Garfield is one of the most intelligent president s we have ever had. He is up there in the top half dozen and when we go through his life, by the end of the middle of it, and youre going to say no, that cant be. He cant be that good in that field. Its just not possible, and then well find something else, and youre going to no. He is just incredibly bright, and the hope for his presidency was enormous, and were going to discuss an absolutely brilliant human being. I was chatting with a friend before, and he asked me if i thought garfield was the most intelligent. I dont know how you test Something Like that, and its not as if you give president s iq tests. Its a lot easier with things that are easy to measure, tall ask short. We all know that madison was our shortest president , lincoln was our tallest president because thats easy. I dont know how you know who the most intelligent. Certainly the two adams, jefferson, madison and Lincoln Garfield is right up there. So one of the reasons its so exciting is because of who he and was how he changed america. Last week when we discussed lincoln we were discussing had lincoln not been shot how america would have been different. Would the south be so far behind the rest of the country even today in education and health care and so many other areas . Would africanamericans had suffered for over a hundred years the way they did had lincoln been in charge of reconstruction instead of Andrew Jackson and the south that didnt really care about the africanamericans. So one of the reasons today that is so interesting is the brilliance of garfield and the second is, the other main character in our story, charles getault and it shows the failure of the Mental Health system in the country then and today. There is no doubt in my mind that charles gito was mentally ill and it was not treated properly then even though they knew as well discuss, for example. They told his father he needs to be institutionalized. Hes nuts and the father agreed and then they said that putting people in sanitariums they have to pay and the father said i cant pay so they didnt institutionalize him. The contrast between garfield and his assassin is so astounding. Last week a gentleman came up to me and asked me to recommend a book at each of the subsequent talks. I didnt do that last week, my failure and so i was asked when he said that, i thought that was a very good idea and obviously, when you prepare talks like this, i used lots and lots and lots of sources, secondary books and primary sources and a lot of the primary sources are now available on the internet so you can read the letters of garfield and the diaries and it is quite easy to get primary sources now. I used a lot of different sources, but if i have to recommend one book i will do that for garfield, mckinley and kennedy. In the case of garfield, a book called destiny of the republic, a tale of madness, medicine and a murder of a president by candace melard. Its a wonderful read. She is an excellent writer and if i were to read one book on this topic it would be this. I use it, but i used a lot of other its as well and that would be one book. Theres no assignment and a couple of members of my book club are here today and were not going to discuss it, but it would be the one book to take a look at. I remember the year, with thenthen thencongressman Dick Gephardt who was running for president. I knew dick quite well. We were good friends and i was chatting with him and i asked him, do you know the last member of the house who was elected from the house to become president . And he said no, and i said let me give you a hint. Do you know who the only member of the house who was elected straight from the house to be president . And he still said no, and i said garfield, and he said they shot him. I said, well youre running for the job. Im not. But garfield, as well see in a brief period was president elect, senator elect from ohio and sitting congress man all at the same time. Fascinating, fascinating guy. At the time he was elected president , he was by far the youngest president wed had in American History to that date. Only two american president s in our history died before reaching the age of 50, kennedy and garfield. Obviously both for sad reasons, but hes the only house member, and im trying to think quickly. On the democratic side, no one from the house is running and on the republican side no one either that im aware of, and its not a jumping stoner or a steppingstone for the presidency and it occasionally happens that a house member tries to run for president , but not that often. Even senators in the 20th century, only two senators went straight from the senate to the white house, harding and kennedy. Obviously, obama did, and this time cruz, rubio and rand paul so the three senators are trying to move from the senate, but not that often from the house. Vice president s, not that many either, only three that i can think of went straight from the vice press denidency, jefferson bush, van buren, and on to garfield. Gar fe garfield was born in 1831 by the time he was elected in 1831. We should put him up there. He served nine consecutive terms in the house and his presidency lasted only 200 days. He was inaugurated in march. He was shot on july 2nd and he died in september. He lingered and well talk a little bit about his medical care and what happened to him. Garfield, James Garfield was the youngest of five children. He was born in absolute, extreme poverty. This is a recreation of his house in ohio and his family lived in a log cabin and they were so poor that they couldnt afford to put down a log floor. So it was a dirt log cabin. His father, abraham died when garfield was 18 months old leaving his mother to raise five children on her own. So its a single mom with five kids and no money. Garfield, the family was so poor he did not have his first pair of shoes until after he was 4 years old. Later on, when people admired how he rose from total poverty to becoming president of the United States, he didnt roamant size this at all and said let us praise poverty as a means of raising children, but you do need to really have a sense of awe about his mother eliza to be able to pull