James A. Garfield was shot and mortally wounded by an assassin named Charles Guiteau on July 2, 1881. President Garfield was the second of 4 presidents to be assassinated, and only 16 years after Lincoln was shot. James A. Garfield lived 80 more days, but was unable to govern and never made an annual address to the congress. He served about 4 months as president, and did not live to see his biggest achievement of civil service reform. In 1880, there were 100,000 federal employees and every one of them expected to be fired when a new president was elected. Garfield worked hard to reform civil service, and it was his assassination that became the impetus for this reform.
http://www.history.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment