On
this date, June 30, 1882, Charles J. Guiteau was executed by hanging for the
assassination of the 20th President of the U.S.A, James A. Garfield
on July 2, 1881. Guiteau was executed
less than a year after the assassination and after 10 months after the
President died on September 19, 1881. What a swift and sure execution! Most
important of all, he is guilty beyond any doubt. I post the information on this
assassin from Wikipedia and other links.
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| Charles J. Guiteau |
Charles
Julius Guiteau (/ɡɨˈtoʊ/; September 8, 1841 –
June 30, 1882) was an American preacher, writer, and lawyer who was convicted
of assassinating U.S. President James A. Garfield. He was executed by hanging.
Born
|
Charles
Julius Guiteau
September 8, 1841 Freeport, Illinois, U.S. |
Died
|
June 30,
1882 (aged 40)
Washington, D.C., U.S. |
Charge(s)
|
Assassination
of US President James A. Garfield
|
Penalty
|
Death by
hanging
|
Conviction
status
|
Executed
|
Occupation
|
Preacher,
Writer, Lawyer
|
Spouse
|
Annie Bunn
(divorced)
|
Parents
|
Luther
Wilson Guiteau (father), Jane Howe Guiteau (mother)
|
Background
Guiteau
was born in Freeport, Illinois, the fourth of six children of Jane August (née
Howe) and Luther Wilson Guiteau. He moved with his family to Ulao, Wisconsin
(now Grafton, Wisconsin), in 1850 and lived there until 1855, when his mother
died. Soon after, Guiteau and his father moved back to Freeport.
He
inherited $1,000 from his grandfather as a young man and went to Harlem, New
York, in order to attend New York University. Due to inadequate academic
preparation, he failed the entrance examinations. After some time trying to do
remedial work in French and algebra at Ann Arbor High School, during which time
he received numerous letters from his father haranguing him to do so, he quit
and in June 1860 joined the utopian religious sect known as the Oneida
Community, in Oneida, New York, with which Guiteau's father already had close
affiliations. Despite the "group marriage" aspects of that sect, he
was generally rejected during his five years there, and was nicknamed
"Charles Gitout." He left the community twice. The first time, he
went to Hoboken, New Jersey, and attempted to start a newspaper based on Oneida
religion called The Daily Theocrat. This failed and he returned to
Oneida, only to leave again and file lawsuits against the community's founder,
John Humphrey Noyes. Guiteau's father, embarrassed, wrote letters in support of
Noyes, who had considered Guiteau irresponsible and insane.
Guiteau
then obtained a law license in Chicago, based on an extremely casual bar exam.
He used his money to start a law firm in Chicago based on fraudulent
recommendations from virtually every prominent American family of the day. He
was not successful. He argued only one case in court, the bulk of his business
being in bill collecting. Most of his cases resulted in enraged clients and
judicial criticism.
He
next turned to theology. He published a book on the subject called The Truth
which was almost entirely plagiarized from the work of John Humphrey Noyes. He
wandered from town to town lecturing to any and all who would listen to his
religious ramblings and in December 1877, he gave a lecture at the
Congregational Church in Washington.
On
June 11, 1880, Guiteau was a passenger on the SS Stonington when it
collided with the SS Narragansett at night in heavy fog. The Stonington
was able to return to port, but the Narragansett burned to the waterline
and sank, with significant loss of life. Although none of his fellow passengers
on the Stonington were injured, the incident left Guiteau believing that
he had been spared for a higher purpose.
Guiteau's
interest turned to politics. He wrote a speech in support of Ulysses S. Grant
called "Grant vs. Hancock," which he revised to "Garfield vs.
Hancock" after Garfield won the Republican nomination in the 1880
presidential campaign. Ultimately, he changed little more than the title. The
speech was delivered at most twice (and copies were passed out to members of
the Republican National Committee at their summer 1880 meeting in New York),
but Guiteau believed himself to be largely responsible for Garfield's victory.
He insisted he should be awarded an ambassadorship for his vital assistance,
first asking for Vienna, then deciding that he would rather be posted in Paris.
His personal requests to Garfield and to cabinet members (as one of many job
seekers who lined up every day) were continually rejected; on May 14, 1881, he
was finally told personally never to return by Secretary of State James G.
Blaine (Guiteau is actually believed to have encountered Blaine on more than
one occasion).
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|
An engraving of James A. Garfield's
assassination, published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. The
caption reads "Washington, D.C.—The attack on the President's life—Scene
in the ladies' room of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad depot—The arrest of the
assassin / from sketches by our special artist's A. Berghaus and C.
Upham."
President Garfield is at center right,
leaning after being shot. He is supported by Secretary of State James G. Blaine
who wears a light colored top hat. To left, assassin Charles Guiteau is
restrained by members of the crowd, one of whom is about to strike him with a
cane.
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Assassination
of Garfield
Borrowing
$15 from a Mr. Maynard, Guiteau went out to purchase a revolver. He knew little
about firearms, but did know that he would need a large caliber gun. He had to
choose between a .442 Webley caliber British Bulldog revolver with wooden grips
or one with ivory grips. He chose the one with the ivory handle because he
wanted it to look good as a museum exhibit after the assassination. Though he
could not afford the extra dollar, the store owner dropped the price for him.
(The revolver was recovered, and even photographed by the Smithsonian in the
early 20th Century, but it has since been lost.) He spent the next few weeks in
target practice—the kick from the revolver almost knocked him over the first
time—and stalking Garfield.
