[128] Once there, he traveled with Conkling to Albany, where the former senator hoped for a quick re-election to the Senate, and with it, a defeat for the Garfield administration.[128][k] The Republican majority in the state legislature was divided on the question, to Conkling and Platt's surprise, and an intense campaign in the statehouse ensued.[128][l]
While in Albany on July 2, Arthur learned that Garfield had been shot.[128] The assassin, Charles J. Guiteau was a deranged office-seeker who believed that Garfield's successor would appoint him to a patronage job. He proclaimed to onlookers: "I am a Stalwart, and Arthur will be President!"[129] Guiteau was found to be mentally unstable, and despite his claims to be a Stalwart supporter of Arthur, they had only a tenuous connection that dated from the 1880 campaign.[130] Twenty-nine days before his execution for shooting Garfield, Guiteau composed a lengthy, unpublished poem claiming that Arthur knew the assassination had saved "our land [the United States]". Guiteau's poem also states he had (incorrectly) presumed that Arthur would pardon him for the assassination.