; and every
electoral vote was counted as it was cast. This was the first
presidential election in our country of which both these statements
could be made.

2. For the first time since 1844 there was no agitation of a Southern
question.

3. All parties agreed in calling for anti-Chinese legislation.

Garfield and Arthur were elected, and inaugurated on March 4, 1881. But
on July 2, 1881, as Garfield stood in a railway station at Washington, a
disappointed office seeker came up behind and shot him in the back. A
long and painful illness followed, till he died on September 19, 1881.

[Illustration: James A. Garfield]

[Illustration: Chester A. Arthur]

%538. Presidential Succession%--The death of Garfield and the
succession of Arthur to the presidential office left the country in a
peculiar situation. An act of Congress passed in 1792 provided that if
both the presidency and vice presidency were vacant at the same time,
the President _pro tempore_ of the Senate, or if there were none, the
Speaker of the House of Representatives, should act as President, till a
new one was elected. But in September, 1881, there was neither a
President _pro tempore_ of the Senate nor a Speaker of the House of
Representatives, as the Forty-sixth Congress ceased to exist on March 4,
and the Forty-seventh was not to meet till December. Had Arthur died or
been killed, there would therefore have been no President. It was not
likely that such a condition would happen again; but attention was
called to the necessity of providing for succession to the presidency,
and in 1886 a new law was enacted. Now, should the presidency and vice
presidency both become vacant, the presidency passes to members of the
Cabinet in the order of the establishment of their departments,
beginning with the Secretary of State. Should he die, be impeached and
removed, or become disabled, it would go to the Secretary of the
Treasury, and then, if necessary, to the Secretary of War, the
Attorney-general, the Postmaster-general, the Secretary of the Navy, the
Secretary of the Interior.

%539. Party Pledges redeemed.%--Since the Republican party was in
power, a redemption of the pledges in their platform was necessary, and
three laws of great importance were enacted. One, the Edmunds law
(1882), was intended to suppress polygamy in Utah and the neighboring
territories. Another (1882) stopped the immigration of Chinese laborers
for ten years. The third, the Pendleton