On
one occasion, he trailed Garfield to the railway station as the President was
seeing his wife off to a beach resort in Long Branch, New Jersey, but he
decided to shoot him later, as Garfield's wife, Lucretia, was in poor health
and Guiteau did not want to upset her. On July 2, 1881, he lay in wait for
Garfield at the (since demolished) Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station,
getting his shoes shined, pacing, and engaging a cab to take him to the jail
later. As Garfield entered the station, looking forward to a vacation with his
wife in Long Branch, Guiteau stepped forward and shot Garfield twice from
behind, the second shot piercing the first lumbar vertebra but missing the
spinal cord. As he surrendered to authorities, Guiteau said: "I am a
Stalwart of the Stalwarts. .. Arthur is president now!'"
After
a long, painful battle with infections, possibly brought on by his doctors'
poking and probing the wound with unwashed hands and non-sterilized
instruments, Garfield died on September 19, eleven weeks after being shot. Most
modern physicians familiar with the case state that Garfield would have easily
recovered from his wounds with sterile medical care, which was common in the
United States ten years later. While Candice Millard argues that Garfield would
have survived Guiteau's bullet wound had his doctors simply left him alone,
Garfield's biographer Peskin stated that medical malpractice did not contribute
to Garfield's death; the inevitable infection and blood poisoning that would
ensue from a deep bullet wound resulted in multiple organ damage and spinal
bone fragmentation.
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|
1881 political cartoon showing Guiteau
holding a gun and a note that says "An office or your life!"
The caption for the cartoon reads "Model Office Seeker."
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Trial
and execution
Once
Garfield died, the government officially charged Guiteau with murder. He was
formally indicted on October 14, 1881, for the charge of murder, which was
previously attempted murder after his arrest. Guiteau pleaded not guilty to the
charge. The trial began on November 14, 1881, in Washington, D.C. The presiding
judge in the case was Walter Smith Cox. Guiteau's court-appointed defense
lawyers were Leigh Robinson and George Scoville, although Guiteau would insist
on trying to represent himself during the entire trial. Wayne MacVeagh, the
U.S. Attorney, served as the chief prosecutor. MacVeagh named five lawyers to
the prosecution team: George Corkhill, Walter Davidge, John K. Porter, Elihu
Root, and E.B. Smith.
Guiteau's
trial was one of the first high-profile cases in the United States where the
insanity defense was considered. Guiteau vehemently insisted that while he had
been legally insane at the time of the shooting, he was not really medically
insane, which was one of the major causes of the rift between him and his
defense lawyers.
Dr.
Edward Charles Spitzka, a leading alienist, testified as an expert witness. Dr.
Spitzka had stated that it was clear "Guiteau is not only now insane, but
that he was never anything else." While on the stand, Spitzka testified
that he had "no doubt" that Guiteau was both insane and "a moral
monstrosity." Spitzka came to the conclusion that Guiteau had "the insane
manner" he had so often observed in asylums, adding that Guiteau was a
"morbid egotist" who "misinterpreted and overly personalized the
real events of life." He thought the condition to be the result of "a
congenital malformation of the brain."
George
Corkhill, who was the District of Columbia's district attorney and on the
prosecuting team, summed up the prosecution's opinion of Guiteau's insanity
defense in a pre-trial press statement that also mirrored public opinion on the
issue. Corkhill stated the following:
He's no more insane than I am. There's nothing of the mad about Guiteau: he's a cool, calculating blackguard, a polished ruffian, who has gradually prepared himself to pose in this way before the world. He was a deadbeat, pure and simple. Finally, he got tired of the monotony of deadbeating. He wanted excitement of some other kind and notoriety, and he got it. — George Corkhill – District attorney for District of Columbia
Guiteau
became something of a media sensation during his entire trial for his bizarre
behavior, which included him frequently cursing and insulting the judge, most
of the witnesses, the prosecution, and even his defense team, as well as
formatting his testimony in epic poems which he recited at length, and
soliciting legal advice from random spectators in the audience via passed
notes. He dictated an autobiography to the New York Herald, ending it
with a personal ad for "a nice Christian lady under 30 years of age".
He was oblivious to the American public's hatred of him, even after he was
almost assassinated twice himself. He frequently smiled and waved at spectators
and reporters in and out of the courtroom, seemingly happy to be the center of
attention for once in his life. Guiteau attempted to convince President Chester
A. Arthur to set him free through a letter as he had just increased Arthur's
salary by making him president. At one point, Guiteau argued before Judge Cox
that President Garfield was killed not by the bullets but by medical
malpractice ("The doctors killed Garfield, I just shot him"), which,
if one discounts the fact that Guiteau had been responsible for Garfield
needing that medical attention in the first place, was more than a little true.
Guiteau's argument had no legal support, however. Throughout the trial and up
until his execution, Guiteau was housed at St. Elizabeths Hospital in the
southeastern quadrant of Washington, D.C. While in prison and awaiting
execution, Guiteau wrote a defense of the assassination he had committed and an
account of his own trial, which was published as The Truth and the Removal
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| A cartoon depicting Guiteau as a dangerous fool. |
In
popular culture
Guiteau
appears, among John Wilkes Booth, Leon Czolgosz, Lee Harvey Oswald, and other
attempted assassins in Stephen Sondheim's musical Assassins.
LINKS: