Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a PresidentCandiceMillard. New York: Doubleday, 2011.

Abstract

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness/ Medicine, and the Murder of Candice Millard. New York: Doubleday, 2011. Candice Millard's Destiny of the Republic, follows her superb first River of Doubt (2005). She brings the same meticulous research to Garfield's life and assassination that she applied to Theodore Roosevelt's post-presidential exploration of over thousand unknown and potentially lethal river miles in Brazil. Destiny consists of several, intricately interwoven, themes. In one, she brings living Garfield - the man, the scholar, the general, the congressman, and the president - to our attention, and restores him for the modern world. Americans tend to have weak or almost nonexistent grasp of history, and thus are likely to dismiss presidents of the late Nineteenth Century as bearded nonentities who could be interchangeable if they were even interesting enough to consider. Many scholars and other writers take the same position, but they are wrong to do so. These presidents had strengths and significance of their own. Millard certainly makes this clear with regard to Garfield. Nevertheless, in his generally quite favorable review of Destiny in the New York Times Book Review (2 October 2011), Kevin Baker, begins snidely with quip (If an obscure 19th-century president falls, does he make noise?), and asserts that Garfield's assassination little difference. Even Baker, though, concedes that one of the many pleasures of Millard's new book, is that she documents just how remarkable Garfield's life was. Clearly, Garneld was remarkable. How can anyone conclude that this man, whose brief time in office made his the second shortest of any presidency, would not have been major force had he had another three and half years - or even seven and half years - as president; that his assassination was unimportant historically? As Millard documents, even the previously hapless Vice Chester Arthur (Chet Arthur, president? Good God! said one former crony), rose to the occasion. As Millard quotes another of Arthur's former associates who found that later he had risen above machine politics, isn't 'Chet Arthur' anymore, . . . he's the President (250). Despite his machine background as spoilsman, Arthur resisted the bosses, strongly supported, and signed the Pendleton Act establishing the foundation for the merit-based Civil Service. However forgotten, Arthur became significant himself. Another theme of her tale revolves around the assassin, the madman alluded to in her subtitle, Charles Guiteau. She pieces together his disturbed and arrogant life, always using others and mistreating women. He is almost always described in textbooks as a disappointed office seeker. Although that is technically correct, it is misleading. The job he sought was hardly civil service position. With no qualification whatever, he assumed that he should be named minister to Austria or to France. …