There are almost 1,000 days from President’s Day to the next presidential election. But now it is impossible to escape the maneuvering, machinations and media reports of men and women so consumed with winning the highest office in the land that the lust for power almost leaks from their pores. For as long as most of us can remember, the obsessive pursuit of the presidency has been an indelible feature of American politics. Try to imagine a successful candidate for the White House who NO have that “fire in the belly”: a candidate ready to take the job if he applies for it, but not driven by such insatiable ambition that everything else pales in comparison. It would be easier to imagine a band of unicorns.
Yet America once had such a president. He was James A. Garfield of Ohio, an extraordinary person who rose from extreme poverty to become President of the United States without ever having advanced as a candidate for anything. It’s a shame Americans don’t know more about this talented yet humble leader, which they undoubtedly would have if he hadn’t been fatally shot by an assassin just four months after becoming president.
On the eve of Garfield’s inauguration as the 20thvol CEO, he told a group of venerable friends: “This honor fell to me uninvited. I never had presidential fever, not even for one day.”
It was true. At every stage of his political career, Garfield had to be persuaded to serve the good of the country. He was first elected to Congress during the Civil War in 1862, when he served on vigorous duty as a major general in the Union Army. Garfield, 31, a Republican and staunch abolitionist, “gets it[ed] almost twice as many votes as his opponent, although he did nothing to promote his candidacy,” writes Candice Millard in The fate of the Republicher story of Garfield’s choices and tragic death in 2011. He did not take a seat in Congress for another year – and only because President Lincoln pressed him to do so. “I resigned my position in the Army and took a seat in Congress,” Garfield wrote in a letter home. “I did it with regret… [b]but the president told me he dare not risk a single vote in the House.”
A competent legislator with a reputation as a conciliator, Garfield served nine terms in the House of Representatives before being elected to the United States Senate in 1880. It was as Ohio’s senator-elect that he came to the House of Representatives Republican National Convention in Chicago that June. He came to serve as floor manager for Treasury Secretary (and fellow Ohioan) John Sherman in what was expected to be a three-way fight for the Republican Party nomination. Other leading contenders were former President Ulysses S. Grant and U.S. Senator James G. Blaine of Maine.
But none of the three managed to get the 379 votes needed for the nomination. As the convention remained deadlocked on a vote-by-vote basis, some delegates began to put forward Garfield’s name as a compromise. In the 34th round, after a day and a half of voting, unexpectedly 17 votes were cast for Garfield. Bewildered, he stood up to protest, vehemently opposing any attempt to nominate him.
“The announcement contains votes for me,” said Garfield, who remained faithful to Sherman throughout the proceedings. “No person has the right, without the consent of the person voted for, to announce the name of that person and to vote for him in this convention. I did not give such consent…”
Before he could finish, the convention chairman—Massachusetts Senator George F. Hoar, who had privately hoped all along that the party would unite behind Garfield—unsettled him. The voting continued. On the 35th ballot, 50 votes were cast for Garfield. By December 36, when even Sherman lent support to his ally, it was all over. Garfield was nominated with 399 votes. As the gathering erupted in cheers and songs, a “shocked and disgusted” Garfield was surrounded by well-wishers. To one of the delegates’ congratulations, he replied: “I am very sorry that this became necessary.”
Five months later he was elected president. On March 4, 1881 he took an oathand delivered an inaugural speech in which he passionately emphasized the rights of liberated blacks. “Former slaves in the crowd were crying openly,” Millard recalled. Many more Americans cried six months later when Garfield died from the gunshot wound he received on July 2, 1881.
“I suppose I’m morbidly sensitive to any reference to my own achievements” – 20vol the president once admitted. “I despise a man who blows his own horn so much that I go to the other extreme.”
Few presidents were better suited for high office than this admirable man who never desired power. Would his likeness be in the mix in 2016.
