Arthur, Chester A. (1829-1886)

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Chester A. Arthur (1829-1886)

President of the united states, 1881-1885

Stalwart Turned Reformer. A member of the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party, Chester A. Arthur was elected vice president in 1880 and became president on 19 September 1881, after the death of President James A. Garfield from wounds inflicted by an assassin. As president, Arthur surprised his Stalwart allies, who expected him to uphold political patronage and their conservative agenda on major issues, by working to reform the civil-service system and to lower protective tariffs.

Background. Born in Fairfield, Vermont, on 5 October 1829, Chester Alan Arthur was the fifth child of a Baptist clergyman and abolitionist. The family moved often as the Reverend William Arthur was assigned to different churches. By 1844 they were living in Schenec-tady, New York, where the following year Chester Arthur entered Union College as a sophomore and graduated in 1848. After teaching school and studying law in his spare time for several years, Arthur became a clerk in a New York law firm, where he continued his legal studies and passed the bar examination in May 1854.

Early Career. Two of the cases on which Arthur worked during his early years as an attorney involved the rights of African Americans; one ensured the freedom of a group of slaves who had been brought to New York by their owner while the other led to the integration of the New York streetcar system. In 1859 he married Ellen Lewis Herndon, a native of Virginia. Having become involved with local Republican politics shortly after his arrival in New York City, Arthur was appointed to Gov. Edwin D. Morgan’s general staff in January 1861. During the Civil War he worked with the governor in organizing state volunteers for the Union cause. He was given the rank of brigadier general, and by July 1862 he had been named quartermaster general of New York State. The job ended when a Democratic governor took office in January 1863. Arthur returned to his law practice while continuing to be active in Republican politics, remaining a loyal member of the Stalwart, or conservative, wing of the party.

Federal Appointee. In 1871, during the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant, Arthur was appointed collector of the Port of New York, where about 75 percent of U.S. customs duties were collected. In that lucrative post, which earned him roughly $50,000 a year, he controlled more than one thousand federal employees, organizing their political activity for the New York Republican Party. In 1878 President Rutherford B. Hayes tried to inaugurate a merit system for government employees. After a federal investigation of customs houses in several major port cities, Hayes ordered all federal employees to refrain from managing “political organiza-tions, caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns.” When Arthur and an associate, Alonzo Cornell, refused to cease political activity, Hayes replaced them.

National Office. Two years later, when Arthur arrived at the Republican National Convention, the intra-party battle between the conservative Stalwarts and the reformers was still raging. James Garfield, who represented the reform wing, won the presidential nomination, and Arthur was chosen as his running mate to provide some satisfaction to the Stalwarts of New York. After the Republican ticket was elected, Garfield served for fewer than four months before he was felled by an assassin’s bullet on 2 July 1881 and lingered for just over two months before he died. Garfield’s assassin, a deranged office seeker named Charles Guiteau, claimed that he was a Stalwart and had shot Garfield because he wanted Arthur to be president.

President Arthur. His wife having died in January 1881, Arthur was one of a handful of unmarried U.S. presidents. He was a large man, six feet two inches tall and heavily built, and he dressed impeccably, looking the part of a dignified leader. Although he never sought the presidency, he did his best to administer the government fairly. During his administration the federal government showed a regular surplus of revenue over expenditure, and several steps were taken to modernize the U.S. Navy. Stung by Guiteau’s remarks, Arthur distanced himself from the Stalwarts, and he tried to clean up government corruption. He investigated frauds and abuses in the civil service, especially in the granting of post-office con-tracts, and helped to pass the Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883). As a consequence, he lost the support of many Stalwarts, without winning the support of reform-ers. In 1882 his vetoes of an $18 million “pork barrel” rivers and harbors bill and the Chinese Exclusion Act on the grounds that it violated the Burlingame Treaty of 1868 did little to endear him to Congress, which over-rode both vetoes. He did not win his party’s nomination for the presidency in 1884. He died of Bright’s disease on 18 November 1886.