Stalwarts (politics) and thereby ensure their support for the general election. After the Republican victory in November 1880, President Garfield and Conkling fought bitterly and publicly over patronage in Conkling's home state of New York. Garfield, with assistance and advice from Blaine, won the battle, and Conkling and Platt resigned from the Senate, convinced that they would be easily re-elected by the New York legislature. However, Garfield was shot by a self-proclaimed "Stalwart of the Stalwarts", Charles J. Guiteau, on July 2, 1881, and Arthur became President of the United States upon Garfield's death on September 19, 1881. The shock of the
Charles R. Skinner in Washington D.C. in 1882, and had been asked to attend the execution of Garfield's assassin, Charles Guiteau, but was unable to attend due to the illness of his daughter. He was invited to Czolgosz's execution by the warden of Auburn Prison, and attended as one of only twelve "official" witnesses to the execution as required by New York law. Less than two months after shooting McKinley, Czolgosz was executed on October 29, 1901 in Auburn Prison. Czolgosz was executed in the electric chair, an early usage of this new form of execution. Thomas Edison later re-enacted the execution in