this off, to go from such poverty and again, ill keep stressing that to get his son into the white house, and he moves into the white house with him. She later claims, she thought and im not sure if she was right or wrong, she claims to have been into the first president s mother to move into the white house to take care of the kids. A remarkable woman herself. She was fiercely proud that she never accepted aid from anyone. They worked hard and from her, they gained a sense of love of learning, of education and that defines his life. He, more than anything else, schooling, education for himself and when hes president for the country is a key to understanding him. When his brother, his oldest brother thomas was 11, thomas left home to work on other peoples farms to help raise money and he would send the money back to or give the money back to mom. When james turned 11 he said its time for me to do the same thing, if thomas leaves home at 11 to work on farms, i will, and mom said no. She realized there was something very, very special about this kid and she said woyoure stayi in school. Well support you and youre staying in school. It shapes his mind and it shapes his attitude and creates opportunities that otherwise never would have existed. Garfields parents were both members of the church of christ. He was never particularly religious growing up and then at age 19, he decided to go to church and his speaking skills were so good on his first day in churc church, he asked, the pastor said would you like to say a few words and he was so remarkable that you need to go and travel around to other churches and give sermons, and people who heard him preach said that if he decided to make his career in the ministry, he would have been one of the leading clergymen. If hed gone to the church he would have been the best in the country. And he resigns when he becomes president and in his statement he said i resign the highest office in the land to become president of the United States. Garfield at age 16, his rival most took a major change pf all of a sudden, he decided enough with school, i want to go and i want to have a life on sea which was interesting because he couldnt swim and no one knew why he did this, and so he was living hundreds of miles away from the ocean, so the closest he could find was to get work on the canals, on the ohio and erie canal. So at age 16 he drops out of school. Mom is totally devastated. He later said i broke my mothers heart as she feared this would end her high hopes for me. And he takes a job working on a canal boat and unfortunately, a few days after hes on the boat, on the canal boat he couldnt swim. All of a sudden he falls off the boat, and he cant swim and so hes going under and he grabs a rope and he yanks on the boat on the rope and hes able to pull himself up on to the boat and then he noticed that the rope wasnt attached to anything, but it got caught in a crack in the wood of the boat and saved his life, and he said he was somehow able to pull himself up on this, and he said i did not believe god paid any attention to me on my own account, but i came to believe he saved me from my mother and for Something Better than canalling and so he went home and said enough of this. So he was a totally changed young man thinking, ahh, this is something that i dont know why this happened, but god is sending me a signal. He also got very sick. He caught malaria, and he was so sick after ten day, the fever broke and they thought he was okay and then he had a severe relapse and for two months no one knew if he was going to survive. When he finally survived and when he finally recovered his health, mom and brother thomas went to him and they said thomas had saved 17 so far of money he hadnt given to the family, and they said were giving you this money on one condition. You go back to school, and so he attended a number of local schools and when he reached age 20, he decided its time to go on to the equivalent of college and he went to western reserve eclectic institute which later came to be known as hirem college and he took a job as a janitor. He would get up at 4 00 or 5 00 in the morning and he would chop wood so the other students would have fires in their rooms. He would then go and work in the kitchen to prepare breakfast for the other students and then he would join them in class and then he would go and work in the kitchen to help them with lunch and then afterwards,y h he woul clean the latrines and go back into his room and study. He was a janitor in his first year. By his second year he was promoted to assistant professor because in his first year he learned and became fluent in greek and latin and was able to read virgil in the original. Again, its every time you go through this you say this is amazing. How is this possible . If you think its impressive that he was fluent in greek and latin after one year, this teacher said his best subject was math. Just to give you an idea of how good he was at math when he was in congress, he was bored for a while and so he developed a trapezoid proof of the pythagorean theorem which was then published in the new england journal of education and apparently garfields math is still taught in graduate math programs today, but despite his ability in both math and languages, his interest was science, and so he studied the latest scientific discoveries. So again, remember, hes taking a full course load as a student and hes teaching. Hes an assistant professor. So in his second year he is teaching latin and one of his students was Lucretia Randolph and as you can see, this was one of his bedding pictures. He was the professor and she was 18, she was the student. Lucretia had unruly hair and he was dead earnest and determined to learn anything and everything that came his way. They had virtually opposite personalities. He was this bighearted, cheerful, outgoing guy. He wouldnt shake hands with people. He would give people bear hugs. People laughed with him. He was Great Company and people just loved being around this extroverted big, wonderful guy. She, on the other hand, was shy, softspoken, very private. In her diary she wrote that she was fearful that she would be considered cold and