Chester Alan Arthur (October 5, 1829 –
November 18, 1886) was an American politician who served as the twenty-first President of the United States. Arthur was a member of the Republican Party and worked as a lawyer before becoming the twentieth vice
president under James Garfield. While Garfield was mortally wounded by
Charles Guiteau on July 2, 1881, he did not die until September 19, at which time Arthur was sworn in as president, serving until
March 4, 1885.
Before entering politics, Arthur had been Collector of Customs for the Port of New York. He was appointed by Ulysses S. Grant but was fired by Rutherford B. Hayes
under suspicion of bribery and corruption.
A political protégé of Roscoe Conkling, Arthur's primary achievement as President was
civil service reform, namely the passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. The passage of this legislation earned Arthur the
moniker "The Father of Civil Service" and a very favorable reputation among historians.
Publisher Alexander K. McClure wrote, "No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted, and no one ever
retired… more generally respected." Author Mark Twain, deeply cynical about politicians,
conceded, "It would be hard indeed to better President Arthur's administration."
Early life and education
| Chester A. Arthur |
| October 5, 1829 - November 18,
1886 |
|
| Place of birth |
Fairfield, Vermont |
| Place of death |
New York, New York |
| Allegiance |
New York State militia |
| Rank |
Brigadier General, Quartermaster General |
| Commands |
Quartermaster Service in the New York State |
| Battles/wars |
Civil War |
| Other work |
U.S. Vice President (1881), U.S. President (1881-1885) |
Arthur was supposedly born in the town of Fairfield in Franklin County, Vermont (even though no birth record has ever been found in the US) on
October 5, 1829, although he sometimes claimed to be born in
1830 (even his grave inscription says the latter). His parents were William Arthur and Malvina Stone. His father was an Irish
immigrant who had initially migrated to Dunham, Québec, Canada where he and his wife bought a farm, located about 80 miles north
of the Vermont, US border. Arthur never publicly admitted to either country of his birth and there remains much speculation that
he was born a British/Canadian subject and not an American. During his lifetime, political rivals circulated the rumor that he
was born across the International Boundary in Canada, which if true would have barred him from serving as the President of the United States for failure to
meet the eligibility requirements outlined in Article II Clause
5 of the U.S. Constitution, providing that the President must be a
natural born US citizen. Arthur never provided any credible proof of his origins and never admitted to anything.
Arthur spent some of his childhood years living in Perry, New York. One of Arthur's
boyhood friends remembers Arthur's political abilities emerging at an early age:
When Chester was a boy, you might see him in the village street after a shower, watching the boys building a mud dam across
the rivulet in the roadway. Pretty soon, he would be ordering this one to bring stones, another sticks, and others sod and mud to
finish the dam; and they would all do his bidding without question. But he took good care not to get any of the dirt on his
hands. (New York Evening Post, April 2, 1900)
Chester Arthur's Presidency was predicted by James Russel Webster originally of Perry, New
York and then later of Waterloo, New York. A detailed account of this is
written here in a self written memorial for James Russel Webster [1]. An excerpt from Webster's memorial;
Chester Alan Arthur (c.
1859)
"He first attended the Baptist church in Perry, the pastor there being "Elder Arthur," father of Chester A. Arthur. The latter
was then a little boy, and Mr. Webster, once calling at his house, put upon his head of the lad, remarked, "this little boy may
yet be President of the United States." Years after, calling at the White House, he related the circumstances to President
Arthur, who replied that he well remembered the incident although the name of the man who thus predicted his future had long
since passed from his memory; then standing up he added. "You may place your hand upon my head again."
Arthur attended public schools and later attended Union College in Schenectady, New York. There he became a member of Psi
Upsilon, North America's fifth oldest college fraternity, and
graduated in 1848.
Pre-political career
Arthur became principal of North Pownal Academy in North Pownal, Vermont in 1851. He
studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1854. Arthur commenced practice in
New York City, where he supported equal rights for blacks who objected to the racial segregation of
city transportation. He also took an active part in the reorganization
of the state militia.
Arthur married Ellen "Nell" Lewis Herndon[2] on October 25, 1859. She was the only child of Elizabeth Hansbrough and Captain William
Lewis Herndon USN. She was a favorite niece of Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury, USN of the United
States Naval Observatory where her father had worked.
