This is a series of ActiveRain History Station programs using United States postage stamps as our history book.

For other programs in this series on the ActiveRain History Station, simply click here.

♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫

Since the first week in November has been election season for many decades, the next stamp and person we'll look at here is a 5¢ denomination issued in 1882 featuring James A. Garfield (1831-1881), the twentieth President of the United States:

Garfield was born in what is now Moreland Hills, Oregon. After studying at Hiram College in Ohio and Williams College in Massachusetts, he worked as a preacher, classical languages teacher, and high school principal before being admitted to the Ohio bar in 1860.

He had seven children with his wife, Lucretia Rudolph, whom he married in 1858. Unfortunately, as far as I can determine, he was also the first politician, and a Republican at that, to admit to an affair while married. His wife forgave him.

His military career saw him join the Army at the onset of the Civil War and rising quickly to the rank of Major General. He served in the House of Representatives and the Senate before being elected President.

He was the second President to be assassinated, after Abraham Lincoln. He had been in office only four months when Charles Guiteau, disgruntled over his failure to be appointed as United States Consul in Paris, France, shot Garfield in the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C.

President Garfield was passing through the station on his way to deliver a speech at his alma mater, Williams College. With him was Secretary of State James Blaine and Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln's son). The old railroad station is now the site of the West Building of the National Gallery of Art.

Although most historians consider his death an assassination, some also consider his death to be the result of medical malpractice. He died two months and seventeen days after being shot due to increasing illness from infection, blood poisoning, and bronchial pneumonia. His final cause of death was either a massive heart attack or a splenic artery anuerysm. Many historians and scientists believe that Garfield would have survived had his doctors been more capable.

Other interesting facts about James A. Garfield:

1. You'll always find his middle initial used because his son, James R. Garfield, was also a noted politician, serving as Secretary of the Interior under President Theodore Roosevelt.
2. Was a member of Delta Upsilon fraternity at Williams College.
3. His 199 days in office is the shortest presidential tenure, after William Henry Harrison, who died of pneumonia 31 days after taking office.
4. The only person to be a Representative, a Senator-elect, and a President-elect at the same time.
5. The only sitting member of the House of Representatives to be elected President.
6. Although he never served in the Senate, technically his election to the Senate at the same time as his election to the presidency also makes him the first Senator to be elected President.
7. John Philip Sousa led the Marine Corps Band at Garfield's Inaugural Ball.
8. President Garfield's only official social function made outside the White House was a visit to the Columbia Institution for the Deaf (now Gallaudet University) in May 1881.
9. One bullet grazed Garfield's arm while another one lodged in his body and was never found. Historians currently believe that it was lodged near his lung.
10. Alexander Graham Bell developed a metal detector to find the bullet but was unsuccessful because Garfield was lying on a metal bed, which were relatively rare, so its influence on the metal detector itself went undetected.
11. Part of Charles Guiteau's preserved brain is on display at the Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (Hmmmmm. I suppose so.) Guiteau's bones and more of his brain, along with Garfield's backbone and a couple of ribs, are kept at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C. on the grounds of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
12. Garfield is buried in a huge mausoleum (at right) at Lake View Cemetary in Cleveland, Ohio.
13. The James A. Garfield monument in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 1887
14. One of only three presidents to be survived by his mother, the other two being James K. Polk and John F. Kennedy.
15. The United States twice has had three Presidents in a single year:
    ► 1841—Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, and John Tyler)
    ► 1881—Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur
16. Johnny Cash recorded a song in 1965 titled Mister Garfield (Has Been Shot Down)
17. Stephen Sondheim's musical Assassins includes the story of Charles Guiteau and features the song, "The Ballad of Guiteau."
18. The Twilight zone episode, "No Time Like The Past," revisits Garfield's assassination.
19. Garfield the cat is named for creator Jim Davis's grandfather, James A. Garfield Davis, who was named for the President.
20. Jon Stewart (yes, that Jon Stewart) portrayed Garfield in the audiobook version of Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell.
21. Garfield, Kansas, with a population of under two hundred people (2000 Census), is named after the President.
22. Garfield was an active minister and elder for the Church of Christ, making him the only member of the clergy to serve as President.
23. Garfield is also claimed by the Disciples of Christ since the two churches didn't split until the 20th Century.
24. Garfield discovered a novel proof of the Pythagorean Theorem using a trapezoid in 1876.
25. Garfield was ambidextrous with left-handed dominance.
26. Garfield was a descendant of Mayflower passenger John Billington, who was convicted of murder in 1630.
27. Some quotes which might still be relevant in today's world:
    ► "The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the full rights of citizenship is the most important political change we have known since the adoption of the Constitution of 1787."
    ► "There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States. Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen."
    ► "The spirit should not grow old."
    ► "Nobody but radicals have ever accomplished anything in a great crisis."
    ► "If hard work is not another name for talent, it is the best possible substitute for it."
    ► "Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let everyone know that you have a reserve in yourself; that you have more power than you are now using. If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it."
    ► "[N]ine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself."
    ► "The chief duty of government is to keep the peace and stand out of the sunshine of the people."
    ► "The lesson of history is rarely learned by the actors themselves."
    ► "Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them up."
    ► "All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people."
    ► "Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained."
    ► "The colonists were struggling not only against the armies of a great nation, but against the settled opinions of mankind; for the world did not then believe that the supreme authority of government could be safely intrusted to the guardianship of the people themselves."
    ► "It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate their successors and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the inheritance which awaits them. In this beneficent work sections and races should be forgotten and partisanship should be unknown."
    ► "We may hasten or we may retard, but we can not prevent, the final reconciliation."
    ► "The President is the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think." (Attributed to Garfield but unsourced.)
    ► "A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck."

