nate, he
and Thomas C. Platt, the junior senator from New York, resigned their
seats. Both afterward sought and failed to secure a re-election from the
Legislature. Congress adjourned in June.

[Illustration: THE AGED MOTHER OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD.]

ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD.

Relieved from the pressure of his duties, the President now made his
arrangements for placing his two sons in Williams College and joining
his invalid wife at the seashore. On the 2d of July, 1881, accompanied
by Secretary Blaine and several friends, he rode to the Baltimore
Railroad station to board the cars. He had just entered the building and
was chatting with his secretary, when a miscreant named Charles Julias
Guiteau stepped up behind him and shot him with a pistol in the back.
The wounded President sank to the floor and was carried to the executive
mansion, while the assassin was hurried to prison before he could be
lynched, as he assuredly would have been but for such prompt action by
the authorities.

The shock to the country was scarcely less than when Abraham Lincoln was
shot in Ford's Theatre. Although the wound of the President was severe,
it was not believed to be necessarily fatal. He received the best
medical attention, and prayers for his recovery were sent up from every
quarter of the land and across the sea. Daily bulletins of his condition
were issued and messages of sympathy were received from many crowned
heads on the other side of the Atlantic. The sufferer was removed on the
6th of September to Elberon, New Jersey, where it was hoped the
invigorating sea-air would bring back strength to his wasted frame.
These hopes were vain, and, on the 19th of September, he quietly
breathed his last. It may be noted that this date was the anniversary of
the battle of Chickamauga, where General Garfield performed his most
brilliant service in the war. Amid universal expressions of sympathy the
remains were borne to Cleveland, where a fine monument has been erected
to his memory.

[Illustration: ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD.]

Guiteau was a miserable "crank," who had long dogged the President for
an appointment, failing to obtain which he shot him. That his brain was
partly awry, with perhaps a taint of insanity, cannot be questioned,
but, none the less, it was shown that he clearly knew the difference
between right and wrong and was morally responsible for his unspeakable
crime. He was given a fair trial, and, h