In 1860, Chester Arthur and "Nell" had a son, William Lewis Herndon Arthur, who was named after Ellen's father. This son died
at age two of a brain disease. Another son, Chester Alan Arthur II, was born in 1864, and a girl, named Ellen Hansbrough Herndon
after her mother, in 1871. Ellen "Nell" Arthur died of pneumonia on January 12, 1880, at the early age of 42, only twenty months before Arthur
became President. While in the White House, Arthur would not give anyone the place that would have been his wife's. He asked his
sister Mary, the wife of writer John E. McElroy, to assume certain social duties and help care for his daughter. President Arthur
also had a memorial to his beloved "Nell"—a stained glass window was installed in St. John's Episcopal Church within view of his office and had the church
light it at night so he could look at it. The memorial remains to this day.
During the American Civil War, Arthur served as acting quartermaster general of the state in 1861 and was widely praised for his service. He was later
commissioned as inspector general, and appointed quartermaster general with the rank
of brigadier general and served until 1862. After the war, he resumed the practice of
law in New York City. With the help of Arthur's patron and political boss
Roscoe Conkling, Arthur was appointed by President Ulysses Grant as Collector of the Port of New York from 1871 to 1878.
This was an extremely lucrative and powerful position at the time, and several of Arthur's predecessors had run afoul of the
law while serving as collector. Honorable in his personal life and his public career, Arthur sided with the Stalwarts in the Republican Party, which firmly believed in the spoils
system even as it was coming under vehement attack from reformers. He insisted upon honest administration of the
Customs House but nevertheless staffed it with more employees
than it really needed, retaining some for their loyalty as party workers rather than for their skill as public servants.
The 1880 Election and Vice Presidency
In 1878, Grant's successor, Rutherford Hayes, attempted to reform the Customs
House. He ousted Arthur, who resumed the practice of law in New York City. Conkling and his followers tried to win back power by
the nomination of Grant for a third term at the 1880 Republican National
Convention, but without success. Grant and James G. Blaine deadlocked, and after
36 ballots, the convention turned to dark horse James A.
Garfield, a long time Congressman and General in the Civil War.
Knowing the election would be close, Garfield's people began asking a number of Stalwarts if they would accept the second
spot. Levi P. Morton, on Conkling's advice, refused, but Arthur accepted, telling his
furious leader, "This is a higher honor than I have ever dreamt of attaining. I shall accept!" [3] Conkling and his Stalwart supporters reluctantly accepted the nomination of
Arthur as vice president.
Arthur worked hard raising money for his and Garfield's election, but it was still a close contest, with the Garfield-Arthur
ticket receiving a nationwide plurality of less than ten thousand votes.
After the election, Conkling began making demands of Garfield as to appointments, and the Vice President-elect supported his
longtime patron against his new boss. According to Ira Rutkow's recent biography of Garfield, the new President quickly grew to
hate Arthur, and wouldn't even let him into the White House.
After a nasty political battle between Garfield and Conkling which resulted in the latter's resigation, Arthur went back to
New York City to wait out the time before Congress resumed in December. Then, on July 2
1881, President Garfield was shot in the back by
Charles J. Guiteau, who shouted: "I am a Stalwart
of the Stalwarts... Arthur is president now!!" Arthur, who knew nothing of this in advance, was mortified. (Madmen and
Geniuses, Barzman, 1974)
The Eighty Day Crisis
Arthur was cautious; he knew that there were a great number of people who thought that he had something to do with the
attempted murder of the President, and didn't want anything to do with succession until it was actually necessary; in fact, he
went into seclusion, largely confining himself to his house in New York City and avoiding
public appearances. Thus, for two months and 18 days, the country drifted, leaderless, hanging on every reported detail of
Garfield's health without much attention to the business of government. On September 19,
Garfield died and Arthur succeeded to the Presidency.
Presidency 1881-1885
Assumption of office
President Arthur took the oath of office twice. The first time was just past midnight at his Lexington Avenue residence on
September 20th by New York Supreme Court justice John R. Brady; the second time
was upon his return to Washington two days later.
Policies
Arthur was aware of the factions and rivalries of the Republican Party, as well as the controversies of cronyism versus civil service reform. Entering the presidency under
suspicion of conspiring to assassinate his predecessor, Arthur believed that the only way to garner the nation's approval — and
to heal the breaches in American politics that had killed a President — was to be independent from both factions. Arthur
determined to go his own way once in the White House.
He became a man of fashion in his manner of dress and in his associates; he was often seen with the elite of Washington, D.C., New York, and Newport. To the indignation of the Stalwarts, the onetime Collector of
the Port of New York became, as President, a champion of civil service reform. Avoiding old political cronies and alienating his
old mentor Conkling, public pressure, heightened by the assassination of Garfield, forced an unwieldy Congress to heed the
President.
