Garfield’s Assassination
At the time of writing, the proportion of U.S. Presidents assassinated while in office stands at 9%, making it a reasonably dangerous office to hold with an almost 1 in 10 chance of a premature and violent death at the hands of some malcontent – not to mention the numerous failed attempts to decapitate the United States. Four out of 44: Abraham Lincoln (1865), James Garfield (1880), William McKinley (1901) and John F. Kennedy (1863) have all fallen to a gunman’s bullet. The reasons for these murders vary and all have a political root – and in John F. Kennedy’s case are shrouded in controversy – but the reasons have never been stated in the form of poetry as put down by Charles Guiteau, the man who shot James Garfield dead.
The poem Guiteau wrote in his Washington prison as he awaited his execution quite clearly identifies him as insane – a charge he rejects in the text incidentally. Guiteau claims to be doing God’s will, citing the Bible as an example of where kings and leaders are struck down. For him, Garfield is another of these fallen leaders and Guiteau explains how he did the deed in order to save the country. Most extraordinarily, he claims that under the influence of the Secretary of State, James Blaine, Garfield was leading the United States into a possible war with Chile and Peru.
Guiteau had a strange and difficult journey through life, having spent time with several religious groups and failed at school. Somehow though he managed to get a license to practice as an attorney before taking a keen interest in the presidential race of 1880. He wrote a speech and was convinced that it had led to the triumph of Garfield and smoothed his way to office. As a result, he felt that he should be rewarded with an ambassadorship and to this end, hung around Washington trying to convince Garfield and the Secretary of State, James Blaine, to offer him such a position. Guiteau was not successful in his petitions despite managing to ask the president and Secretary of State face to face a number of times. Growing increasingly resentful, Guiteau planned to murder Garfield and bought the best-looking revolver he could afford with one eye on posterity, believing that the gun would one day display in a museum. In July 1881, he managed to shoot Garfield twice in the back at the Baltimore and Potomac Station. Guiteau made no attempt to resist arrest and Garfield succumbed to his wounds weeks later.
Guiteau’s trial was a sensation – his defense claiming he was insane but he was eventually sentenced to death. Guiteau loved the attention his notoriety brought and it was in jail he wrote this poem to use in his appeal.
One interesting notion that this murder raises is that the presidents of the United States for the time spanning the end of the Civil War till the turn of the century are considered un-noteworthy and, in some ways, it seems Garfield is spared this non-entity status by his assassination.
The poem Guiteau wrote in his Washington prison as he awaited his execution quite clearly identifies him as insane – a charge he rejects in the text incidentally. Guiteau claims to be doing God’s will, citing the Bible as an example of where kings and leaders are struck down. For him, Garfield is another of these fallen leaders and Guiteau explains how he did the deed in order to save the country. Most extraordinarily, he claims that under the influence of the Secretary of State, James Blaine, Garfield was leading the United States into a possible war with Chile and Peru.
Guiteau had a strange and difficult journey through life, having spent time with several religious groups and failed at school. Somehow though he managed to get a license to practice as an attorney before taking a keen interest in the presidential race of 1880. He wrote a speech and was convinced that it had led to the triumph of Garfield and smoothed his way to office. As a result, he felt that he should be rewarded with an ambassadorship and to this end, hung around Washington trying to convince Garfield and the Secretary of State, James Blaine, to offer him such a position. Guiteau was not successful in his petitions despite managing to ask the president and Secretary of State face to face a number of times. Growing increasingly resentful, Guiteau planned to murder Garfield and bought the best-looking revolver he could afford with one eye on posterity, believing that the gun would one day display in a museum. In July 1881, he managed to shoot Garfield twice in the back at the Baltimore and Potomac Station. Guiteau made no attempt to resist arrest and Garfield succumbed to his wounds weeks later.
Guiteau’s trial was a sensation – his defense claiming he was insane but he was eventually sentenced to death. Guiteau loved the attention his notoriety brought and it was in jail he wrote this poem to use in his appeal.
One interesting notion that this murder raises is that the presidents of the United States for the time spanning the end of the Civil War till the turn of the century are considered un-noteworthy and, in some ways, it seems Garfield is spared this non-entity status by his assassination.