Death By Lightning Shows Why a Professional Civil Service Matters 

Death by Lightning is a gripping drama about the assassination of President James Garfield, spiced with F-bombs and tawdry sex, not a heavy-handed civics lesson. Yet the four-episode Netflix miniseries is also about the birth of the professionalized federal civil service, with hires based primarily on merit, and the end of a spoils system in which political relationships wholly determine who receives government jobs. Considering that our current president, Donald Trump, is resurrecting what had been left for dead, Death by Lightning provides a valuable service by giving viewers a peek into how government functioned in the bad old days of corrupt, incompetent bureaucracy, if not portrayed with rigorous historical accuracy. 

“Two-thirds of all federal revenue flows through the Port of New York. [Senator] Roscoe Conkling, he controls New York. He’s got the [Republican] party by the balls.” That’s how Treasury Secretary John Sherman introduces the personification of the spoils system during Episode 1 (“The Man from Ohio”).  

Sherman asks then-Representative Garfield to nominate him for president at the 1880 Republican National Convention against Conkling’s choice, former President Ulysses S. Grant. Sherman explains that while he does not expect to win, “we might at least be able to push the party toward reform, lest we yield to the majority view that two terms’ worth of Grant’s grift and corruption merit another.” (So much for Ron Chernow’s labors to cleanse Grant’s reputation.) 

Garfield nominates Sherman with a speech so good it sparks a draft movement for his own nomination that overwhelms Grant and Senator James Blaine of Maine. We learn quickly in Death by Lightning that Blaine and Conkling hate each other, but the script doesn’t bother explaining to viewers that each led a party faction: with Half-Breeds supporting Blaine and Stalwarts behind Conkling. Stalwarts were fervent defenders of the spoils system. Half-Breeds were moderates less attached to the spoils system but not beyond exploiting it.  

Another faction, Reformers—as the name implied—were more committed to civil service reform, and partial to Sherman. In real life (but not in Death by Lightning), Sherman’s Treasury Department in 1877 under President Rutherford B. Hayes led an investigation of the New York Customs House at the Port of New York, which prompted Hayes to replace the collector, Conkling’s right-hand man, Chester Arthur. Hayes nominated Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., whose namesake son would become a reformist President. Conkling and his Senate allies blocked the nomination. Roosevelt died of stomach cancer in 1878 during the stalemate. Still, Hayes was able to temporarily replace Arthur during a Senate recess with another nominee who then remained in the job because Republicans—and Conkling—lost control of the Senate in the 1878 midterms.  

Death by Lightning skips these details in favor of a simpler, fictional narrative in which Arthur is still the Collector—and Conkling is still in the control of the port’s patronage jobs—in 1880. 

So, in the miniseries, once Blaine jumps on the Garfield bandwagon and he and his allies must identify a running mate that can unite the party, Blaine proposes Arthur as he is “the collector for the New York Customs House, through which three-quarters of all federal revenue is amassed,” (the percentage increased between Episode 1 and Episode 2, each being roughly accurate), “negotiates a complex network of job appointments, his generosity repaid in the form of party contributions” and in turn can bring Conkling’s “machine” without putting Conkling himself on the ticket. As Blaine speaks, we see Arthur (played with gusto by Nick Offerman) sampling alcohol that comes through the port, taking an envelope of cash, and ordering goons to beat up an unnamed person who presumably wasn’t towing the party line.  

This paints a harsher picture of Arthur than warranted—I’m unaware of any evidence that Arthur was violent. But, as described in the Arthur biography The Unexpected President by Scott Greenberg, he ignored an early attempt at civil service reform that sought to end mandatory campaign contributions by federal employees and to require new workers to pass civil service exams. Arthur rigged the tests for his political friends and dubiously claimed any campaign tithing was voluntary.  

The collector post was the juiciest plum in the federal government; on top of his salary, he could legally take a cut of any fines levied by his inspectors, who, according to Greenberg, were “frequently overzealous.” In today’s dollars, Arthur took in $1 million annually.  

While Arthur was greedy and corrupt, at least he was competent. Historian C.W. Goodyear, in President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier, noted, “Even reformists agreed Arthur ran a tight—if sleazy—ship.” Despite never having run for elective office, Arthur became Garfield’s running mate, which helped unify the party even though the petulant Conkling wanted Arthur to turn down the offer.  

In Death by Lightning, Arthur convinces Conkling to get over it and support the ticket after Blaine was weakened by a Democratic victory in a September election for Governor of Maine, presenting an opportunity for Conkling to get the credit for a November victory. In real life, Conkling’s allies were placated by a New York City meeting with Garfield in July, after which the Stalwarts believed Garfield would make one of their own Treasury Secretary and give them control of the New York Custom House jobs. But as Goodyear noted, Garfield walked out with a wholly different understanding, writing in his diary, “No trades—no shackles.” 

The importance of the Treasury Secretary is perhaps more crucial than that of the Collector of the Port of New York (which was within the Treasury Department) for understanding the problems with the spoils system. As described in The Presidencies of James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur by Justus D. Doenecke, “there were some fifteen hundred patronage posts in the Treasury Department, and [Garfield] did not think that he could cope with a secretary who might be a tool of the Stalwarts. In fact, because of its functions, the Treasury Department was the most important federal agency of all. Its tasks ranged from collecting revenue to regulating the currency, and it daily enforced laws dealing with specie resumption, war debts, and the tariff.” Treasury jobs needed to go to professionals, not hacks, if government was going function at its best.  

