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Author: Justus D. Doenecke Publisher: University Press of Kansas ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 252
Book Description
This is the first single volume to focus on the presidencies of both James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. Drawing from a host of studies on the foreign and domestic policies of the nation during the Gilded Age, as well as from his own primary research, the author presents a somewhat revisionist look at Garfield and Arthur—revisionist in that he gives the reader a renewed appreciation of both men. Far from being cynical spoilsmen or naive incompetents, individuals whose presidencies provide studies in ineptitude, Garfield and Arthur emerge as men of considerable ability. While making no claims of greatness, Doenecke maintains that each was a significant transitional figure, playing a crucial role as the institution of the presidency moved from the weak leadership of Andrew Johnson to the forceful direction of Theodore Roosevelt. According to Doenecke, Garfield saw the office of chief executive primarily in administrative terms, and his great battle was over keeping the power of appointment in his own hands. His victory over the Stalwarts enhanced both the power and prestige of the office. His knowledge of how government worked was unmatched; long before Woodrow Wilson made his mark, Garfield was "the scholar in politics." The diplomacy of Secretary of State James G. Blaine comes under critical scrutiny. Doenecke evaluates his performance in the Chile-Peru War (War of the Pacific), the Guatemala-Mexico dispute, the isthmian-canal issue, Irish-American activities in Britain, and efforts to secure markets in Korea. ,br>Garfield was assassinated less than six months after he entered office; he had yet to be tested on major issues of public policy. Chester A. Arthur was ill prepared to be chief executive, was in poor health much of the time while he was in office, and was faced with a hopelessly divided party. Nevertheless, he was one of the nation's great political surprises. His administration pioneered in the development of the navy, sought foreign markets for American surpluses, fostered civil-service reform, and pressed for a scientific tariff. Doenecke devotes one chapter to the spoils system and the background to the Pendleton Act, one to Arthur's strategy regarding the South, and then offers an in-depth analysis of diplomacy during Arthur's tenure. During the presidencies of Garfield and Arthur, the United States attempted to intervene in a war between Chile and Peru, sought to turn Nicaragua into a protectorate, supplied leading advisers to Madagascar and Korea, and took a major part in the Congo conference of 1884. In examining these activities, even while pointing to uncoordinated statecraft and inept diplomacy, Doenecke challenges the long-held view that, from 1881 to 1885, the nation was withdrawn and insular. His fresh perspective on the Garfield and Arthur years will be of considerable interest to historians of the Gilded Age.
Author: Justus D. Doenecke Publisher: University Press of Kansas ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 252
Book Description
This is the first single volume to focus on the presidencies of both James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. Drawing from a host of studies on the foreign and domestic policies of the nation during the Gilded Age, as well as from his own primary research, the author presents a somewhat revisionist look at Garfield and Arthur—revisionist in that he gives the reader a renewed appreciation of both men. Far from being cynical spoilsmen or naive incompetents, individuals whose presidencies provide studies in ineptitude, Garfield and Arthur emerge as men of considerable ability. While making no claims of greatness, Doenecke maintains that each was a significant transitional figure, playing a crucial role as the institution of the presidency moved from the weak leadership of Andrew Johnson to the forceful direction of Theodore Roosevelt. According to Doenecke, Garfield saw the office of chief executive primarily in administrative terms, and his great battle was over keeping the power of appointment in his own hands. His victory over the Stalwarts enhanced both the power and prestige of the office. His knowledge of how government worked was unmatched; long before Woodrow Wilson made his mark, Garfield was "the scholar in politics." The diplomacy of Secretary of State James G. Blaine comes under critical scrutiny. Doenecke evaluates his performance in the Chile-Peru War (War of the Pacific), the Guatemala-Mexico dispute, the isthmian-canal issue, Irish-American activities in Britain, and efforts to secure markets in Korea. ,br>Garfield was assassinated less than six months after he entered office; he had yet to be tested on major issues of public policy. Chester A. Arthur was ill prepared to be chief executive, was in poor health much of the time while he was in office, and was faced with a hopelessly divided party. Nevertheless, he was one of the nation's great political surprises. His administration pioneered in the development of the navy, sought foreign markets for American surpluses, fostered civil-service reform, and pressed for a scientific tariff. Doenecke devotes one chapter to the spoils system and the background to the Pendleton Act, one to Arthur's strategy regarding the South, and then offers an in-depth analysis of diplomacy during Arthur's tenure. During the presidencies of Garfield and Arthur, the United States attempted to intervene in a war between Chile and Peru, sought to turn Nicaragua into a protectorate, supplied leading advisers to Madagascar and Korea, and took a major part in the Congo conference of 1884. In examining these activities, even while pointing to uncoordinated statecraft and inept diplomacy, Doenecke challenges the long-held view that, from 1881 to 1885, the nation was withdrawn and insular. His fresh perspective on the Garfield and Arthur years will be of considerable interest to historians of the Gilded Age.