heartless. Their courtship was awkward, to put it mildly. Even though he was an incredible extrovert, he couldnt talk to her. He couldnt tell her what he felt about her and she couldnt talk to him and her. She couldnt talk to him. This is not a good thing if you are courting. It seems the first time that he was able to tell her what he thought of her was by letter. And he took a tour of niagra falls and he writes her a letter in which he says, please pardon the liberty i take in pointing my pen towards your name. For this evening i have taken in so much scenery that i cannot contain it all myself. Not exactly a love letter. But its the first time that hes telling her, im thinking about you. She was even more shy and reserved than he was. Neither of them were able to tell each other that they really felt quite strongly about each other. And so in 1854 he leaves ohio and decides to finish college at Williams College in williamstown, massachusetts. Our new congressman went to Williams College and in fact when we visited don when he was the ambassador to switzerland, we brought him a copy of this because both he and garfield share the same alma mater. When he was at williams, he was the best student there. He was a skilled debater. He was a skilled writer. He became editor of the williams quarterly and in two years he add age 25, because he got a late start, he graduated from Williams College with the highest honors. He returns to western reserve to teach latin and greek to become a professor as well as other subjects and one year later hes selected to be president of the school. Youre going to keep laughing because its like, oh. He then realizes that the school is deeply in debt, has no endowment and he decides to become the chief fund raiser. Raises enough money so the school is able to survive very well and achieve financial viability. He resumes his awkward courtship of a woman he called creet. Both of remain unable to tell each other what they think. One day she hands him her diary and says just read this. In the diary its full of pages about how much she loves him. And so finally on november 11, 1858, the 27yearold James Garfield marries the 26yearold Lucretia Randolph after an 11year courtship. Here she is. If the courtship was difficult, the beginning of the marriage was pretty much worse. They had great difficulty figuring out, okay, now that were living together, what do we do . And as a result, it became more difficult because he was never home. In the first five years of marriage, they spent less than five months together because of the civil war and because of everything else. And their separation, their difficulty of communicating with one another made it very difficult for them at home alone. Their first child, eliza, same name as james mother, they called her trot, she unfortunately dies at age 3 and they grieve separately instead of together. Its a difficult period and in 1864 when he was a congressman and she was in ohio, he thought he totally ruined their marriage because he had an affair with a young widow in new york named Lucia Gilbert calhoun. She was a reporter for the new york tribune. He felt guilty, went home and confessed it to his wife assuming that the marriage is now over. She forgives him and says its time for us to figure out how to make this thing better. From that moment they felt passionately in love with each other. They decided that they were going to do the best they could together with each other and after that maybe for the first time, they almost couldnt bear to be apart. He later wrote, we waited a long time for this love to come, but it is here to stay. He later wrote that lucretia became the life of my life, the love of my love. He wrote, you cannot know how much i need you, how much i miss you, how much i love you. I can hardly bear to be away from you. So from the moment that they really jump started their marriage, they were this happily married couple. It took them a long time to get there. Once they were there, they were really there. They ultimately wind up having seven children. So they were there. Sadly, two of them, trot as i mentioned and their son eddie passed away before neither reached their 4th birthday. But five did become mature adults. The five who survived to adulthood all did extremely well because they were they had great parents. And particularly after he passed away, she did a great job of raising them afterwards. While he was president of western reserve he decided this isnt enough to keep me busy. So he decided to study law. Youre going to keep laughing. So in 1859 he studies law and two years later hes admitted to the ohio bar. It turns out he was an absolutely brilliant lawyer. But unfortunately for his legal career, the civil war came first and he was elected to congress and so he had to put law aside. And so he didnt actually engage in the practice of law until right after the civil war. The first case he argues, of course, was in front of the Supreme Court. Its the first time he had ever been a courtroom arguing a case. It was in front to have the Supreme Court. It was called ex parte milital gantt which is taught in law today. Its a case on how to deal with civilians during combat times and it is decided today as well, particularly garfields arguments at the time. Two things stalled his legal career, politics and the war. The garfield did not consider himself to be an abolitionist but he was fiercely opposed to slavery and very, very eagerly supportive of not eagerly, but very, very passionately supportive of the rights of africanamericans to be equal citizens in this country. A number of freed slaves, he put them up, one stayed with him for a while and he gave him what little money he had to try to help this escaped slave. He was enormously update when john brown was hanged. He said this is a dark day in the history of our country. And then in his diary, of course in latin, he writes, slavery, be damned. He would his diary would switch between latin and greek and english. He was obviously from what you can pick up of this guy, its no surprise that people were drawn to him and were very impressed with him. In 1859, a state senator in ohio died and the Republican Party, which is relatively ne