James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) serves as the 20th President of the United States, after completing nine consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Garfield's accomplishments as President include a controversial resurgence of Presidential authority above Senatorial courtesy in executive appointments; energizing U.S. naval power; and purging corruption in the Post Office Department.

Garfield makes notable diplomatic and judiciary appointments, including a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Garfield appoints several African-Americans to prominent federal positions.

Garfield is a self-made man who comes from a modest background, having been raised in obscurity on an Ohio farm by his widowed mother and endearing brother Thomas, who was nine years his senior.

Next door were his uncle Amos and aunt Alpha Boynton.

The families were very close as Amos was James' father's half brother, and Alpha was his mother's sister.

James and his Boynton cousins cherished their memories of childhood together.

Upon entering higher education James works as a school janitor, bellringer, carpenter, teacher, and preacher to help finance his education.

He completes his studies and graduates from Williams College, Massachusetts in 1856.

A year later, Garfield enters politics as a Republican, after campaigning for the party's antislavery platform in Ohio.

He marries Lucretia Rudolph in 1858, and in 1860 is admitted to practice law while serving as an Ohio State Senator (1859–1861).

Garfield opposes Confederate secession, serves as a Major General in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and fights in the battles of Middle Creek, Shiloh and Chickamauga.

He is first elected to Congress in 1862 as Representative of the 19th District of Ohio.

Throughout Garfield's extended Congressional service after the Civil War, he fervently opposes the Greenback, and gains a reputation as a skilled orator.

He is Chairman of the Military Affairs Committee and the Appropriations Committee and a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Garfield initially agrees with Radical Republican views regarding Reconstruction, then favors a moderate approach for civil rights enforcement for Freedmen.

In 1880, the Ohio legislature elects him to the U.S. Senate; in that same year, the leading Republican presidential contenders – Ulysses S. Grant, James G. Blaine and John Sherman – fail to garner the requisite support at their convention.

Garfield becomes the party's compromise nominee for the 1880 Presidential Election and successfully campaigns to defeat Democrat Winfield Hancock in the election.

Garfield's presidency lasts just 200 days—from March 4, 1881, until his death on September 19, 1881, as a result of being shot by assassin Charles J. Guiteau on July 2, 1881.

Only William Henry Harrison's presidency, of 32 days, is shorter.

Garfield is the second of four United States Presidents who are assassinated.

President Garfield advocated a bi-metal monetary system, agricultural technology, an educated electorate, and civil rights for African-Americans.

He proposed substantial civil service reform, eventually passed in 1883 by his successor, Chester A. Arthur, as the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act.