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The Demise of Patronage: Garfield, the Midterm Election, and the Passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Act Kevin A

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The Demise of Patronage: Garfield, the Midterm Election, and the Passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Act Kevin A Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2011 The Demise of Patronage: Garfield, the Midterm Election, and the Passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Act Kevin A. Uhler Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES THE DEMISE OF PATRONAGE: GARFIELD, THE MIDTERM ELECTION, AND THE PASSAGE OF THE PENDLETON CIVIL SERVICE ACT By KEVIN A. UHLER A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2011 Kevin A. Uhler defended this thesis on 26 October 2011. The members of the supervisory committee were: James P. Jones Professor Directing Thesis Jonathan Grant Committee Member Neil Jumonville Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii For my parents iii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... v List of Figures ................................................................................................................... vi Abstract .............................................................................................................................vii Preface ...............................................................................................................................ix Introduction .........................................................................................................................1 1. Incessant Gnawing ..........................................................................................................4 Patronage from 1828 to 1881 2. Prerequisite for a Federal Appointment: .......................................................................22 The Assassination of President Garfield 3. “The Cry of the People”: .............................................................................................. 49 Civil Service Reform and the Midterm Election of 1882 4. “Motives of Self-Defense or Self-Aggrandizement”: .................................................. 78 The Passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Act Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 94 A. Diagrams of Air Conditioning Schemes .................................................................... 101 B. Midterm Election of 1882 Selected Returns ............................................................. 105 C. The Pendleton Civil Service Act …........................................................................... 108 Bibliography …................................................................................................................113 Biographical Sketch …....................................................................................................121 iv LIST OF TABLES B.1. Ohio Returns for the House of Representatives ......................................................105 B.2. Massachusetts Returns for Gubernatorial Race ...................................................... 107 B.3. Pennsylvania Returns for Gubernatorial Race ........................................................107 B.4. New York Returns for Gubernatorial Race .............................................................107 v LIST OF FIGURES A.1. Diagram 1 ............................................................................................................... 101 A.2. Diagram 2 ............................................................................................................... 102 A.3. Diagram 3 ............................................................................................................... 103 A.4. Diagram 4 ............................................................................................................... 104 vi ABSTRACT This study explores the role of the assassination of President James Abram Garfield and the midterm election of 1882 in compelling the 47th Congress to pass the Pendleton Civil Service Act in January 1883. Relying on the manuscript collections of major Gilded Age political figures and contemporary newspapers/periodicals, this thesis showcases the rapid changes in public opinion regarding the civil service reform movement, specifically from the inauguration of President Garfield in 1881 to the passage of the Pendleton Act. During his few short months as president, Garfield, like most presidents of the late nineteenth century, became consumed with distributing the spoils to his supporters. Unfortunately, Garfield, a Republican, faced the growing divide of two factions in his party: the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds. Garfield's actions in the spring and early summer of 1881 demonstrated his alliance with the Half-Breeds, led by his Secretary of State, James G. Blaine, a group that opposed the Stalwarts, led by Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York. By early July 1881, Garfield defeated Conkling, who resigned from the Senate in protest; however, Garfield's short-lived victory ended when Charles Julius Guiteau, an assassin, shot the president in a Washington train depot on 2 July 1881. Garfield lingered along for almost three months, until his wounds finally overpowered him on 19 September 1881. During the eighty days that he struggled to survive, the public closely followed their chief executive's condition and frequently suggested various treatments to aid in Garfield's recovery. After Garfield's death, his vice-president, Chester Alan Arthur, assumed the presidency amidst the skepticism of many Republicans and reformers. Arthur, a longtime friend and crony of Senator Conkling, attempted to remain neutral during his first months in office, primarily in an effort to calm the public's tensions. As the summer of 1882 approached, the civil service reformers continued vii whipping up public outrage toward patronage. The political dealings of Representative Jay A. Hubbell of Michigan, who chaired a committee that asked for voluntary contributions from government employees, provided additional fuel for the public's anger. As the election season began late in the summer of 1882, widespread disapproval toward the spoils system began influencing the campaigns in many critical states. After the November elections, the majority in the House of Representatives shifted from the Republicans to the Democrats. Meeting in December 1882, the Republican-controlled 47th Congress began seriously considering legislation to reform the civil service before their terms expired. Senator George Hunt Pendleton of Ohio, who a year earlier introduced his bill to the Senate, once again put his measure on the floor. Over the course of two weeks, the Senate debated and amended various aspects of the bill, which they passed in late December. A few days later, in early January, the House passed the bill and sent it off to President Arthur. On 16 January 1883, Arthur signed the Pendleton Civil Service Act into law, the first major piece of civil service reform legislation. viii PREFACE A combination of unrelated factors in the spring semester of 2009 forms the foundation for this thesis. In January 2009, as an eager undergraduate history major, I entered my “U.S. Political History Since 1877” classroom, a course that has since defined me as a scholar. I quickly became fascinated with the powerful personalities of Gilded Age politicians and the rapid changes of party hegemony in Washington. Later that term, a trip to New York City's Birdland, a preeminent jazz club, reacquainted me with Pandora Radio, a service that tailors stations to its listeners musical interests. After shuffling through some stations on the musicians I heard at Birdland, Pandora eventually loaded “The Ballad of Guiteau,” a song that became a bedrock through the many months of research and writing. The ballad, a track from Stephen Sondheim's Assassins, a musical that explores the American dream from the vantage point of presidential assassins and would-be assassins, described Charles Julius Guiteau's final moments of life. This song, as well as the musical's other numbers, became an obsession for almost an entire year. One year after these odd, multifarious events, a link finally formed when I selected my research topic: the role of both the assassination of President Garfield and the midterm election of 1882 in the passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Act. The research I conducted over the past two years has not only reaffirmed my belief in the importance of political history, but strengthened it. Of all the eras in American history, the Gilded Age best demonstrates the necessity of this field. The continual changes in presidents (excluding President Woodrow Wilson, who remained gravely ill during most of his second term, no president served two complete consecutive terms from Ulysses S. Grant to Franklin Delano Roosevelt), the shifts in power between factions among both the Republicans and the Democrats, and the volatility in majorities in the House all contributed to political chaos in the 1870s through 1890s. Nevertheless, ix eligible American voters went to the polls to cast their ballots in huge numbers (upwards of seventy percent in some elections). Simply put, the Gilded Age, perhaps
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