James Abram Garfield is a simple man born in Orange, Ohio on November nineteenth, eighteen thirty-one. He was the youngest of five children. His father died at the age of two, while his mother seemed to be able to support the children. He went to college at Williams College and graduated there with highest honors in eighteen fifty-six. After college he became a professor of ancient languages and literature, at Hiram College.
On November eleventh, eighteen fifty-eight Garfield married Lucretia Rudolph. They had seven children, two of which died as babies. After the out break of the civil war, the governor of Ohio gave Garfield a lieutenant colonel of Ohio volunteers. While in the military, he wrote home, "I am cheerful and happy as any one can be in such a fierce business as killing men." Later he became the youngest brigadier general in the Union Army, by winning a minor battle in Middle Creek, Kentucky, in January eighteen sixty-two.
Eighteen sixty-two, while still in the army, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives but, he did not resign his commission until December eighteen sixty-three. Garfield got reelected to the House eight times. While in office after the Civil War he supported the Radical Republicans for the reconstruction plan. Which meant the southern states lost all their rights until they made the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment is as follows, "Forbids states from passing laws depriving any person of life, liberty, or property "without due process of law" or of not giving to each person the equal protection of the law." .
In eighteen seventy-two, Garfield was accused of accepting gifts of stock from the Credit Mobilier. Credit Mobilier is a cooperation seeking favors from the government. He denied all charges and never was accused. Also later on he was criticized for accepting five thousand dollars of stock from a company that was trying to get a paving contract from the City of Washington, District of Columbia.