James Garfield, the twentieth president of the United States, had only 100 days in office because of a mentally disturbed lawyer by the name of Charles Julius Guiteau, but the bullet was not what killed him. For 80 days Garfield was dying an agonizing death because the doctors did not clean their hands and was then given many infections that would lead to his death on September 19, 1881. But what did Garfield do in his 100 days of office and what was his life like before his unfortunate death in 1881? James Garfield was born on November 19, 1831, in a log cabin located in Orange Township, Ohio, but is now known as Moreland Hills, Ohio(James A. Garfield). At the age of two, Garfield’s parents joined the Church of Christ, and that same year his father, Abram Garfield, died and was taken in and cared for by his mother, Eliza Garfield. Eliza remarried a few years later but …show more content…
He “nominated William Windom of Minnesota as Secretary of the Treasury, William H. Hunt of Louisiana as Secretary of the Navy, Robert Todd Lincoln as Secretary of War, and Samuel J. Kirkwood of Iowa as Secretary of the Interior. At his inaugural address, he discussed the need for education, denunciation of Mormon polygamy, and the need of civil rights for African-Americans(James A. Garfield). The speech was not very good ,though, because he was distracted with creating his cabinet.
Garfield was only a president for 100 days because he was assassinated, but he did do some things. One such thing was the Star Route Scandal, which was an investigation into mail route contracts that “were being awarded fraudulently with tax money lining the pockets of those involved”(James Garfield - Twentieth President of the United States). What made this so important was that once Garfield realized that members of the Republican Party were involved in the scandal, he pushed the investigation forward, and in the end resulted in civil service