Another national tragedy would provide impetus for the first significant change in presidential succession law, but as with prior efforts it failed to address the most important questions first brought to light with George Washington's 1790 illness.

On July 2, 1881, Charles Julius Guiteau shot President James Abram Garfield, in office less than four months, at a train station in Baltimore.  Unlike Abraham Lincoln's shooting sixteen years earlier, Garfield didn't immediately die from his wounds.  Instead, he lingered throughout the summer, his health rallying and falling until finally - 79 days later - he would succumb to his wounds.

Unlike past cases however, Vice President Chester Arthur was encouraged by many, including Garfield's own cabinet, to take the reins as Acting President.  But there was one issue - there was no real mechanism in place, nor a precedent, for him to do so - or for Garfield to return to office had he recovered.  There also was a public relations factor to consider, as Guiteau, during the Garfield shooting, proclaimed "I am a Stalwart (a faction of the Republican Party to which Vice President Arthur had belonged), Arthur is President now!"

In a bit or irony, the shooting of Garfield - a champion of civil service reform - resulted in thousands of government offices and employment positions to go unfilled, grinding the work of the national government essentially to a halt until his death.  Arthur, succeeding to the presidency upon Garfield's death, would finally be able to exercise executive authority... and when he did, he made civil service reform the first item on his agenda, carrying on Garfield's brief legacy as President.