__________
Sources:

1. "Garfield: A Biography," by Allan Peskin
2. "Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of James A. Garfield," by Kenneth Ackerman.
3. "Gangrene and Glory: Medical Care During the American Civil War," by Frank Freemon
4. "Assassination Vacation," by Sarah Vowell
5. Encyclopedia Britannica's Guide to American Presidents
6. Wikipedia
7. Arago: People, Postage, and the Post
8. 1847USA: Knowledge is Power

Fifteen recent blog posts

1. Does your little kitty have the swine flue?
2. ActiveRain Group name changes
3. Does it work?
4. Billions and billions and billions of symbols for your ActiveRain blog and comments
5. The ActiveRain History Channel: Zachary Taylor
6. Where are the ActiveRain point dogs?
7. Do you make friends by commenting, subscribing, or associating? Or all?
8. Have you ever deleted a post at another Member's request?
9. Are you doing your part to help ActiveRain?
10. Did you know there are still unpaid internships in today's world?
11. Have you considered taking down your web site and just relying on ActiveRain?
12. What if you visit someone and they don't have a blog yet?
13. ATTENTION: All who entered the ActiveRain Nature & Marketing contest
14. The ActiveRain History Channel: Happy Birthday, LL!
15. Standing out from the crowd.... good or bad?

Helpful blog posts for ActiveRain newbies

1. How to get 500 points with your ActiveRain success story
2. Free help for Active Rain newbies
3. 10 ways to get a featured post at ActiveRain
4. How to keep people from reading your Active Rain blog
5. How do you get people to comment on your blog?
6. Using Active Rain more effectively by finding Power Partners
7. Quit putting huge, gigantic, monster pictures in your blog. Now! (Help on resizing them)
8. Using YouTube videos without slowing down page loading
9. How to use the Active Rain system more efficiently

My favorite television stations on the ActiveRain TV:

ActiveRain Convention Station

ActiveRain Guerrilla Marketing Station

ActiveRain History Station

ActiveRain Library Station

ActiveRain Nature Station

ActiveRain Symphony Station

ActiveRain Travel Station