Immersed in the historical documents of the Library of Congress, C.W. Goodyear found himself scouring through articles, notes, correspondences, and other works during his research on the Reconstruction Era and the Gilded Age. The young historian was searching for his subject among this endless treasure trove, though he wasn’t precisely certain about whom or on what he would be writing.
“It is easy to get lost in the Library of Congress,” Goodyear joked.
A Most Impressive Man
Goodyear noted that Garfield has not received his just due from historians. He gauged how most historians who mention the former president, do so in a “very abbreviated way” and always centered around his assassination.
But Goodyear’s research convinced him of something that arguably has rarely, if ever, been discussed in historical circles, much less common conversation. “I pieced together what I found to be maybe the most impressive political rise to power, certainly in the 19th century in American history, and maybe in all of American history,” he stated.
Goodyear’s claim is certainly up for debate. But the list of other presidents competing for that title is actually quite short: Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. The claim, however, is true enough. Through the historian’s meticulous research and masterful writing, he produced an incredibly fine biography of Garfield, which received high praise from prominent historians Walter Isaacson and James McPherson.
The Similarities Between Lincoln and Garfield
When comparing Garfield and Lincoln, the similarities are astounding. Goodyear noted that both had a “log cabin story,” having grown up poor. “They both had very appealing blue-collar jobs, which were helpful for their presidential campaigns,” he explained. “Lincoln was the rail splitter. Garfield was known as the canal boy. He had worked on the Ohio and Erie Canal for a summer growing up. The amount of political energy that came out of this, you would think he had worked it for years, but it was only for a couple of months.”
The two men possessed a love of Biblical scripture and an infatuation with the works of William Shakespeare. Goodyear’s research led him to Garfield’s diaries, and he quickly noticed that Garfield began each day’s entry with a Shakespearean quote. It’s an element the author used throughout his biography.
Along with his personal writings, Goodyear read through Garfield’s public writings, which were plenteous. He wrote regularly for both The Atlantic and the North American Review. He was also, like Lincoln, a lawyer.
“He was a practicing Supreme Court attorney, while serving in Congress,” he added. “Then after the Supreme Court career, he wrote an original proof of the Pythagorean theorem. There’s a famous anecdote of him writing Latin and Greek simultaneously in each hand—left hand Latin, right hand Greek. Again, this was a man who was raised by a single mother in a log cabin in rural Ohio.
The Political Similarities
Additionally, Garfield was not only a good writer, but he was a good teacher and speaker, garnering immense practice as both a schoolmaster and a preacher in the Western Reserve in Ohio. As Goodyear relayed, “His political career began in large part because of his religious one.”
His political career in Washington nearly spanned 20 years and would have undoubtedly surpassed that mark had an assassin not ended his life. Garfield served in the House of Representatives from 1863 to 1880, chairing numerous House committees, and ultimately becoming minority leader.
Garfield’s Political Evolution
As Lincoln was both president and commander-in-chief, Garfield technically served under him when he fought with the Union Army. According to Goodyear, he joined the army as a Radical Republican, with the hopes of liberating the slaves and punishing the secessionists. He found military success during the war, and, by the time he became a congressman halfway through the war, he was the youngest brigadier general in the Union Army. As the years progressed, and the war years ended, Garfield began a long political evolution.
He had begun with a “fire and blood” mentality toward the Confederates during the war and then slowly adopted a more conciliatory tone. His early political goals were to “abolish slavery and institute full equality among the races … [and] redistribute Southern plantation land to the formerly enslaved and, what he called, ‘loyal whites.’” The views were indeed radical.
The Reluctant Candidate
Nonetheless, after the presidencies of Johnson, Grant, and Hayes, the Republican Party looked to him to lead. It was an unexpected moment that Garfield both hoped for and feared. During the 1880 Republican convention, 30 ballots had been cast without a clear winner. It was during this moment, Goodyear explained, that delegates began voting for Garfield. The moment caused the veteran congressman to blanche. He had reason to fear.“His political career was so long that he ended up seeing a lot of his friends run for the presidency, and it kind of ruined them,” Goodyear said. “In Garfield’s mind, they killed what made them great statesmen in the first place. It happened so often [that] he called it the ‘Presidential fever.’ He wrote that it was one of the most deadly illnesses in Washington. He said he would never succumb to the ‘Presidential fever.’”
Garfield had a fear of being perceived as ambitious by the American public, and he worked to appear ambivalent about powerful opportunities. But this didn’t change the fact that he was an ambitious man. Goodyear noted that perceived ambivalence was a common American political tradition, but added that Garfield seemed “pathologically obsessed” with it.
“There is so much that his life tells us about the nature of politics in general, and about political animals and how they think and their contradictions,” he said.
‘A Marvelous Witness’
Sadly, Garfield is most known for his tragic end. He was shot on July 2, 1881 and died from an ensuing massive infection on Sept. 19.
The author’s two claims of “the most impressive political rise to power” and “the most intellectual man to be president,” sound historically discordant. But this is most certainly for one specific reason: Garfield is a man we do not know. Compared to the likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy, and even the middle-tier presidential celebrities like John Adams, James Madison, Jackson, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan, the 20th president, whose tenure lasted only a few months, has slipped past the American consciousness. He is a stranger, who no doubt needs an introduction.
“He had one of the most long-lived political careers on the national stage of anybody in that period. By virtue of his mind, his personality, and his writing, he was such a marvelous witness to his time. A time that seems so relevant to our own,” Goodyear said.
In the archives of the Library of Congress, Goodyear stumbled upon his subject. It’s a life that Americans would do well to no longer stumble across but to know intimately. It’s a life that speaks to the power of will, intellect, duty, and love of country. It’s a tale of an impoverished boy who dedicated himself to education and, reluctantly, to become the country’s most powerful person. And considering how Garfield’s story ends, as Goodyear eloquently notes, “Poets couldn’t have written it better.”
