Arthur, Chester A.

Arthur, Chester A. (1829–1886), twenty‐first President of the United States.Born in North Fairfield, Vermont, where his father was a Baptist minister, Chester Alan Arthur graduated from Union College in 1848 and entered the bar. Practicing law in New York City, he gained prominence in the 1850s for his antislavery views and leadership in the emerging Republican party. He married Ellen Herndon of Virginia in 1859; they had a son and daughter.

Arthur served with efficiency as quartermaster‐general for New York during the Civil War. He was a member of the Republican party's Stalwart faction, which New York Senator Roscoe Conkling led. President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him collector of the Port of New York in 1871. In this lucrative post he distributed many patronage jobs, rewarding party loyalists while also seeking to recognize merit. President Rutherford Hayes, an opponent of the Stalwart faction, removed him in 1878. His selection as James Garfield's vice Presidential running mate in 1880 reflected the party's effort to heal its internal division. He became President upon Garfield's assassination in 1881.

A conscientious and dignified chief executive, Arthur attempted to curb wasteful congressional “pork” spending. He yielded to pressure from California, where Chinese workers were arriving in great numbers to work in the mines, and signed the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act forbidding Chinese immigration for ten years. He had vetoed an earlier bill barring Chinese immigrants altogether. He appointed a Tariff Commission that recommended lower rates, but thanks to heavy lobbying, the so‐called “Mongrel Tariff” of 1883 changed little. His secretary of state James G. Blaine promoted U.S. commercial and trade interests with Latin America and Korea. Although identified with the patronage system, Arthur supported civil service reform. He signed the 1883 Pendleton Act, which established the Civil Service Commission and launched the move toward a nonpartisan, expert civil service.

Arthur's wife died of pneumonia in 1880, so his widowed sister served as his White House hostess. Courtly and fashionable, he was nicknamed “Elegant Arthur.” He sought the 1884 Republican nomination, but the Stalwarts considered him a turncoat while party reformers doubted his conversion to their cause, and he lost to Blaine. Arthur did not publicly support Blaine, who went on to lose New York, and the presidency, to Grover Cleveland. Resuming his legal practice in New York, Arthur died of Bright's disease in 1886. Having upheld the authority of the presidency in an era of congressional dominance, Arthur was a transitional figure in the long movement toward enhanced federal activity.
See also Federal Government, Executive Branch: The Presidency; Foreign Relations: U.S. Relations with Latin America; Gilded Age; Immigration Law; Tariffs.

Bibliography

Thomas C. Reeves , Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester A. Arthur, 1975.
Justus Doenecke , The Presidencies of James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur, 1981.

H. Wayne Morgan