He had great promise but some job seeking moron bumped him off. He probably would have done a good job. He was well liked by the public.

Garfield would have been at the least a "good" president; he booldly stood up to corruption within his own political party, and his background was inspiring to millions. What a shame he was cut down before he could accomplish much.

The only preacher ever elected President.. and the only one elected right out of the House.. Shot by a lunatic but probably killed by the efforts of his own doctors to save him.. so much for 19th century medicine.

As president he extended Federal authority over the corrupt New York Customs House making many enemies in the process. The senate balked at approving Garfield's list of appointments including an unpopular pick to run the Customs House asking Garfield to re-submit a new list. Garfield replied with, This...will settle the question whether the President is registering clerk of the Senate or the Executive of the United States... Garfield stood strong against a senate that exceeded its authority. While Garfield's presidency was cut short by an assassin, his accomplishments in his 200 days in office were remarkable.

He came from a poor back ground and rose to the highest office, I just wish he could've been there longer.

first to take a stand against the New York machine politicians, which is why he was assassinated

He died.

It's a fair assessment that James Garfield didn't serve long enough to merit a high rating. Still, I'll judge him on the basis of his electoral mandate. Garfield was a brigadier general during the Civil War fighting on the Union side. In 1863, he resigned his commission to join the House of Representatives. There he voted the standard Republican line of the time: hard-liner on Reconstruction policies and against civil service reform. He was chosen in 1880 to head the Republican ticket as a compromise candidate (it took 36 ballots to chose him). Incidentally, the machine politicos did not really support his candidacy. So when he took office, he began clearing up the political graft. He was shot by an assassin only 3 months into his Presidency. He died too soon to determine whether or not he would have followed up with civil service reform, but we know that his successor did. He probably wouldn't have had enough political goodwill to be much of a success.

Like William Henry Harrison, this guy doesn't deserve a low rating due to poor performance: he has to be low-rated because he had such a short shelf life as President, and as such, didn't accomplish a whole lot. That's not his fault, and not reflective of his abilities or character, but just the way it turned out.

Did not screw anything up like the current knothead.

Not in office long enough to determine rating. But given a one to move him down out of the top 20.

He should probably be disqualified since he died before serving a full year.

I rating because he didn't duck.

Maybe if you were'nt sleeping all the time...

Garfield had not been in office long enough to find out if he would have been a good president. I believe he was shot shortly after taking his oath. Again, he was one of 3 presidents who had campaigned in a year ending in "0" and took office in a year ending in "01". The others were Lincoln and Kennedy. Assassination attempts were also made on McKinley and Reagan.