In 1883, Congress passed the Pendleton Act, which established a bipartisan Civil Service Commission which stopped big businesses from giving out rebates and
pooling with other companies, forbade levying political assessments against officeholders, and provided for a "classified system"
that made certain government positions obtainable only through competitive written examinations. The system protected employees
against removal for political reasons.
Chester A. Arthur official White House portrait
Acting independently of party dogma, Arthur also tried to lower tariff rates so the government
would not be embarrassed by annual surpluses of revenue. Congress raised about as many rates as it trimmed, but Arthur signed the
Tariff Act of 1883 anyway. Aggrieved Westerners and Southerners looked to the Democratic Party for redress, and the tariff began to emerge as a major political issue
between the two parties.
The Arthur Administration enacted the first general Federal immigration law. Arthur
approved a measure in 1882 excluding paupers, criminals, and the mentally ill. Congress also
suspended Chinese immigration for ten years with the Chinese Exclusion Act, later making the restriction permanent.
In 1884, the International Meridian Conference was held in
Washington at President Arthur's behest. This established the Greenwich Meridian which is
still in use today.
President Arthur demonstrated that he was above not only factions within the Republican Party, but possibly the party itself. Perhaps, in part, he felt able to do
this because of the well-kept secret he had known since a year after he succeeded to the Presidency, that he was suffering from
Bright's Disease, a fatal kidney disease. This accounted for his failure to
aggressively seek the Republican nomination for President in 1884. Nevertheless, Arthur was the last incumbent President to
submit his name for renomination and fail to obtain it. Arthur sought a full term as President in 1884, but lost the Republican party's presidential nomination to former
Speaker of the House and Secretary of State James G. Blaine of
Maine. Blaine, however, lost the election to Democrat Grover Cleveland of New York.
Significant events during presidency
Administration and Cabinet
Supreme Court appointments
States admitted to the Union
None
Social and personal life
Arthur is remembered as one of the most society-conscious presidents, earning the nickname "the Gentleman Boss" for his style
of dress and courtly manner. Professors Marina Margaret Heiss at the University of Viriginia lists Arthur as an example of an
INTJ personality.[4]
Upon taking office, Arthur did not move into the White House immediately. He insisted
upon its redecoration and had 24 wagonloads of furniture, some including pieces dating back to John
Adams' term, carted away and sold at public auction. Former president Rutherford B.
Hayes bought two wagonloads of furniture which today are at his home Spiegel Grove.
Arthur then commissioned Louis Comfort Tiffany to replace them with new pieces. A
famous designer now best-known for his stained glass, Tiffany was among the foremost
designers of the day.[5]
Arthur was a fisherman who belonged to the Restigouche Salmon Club and once reportedly
caught an 80-pound bass off the coast of Rhode
Island.
Widely popular by the end of his presidency, four young women (ignorant of Arthur's pronouncement that he would never marry
again) proposed to him on the day he left office. He was sometimes called "Elegant Arthur" for his commitment to fashionable
attire and was said to have "looked like a president." He reportedly kept 80 pairs of pants in his wardrobe and changed pants
several times a day. He was called "Chet" by family and friends, and by his middle name, with the stress on the second syllable
("Al-AN").
Post presidency
Arthur served as President through March 4, 1885. Upon leaving
office, he returned to New York City, where he died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage
at 5:10 a.m. on Thursday, November 18, 1886, at the age of 57.
Arthur suffered from Bright's disease, and his death was most likely related to a
history of hypertension.
His post presidency was the second shortest, longer only than
that of James Polk (excluding presidents who died in office).
Chester was buried next to Ellen in the Arthur family plot in the Albany Rural
Cemetery in Menands, New York, in a large sarcophagus on a large corner plot
that contains the graves of many of his family members and ancestors.
Media and Modern Cultural References
- During the movie Die Hard with a Vengeance, John McClane, played by actor
Bruce Willis is asked a riddle by Simon, the movie's antagonist, "What is 21 out of 42?". Together with Zeus, McClane figures out that there have been 42
Presidents of the United States, but they are unable to remember who the 21st was. Later, a truck driver tells McClane
that the 21st president was Chester A. Arthur, and identifies a school in which Simon claims to have placed a bomb —
it is later found to be Chester A. Arthur Elementary School.
- In the Futurama episode "The Day The Earth Stood Stupid", he is shown briefly when Fry attempts to re-educate his
co-workers.
Notes
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