One of these, a
rattle-brained New Yorker named Charles J. Guiteau, approached the
President on July 2, 1881, as he was waiting at a railroad station in
Washington, about to start on a journey, and shot him through the body.
Death followed, after a painful struggle, two months later.
Obscure, in a sense, as Garfield had been, the man who succeeded him was
immeasurably more so. Chester Alan Arthur was a successful New York
lawyer, who had dabbled in politics and held some minor appointive
offices, his selection as Vice-President being due to the desire of the
Republican managers to throw a sop to the Empire State. His
administration, however, while marked by no great or stirring event, was
for the most part wise and conservative, but James G. Blaine had by this
time secured complete control of the party, and Arthur had no chance for
the nomination for President. He died of apoplexy within two years of
his retirement.
* * * * *
The Republican party had been supreme in the national government for a
quarter of a century, and there seemed no reason to doubt that Blaine,
its candidate in the campaign of 1884, would at last realize his
consuming ambition to be elected President. He had an immense personal
prestige, he had outlived the taint of corruption attached to him during
the administration of Grant, and he had for years been preparing and
strengthening himself for this contest.
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