First International Conference of American States And so, as Secretary of State, Blaine sent invitations to all the nations of the Hemisphere to come to Washington in November 1881 with the principal goal of considering and discussing methods to prevent war between the nations of the Hemisphere. But destiny intervened: President Garfield was assassinated on 19 September 1881 and the new President Chester A. Arthur, who was no friend of Blaine's, quickly removed him from the State Department. Shortly afterward, the Conference invitations were withdrawn on the grounds that the unsettled situation at home and abroad would make such an event impossible. Now a private citizen,
Convention of Constantinople (1881) as the possessions of the sizeable Muslim population in Thessaly (including the private possessions of the Sultan and the Ottoman imperial family). The treaty was ratified by Greece and the Ottoman government on 2 July, when it was signed by the Greek ambassador to Constantinople, , and , President of the Ottoman . Convention of Constantinople (1881) The Convention of Constantinople was signed between the Kingdom of Greece and the Ottoman Empire on 2 July 1881, resulting in the cession of the region of Thessaly and a part of southern Epirus (the Arta Prefecture) to Greece. Greece had remained neutral