In Death by Lightning, once Garfield is elected, he shares with Blaine a “list of appointees” that includes the Mainer for the Secretary of State position. Blaine reacts anxiously, “All the names on your list are, and not one of them is remotely viable. These are all progressives, avowed enemies of the spoils system. They won’t even get hearings. Conkling owns a third of the Senate.” But Doenecke found Garfield’s actual cabinet “remarkably balanced … There was hardly a faction or party leader that was excluded,” with a Stalwart as Postmaster General (albeit one with a good record on using civil service exams) and Blaine as the lone Half-Breed. Moreover, Garfield reappointed five Stalwarts to various New York posts, pleasing Conkling and upsetting Reformers.  

But Garfield moved to replace Hayes’s man at the New York Customs House with a Half-Breed instead of a Stalwart. Again, in Death by Lightning, Garfield is naming a successor for Arthur and, therefore, is taking control of the Port away from Conkling. In real life, Conkling and Arthur had already lost control of the Port, but were hungry to get it back. In both fiction and non-fiction, Arthur publicly broke with Garfield on the record with a reporter. And Conkling and his fellow Republican Senator, Thomas Platt from New York, made the weird choice to resign their seats in protest, believing they would be swiftly re-elected (back then, state legislatures elected U.S. Senators) and infused with additional political strength. The plan backfired, with Garfield’s nominee for collector rapidly confirmed after the resignations, and then Conkling and Platt losing the election. 

Unlike in the fictional portrayal, Arthur did not offer his resignation to Garfield after criticizing him in the press. Nor did Arthur sever his relationship with Conkling after Garfield was shot in July 1861. Nor did Arthur, hours later, tearfully pledge to Blaine and Garfield’s wife Lucretia, to “quit it all,” only for her to slap him in the face and say, “Will you resign like a coward in disgrace, or will you step up and reform?”  

“Reform, ma’am,” blubbers the fictional Arthur, “I’ll change my ways.” 

But the real Arthur did change. 

Charles Guiteau, Garfield’s assassin, told the arresting officer, “I did it and will go to jail for it. I am a Stalwart, and Arthur will be president.” In turn, Greenberger writes that Arthur, “received death threats, and was deeply shaken by the widespread belief that he was complicit in the crime.” Still over the summer of 1861—while an incapacitated Garfield futilely tried to overcome his horrible medical treatment—Arthur stayed in his Manhattan home where he continued to consult with Conkling. (Conkling’s Senate defeat did not happen until late July, after the shooting. A still alive, magnanimous Garfield offered, “I will offer him any favor he may ask, or any appointment he may desire,” but Conkling did not take him up on it.) 

Yet a woman did tell Arthur to reform. But it wasn’t Lucretia Garfield. It was Julia Sand, a 31-year-old stranger who lived in New York City about 50 blocks north of Arthur. Shortly before Garfield’s death, she wrote him a letter:  

The day he was shot, the thought rose in a thousand minds that you might be the instigator of the foul act. Is not that a humiliation which cuts deeper than any bullet can pierce? Your best friends said: “Arthur must resign—he cannot accept office, with such a suspicion resting upon him.” And now your kindest opponents say: “Arthur will try to do right”—adding gloomily—“He won’t succeed, though—making a man President cannot change him.”  

But making a man President can change him! At a time like this, if anything can, that can. Great emergencies awaken generous traits which have lain dormant half a life. If there is a spark of true nobility in you, now is the occasion to let it shine. 

Faith in your better nature forces me to write to you—but not to beg you to resign. Do what is more difficult & more brave. Reform! 

Arthur saved the letter. 

A few weeks after Arthur became president, he met with Conkling, who demanded that he remove Garfield’s new man at the New York Customs House. Greenberg writes that “watching Garfield’s long ordeal, and the suffering of the dying man’s family, had greatly affected Chester Arthur.” While he still “valued Conkling’s support and friendship,” Arthur told him he was “morally bound to continue the policy of the former president.” Conkling went back to New York, trashed Arthur as a traitor, and left politics. (In 1882, Arthur tapped him for the Supreme Court, but Conkling refused the nomination.) 

In December, Arthur delivered a message to Congress in which he expressed support for civil service reform. A Democratic Senator introduced a reform bill the same day that went farther than he wanted regarding exams. Sand pressed him, “The vital question before the country today is Civil Service Reform. The vital question before you is how you will meet it.” 

She kept writing the president, toggling between praise and criticism, despite not getting responses. But in August 1882, President Arthur showed up at her house and stayed for an hour. Greenberger recounts, as Arthur was leaving, “Julia asked him whether he had forgiven her for some of the harsh things she had written in her letters. ‘No,’ he said with a wry smile.” But the extraordinary decision by Arthur to visit showed how much he valued her words. 

The legislation was mired for a year, but public support was rising, as evidenced by the Democratic victory in the New York gubernatorial race by the reformist Grover Cleveland. Arthur leaned in with another message to Congress, announcing he would sign the legislation despite the provision about exams. The bill swiftly cleared both chambers. Sand wrote, not with praise, but with an admonishment to carry out the law since “words will never serve you again—actions only will count.” 

Arthur’s signing of the civil service reform law is noted in text at the end of Death By Lightning, but that is the most long-lasting policy consequence of Garfield’s murder, the opposite of what his murderer envisioned. And while that law didn’t professionalize the federal civil service overnight, it began a transformation that vastly reduced corruption and improved government services. 

The spoils system is what Trump is trying to restore with his mass firings of civil servants and his “Schedule F” executive order to end protections for career employees, allowing them to be hired and fired for political, not merit-based, reasons. Civil service reform is an inherently dry subject, but Death by Lightning—with its riveting acting and its profane and salacious script—is an entertaining reminder of how government shouldn’t work.