Powers of the President of the United States for fourteen years to ensure agency independence. The president also appoints members to the boards of directors for government-owned corporations such as Amtrak. The president can also make a recess appointment if a position needs to be filled while Congress is not in session. In the past, presidents could appoint members of the United States civil service. This use of the spoils system allowed presidents to reward political supporters with jobs. Following the assassination of President James Garfield by Charles J. Guiteau, a disgruntled office seeker, Congress instituted a merit-based civil service in which positions are filled on a nonpartisan
Charles J. Guiteau storage by the museum. Parts of Guiteau's brain remain on display in a jar at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton said in 1881 that he believed that Guiteau was sane when he assassinated Garfield. An autopsy of Guiteau's brain revealed that his dura mater was abnormally thick, suggesting he may have had neurosyphillis, a disease which causes mental instability; he could have contracted the disease from a prostitute. George Paulson, formerly the chair of neurology at Ohio State University, disputed the neurosyphillis diagnosis, arguing that Guiteau suffered from both schizophrenia and "grandiose narcissism". In 2014, the