Author: Scott S. Greenberger Publisher: Da Capo Press ISBN: 9780306922701 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
When President James Garfield was shot in 1881, nobody expected Vice President Chester A. Arthur to become a strong and effective president, a courageous anti-corruption reformer, and an early civil rights advocate. Despite his promising start as a young man, by his early fifties Chester A. Arthur was known as the crooked crony of New York machine boss Roscoe Conkling. For years Arthur had been perceived as unfit to govern, not only by critics and the vast majority of his fellow citizens but by his own conscience. As President James A. Garfield struggled for his life, Arthur knew better than his detractors that he failed to meet the high standard a president must uphold. And yet, from the moment President Arthur took office, he proved to be not just honest but brave, going up against the very forces that had controlled him for decades. He surprised everyone--and gained many enemies--when he swept house and took on corruption, civil rights for blacks, and issues of land for Native Americans. A mysterious young woman deserves much of the credit for Arthur's remarkable transformation. Julia Sand, a bedridden New Yorker, wrote Arthur nearly two dozen letters urging him to put country over party, to find "the spark of true nobility" that lay within him. At a time when women were barred from political life, Sand's letters inspired Arthur to transcend his checkered past--and changed the course of American history. This beautifully written biography tells the dramatic, untold story of a virtually forgotten American president. It is the tale of a machine politician and man-about-town in Gilded Age New York who stumbled into the highest office in the land, only to rediscover his better self when his nation needed him.
Author: Ira Rutkow Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 1466827920 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 210
Book Description
The ambitious self-made man who reached the pinnacle of American politics—only to be felled by an assassin's bullet and to die at the hands of his doctors James A. Garfield was one of the Republican Party's leading lights in the years following the Civil War. Born in a log cabin, he rose to become a college president, Union Army general, and congressman—all by the age of thirty-two. Embodying the strive-and-succeed spirit that captured the imagination of Americans in his time, he was elected president in 1880. It is no surprise that one of his biographers was Horatio Alger. Garfield's term in office, however, was cut tragically short. Just four months into his presidency, a would-be assassin approached Garfield at the Washington, D.C., railroad station and fired a single shot into his back. Garfield's bad luck was to have his fate placed in the care of arrogant physicians who did not accept the new theory of antisepsis. Probing the wound with unwashed and occasionally manure-laden hands, Garfield's doctors introduced terrible infections and brought about his death two months later. Ira Rutkow, a surgeon and historian, offers an insightful portrait of Garfield and an unsparing narrative of the medical crisis that defined and destroyed his presidency. For all his youthful ambition, the only mark Garfield would make on the office would be one of wasted promise.
Author: Candice Millard Publisher: Anchor ISBN: 0385535007 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 340
Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The extraordinary account of James Garfield's rise from poverty to the American presidency, and the dramatic history of his assassination and legacy, from the bestselling author of The River of Doubt. "Crisp, concise and revealing history.... A fresh narrative that plumbs some of the most dramatic days in U.S. presidential history." —The Washington Post James Abram Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, a renowned congressman, and a reluctant presidential candidate who took on the nation's corrupt political establishment. But four months after Garfield's inauguration in 1881, he was shot in the back by a deranged office-seeker named Charles Guiteau. Garfield survived the attack, but become the object of bitter, behind-the-scenes struggles for power—over his administration, over the nation's future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic brings alive a forgotten chapter of U.S. history. Look for Candice Millard’s latest book, River of the Gods.
Author: Kenneth D. Ackerman Publisher: Da Capo Press ISBN: 9780786713967 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 551
Book Description
A close-up look at post-Civil War American politics describes the narrow election of President James A. Garfield, his murder by assassin Charles Guiteau, and the machinations of the political power-brokers of the era. Reprint.
Author: David Jenkins Nevin Publisher: Forgotten Books ISBN: 9781333395223 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 134
Book Description
Excerpt from Biographical Sketches of Gen'l James A. Garfield and Gen'l Chester An; Arthur, Republican Nominees for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency of the United States The General says that two reasons were instrumental in caus ing him to abandon the canal. One was his mother, and the other was the ague cake in his side. He had worked but a short time when he began to feel the ague in his system, and it finally assumed a very serious form. His money fell into the water, and diving after it, the thorough wetting which followed increased his disease. The next day's warm sun dried his clothes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Author: Steven Otfinoski Publisher: Marshall Cavendish ISBN: 9780761446699 Category : Juvenile Nonfiction Languages : en Pages : 120
Book Description
Examines the life and times of Chester Arthur, placing this president within his historical and cultural context, while at the same time focusing on the major events that occurred during each his administration.
Author: Zachary Karabell Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 1466834625 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 190
Book Description
The Gilded Age bon vivant who became America's unlikeliest chief executive-and who presided over a sweeping reform of the system that nurtured him Chester Alan Arthur never dreamed that one day he would be president of the United States. A successful lawyer, Arthur had been forced out as the head of the Custom House of the Port of New York in 1877 in a power struggle between the two wings of the Republican Party. He became such a celebrity that he was nominated for vice president in 1880-despite his never having run for office before. Elected alongside James A. Garfield, Arthur found his life transformed just four months into his term, when an assassin shot and killed Garfield, catapulting Arthur into the presidency. The assassin was a deranged man who thought he deserved a federal job through the increasingly corrupt "spoils system." To the surprise of many, Arthur, a longtime beneficiary of that system, saw that the time had come for reform. His opportunity came in the winter of 1882-83, when he pushed through the Pendleton Act, which created a professional civil service and set America on a course toward greater reforms in the decades to come. Chester Arthur may be largely forgotten today, but Zachary Karabell eloquently shows how this unexpected president-of whom so little was expected-rose to the occasion when fate placed him in the White House. "By exploring the Gilded Age's parallels with our own divisive political scene, Karabell does an excellent job of cementing the volume's relevance for contemporary readers. " - Publishers Weekly