizens of the state. On the contrary, they have become the permanent government of the country, with many assertive that while presidents come up and go, they remain. These faceless and unelected bureaucrats make administrative rules that take the aforementioned effect as laws that affect the lives of millions of Americans, whom they frequently consider themselves the masters of rather than the servants of. They truly contain the Fourth Co-operative of the Federal Government, a situation which no doubt would take repulsed the Founding Fathers.

Earlier the creation of the civil service system, campaign funds came from federal workers, who had a vested interest in their party winning the ballot, or alternatively, from those in the other party who wanted federal jobs. Today, wealthy donors take replaced these workers. Information technology is difficult to see how this is a better situation.

At the fourth dimension of the passage of the Pendleton Act, the federal government was quite small, and its powers were much more restricted. Today, with the explosion of areas in which the federal government tin can meddle in our affairs, an ground forces of federal bureaucrats are needed to put all of these regulations into place.

Maybe America would accept gotten a bloated ceremonious service system anyway. It was maybe the kickoff of the "progressive causes" that expanded the scope and size of the federal government, although information technology is not often thought of as part of the Progressive Era itself. Just Charles Guiteau'southward bullet not only killed a president — it also dealt a death blow to much of denizen control of its own government.

Steve Byas is a higher history instructor, and author of History's Greatest Libels. He may exist contacted at byassteve@yahoo.com