 On July 2 , 1881 , Blaine and Garfield were walking through the Sixth Street Station of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad in Washington when Garfield was shot by an assassin , Charles J. Guiteau . Guiteau , a deranged man who had earlier pestered Blaine and other State Department officials to be appointed to ambassadorships for which he was grossly unqualified , believed that by assassinating the President he could ingratiate himself with Vice President Arthur and receive his coveted position . Guiteau was captured immediately and hanged just short of a year later ; he survived longer than Garfield , who lingered for two @-@ and @-@ a @-@ half months , then died on September 19 , 1881 . Garfield 's death was not just a personal tragedy for Blaine ; it also meant the end of his dominance of the cabinet and the end of his foreign policy initiatives . With Arthur 's ascent to the presidency , the Stalwart faction now held sway and Blaine 's days at the State Department were numbered . Arthur asked all of the cabinet members to postpone their resignations until Congress recessed that December ; Blaine nonetheless tendered his resignation on October 19 , 1881 but agreed to remain in office until December 19 , when his successor was in place . Blaine 's replacement was Frederick T. Frelinghuysen , a New Jersey Stalwart . Arthur and Frelinghuysen undid much of Blaine 's work , cancelling the call for a Pan @-@ American conference and stopping the effort to end the War of the Pacific , but they did continue the drive for tariff reductions , signing a reciprocity treaty with Mexico in 1882 . 
