Chester A. Arthur

President of the United States (1881–85)

• Born: October 5, 1829
• Birthplace: Fairfield, Vermont
• Died: November 18, 1886
• Place of death: New York, New York

Arthur’s presidency, virtually free of corruption, comforted a nation grieving over the assassination of President James A. Garfield, maintained peace and order, promoted economic growth, and demonstrated the stability and adaptability of the American political system in crises.

Early Life

Chester Alan Arthur was the oldest of seven children in a Vermont family. His mother, Malvina Stone, was a Canadian whose Baptist ancestors had immigrated from England. His father, William Arthur, was an Irish immigrant turned Baptist minister as well as a respectable scholar. Under the tutorship of his father, Arthur showed an intense interest in learning and a high aptitude in the subjects he studied, matriculating at Union College in Schenectady, New York (at that time, one of the best-known colleges in the East), on September 5, 1845, at the age of fifteen. He became a member of the Psi Upsilon Society, taught in the local schools to help defray the cost of his education, and at the age of eighteen graduated with high honors including membership in the Phi Beta Kappa honor society in July, 1848.

After his graduation from college, Arthur pursued his ambition to become a lawyer by enrolling in the law school at Ballston Springs, New York, where he studied for a few months, continuing his studies at home and teaching. In 1851, he became principal and teacher at the North Pownal Academy in Bennington County, Vermont, ten miles from his family across the border in Hoosick, New York. During Arthur’s tenure as principal there, James A. Garfield served for a time as a faculty member, teaching business and penmanship—a circumstance that was to be fully exploited in the presidential campaign of 1880. In 1852, Arthur became principal of an academy at Cohoes, New York; in 1853, he continued his legal studies in the office of the prestigious firm of Erastus D. Culver.

On May 4, 1854, after having completed his studies, Arthur was admitted to the bar. He joined Culver’s firm and began practicing law. In 1856, upon becoming a judge of the Civil Court of Brooklyn, Arthur formed a partnership with an old friend, Henry D. Gardiner. For three months, Arthur and his friend tried to establish a practice out West but returned to New York City after becoming disillusioned by widespread lawlessness. Two of Arthur’s first and most celebrated cases involved the Fugitive Slave Law and discrimination against black people on New York City streetcars. As a staunch member of the abolitionist movement in the United States, Arthur found in these two cases an opportunity to make a significant contribution to the antislavery movement.

As a Whig delegate from Brooklyn who was, dedicated to the abolitionist movement, Arthur participated in the convention that met at Saratoga in August of 1854, for the purpose of developing methods for combating the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The action of the convention led to the birth of the Republican Party . In the party’s first campaign for the presidency, Arthur wholeheartedly supported and campaigned for the first presidential nominee of the Republican Party, John C. Frémont . During the campaign, Arthur served on an executive committee that worked for the election of Frémont. On election day, Arthur served as an inspector of elections at the polls.

In October, 1859, Arthur married Ellen Lewis Herndon, a member of a distinguished Virginia family and sister of a good friend, Dabney Herndon. Their union produced two sons (one son died at the age of four) and one daughter. Arthur’s wife died in January, 1881.

Life’s Work

After joining the state’s militia, Arthur gained extensive knowledge of military science, especially concerning strategy and logistics. His highly rated performance led to his appointment as judge advocate-general of the Second Brigade of the New York Militia. Having fully assisted him in his bid for reelection, the governor of New York appointed Arthur as engineer-in-chief and charged him with the responsibility of drawing plans to protect the state.

After the US Civil War began, the governor promoted Arthur to the position of inspector general of New York troops in the field. Later, he was appointed assistant quartermaster general, then quartermaster general of New York, responsible for raising regiments to fight on the battlefields and maintaining the troops. While serving in the post of quartermaster general, Arthur got his long-awaited chance to participate in direct combat on the battlefields. He was elected first by the Ninth Regiment of the New York Militia and, second, by the Metropolitan Brigade of New York City to lead them in battle. Both times, the governor successfully dissuaded Arthur, persuading him to remain in his post as quartermaster general, wherein he ably carried out his responsibilities for the cause of the Union.

After he resigned his position following the election of a Democrat as governor of New York, Arthur spent much time in Albany and Washington working on war claims and drafting important bills that required quick action, soon becoming one of the best lawyers in New York. In 1866, Arthur helped Roscoe Conkling get elected to the US Senate, who then became Arthur's chief henchman until he became president.

In 1867, Arthur was elected to the Century Club, a prestigious intellectual and social organization, and was elected chairman of the executive committee of the New York Republican Party. In 1871, Arthur established one of the most outstanding law firms in New York; in the same year, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him collector of the Port of New York—the most important political position outside Washington, DC. Impressed with Arthur’s management of the Port of New York, Grant reappointed him to the collectorship, and the Senate confirmed the reappointment unanimously.

In 1878, however, President Rutherford B. Hayes dismissed Arthur from the collectorship on the grounds that his positions in the government and the Republican Party were incompatible with respect to civil service reforms. The outrageous scandals of Grant’s two administrations had convinced Hayes of the dire need for an appreciable reform program in government designed to take politics out of the bureaucracy. The removal of Arthur was therefore not based on his competence but on the fact that, as a consummate politician, he had manipulated his position in a way that made him the undisputed “boss” of the Republican Party of New York City as well as chairman of the Central Committee of the Republican Party of the state. Upon his removal, a petition signed by some of the most reputable persons of the time, asking that Arthur be retained, was suppressed by Arthur. Like Garfield, Arthur never sought a position; he wished to retain the collectorship on his own merit, but as a result of a bitter struggle between the Hayes administration and the Conkling machine, he chose to return to practicing law.

In 1879, as chairman of the Republican Central Committee, Arthur worked hard to strengthen the Republican Party of his state—particularly the Stalwarts (1869–80), the “regular” or machine wing of his party, who were opposed to the reform program of Hayes’s administration—and, disregarding the two-term tradition honored by all the presidents since George Washington, strongly advocated and worked to secure a third term for Grant. In Chicago in June, 1880, at the Republican National Convention , destiny brought Garfield and Arthur together again as it had twenty-six years earlier at the North Pownal Academy in Vermont. This time their relationship was reversed: Arthur worked under Garfield. The nomination of Garfield and Arthur as candidates for president and vice president of the Republican Party startled the nation, including the candidates themselves.

Both men went to Chicago to do everything within their power to help get the leader of their wing nominated. A bitter struggle was expected between the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds (a wing of the Republican Party, 1876–84, that supported Hayes’s conciliatory policy toward the South, opposed a third term for Grant, and supported the nomination of Garfield), but there were those who believed that the leaders would find a way to resolve the struggle with some kind of compromise. Finally, in order to end the deadlocked convention, the Half-Breeds turned to Garfield on the thirty-sixth ballot and nominated him to lead the Republican Party to victory in 1880. Because they knew that they had no chance of winning the presidency without the support of the Stalwarts, they offered the nomination for vice president to the second most powerful boss of the New York political machine, Chester A. Arthur.

Arthur’s nomination was based on political strategy designed to produce some semblance of unity within the Republican Party. On the basis of the experiences of all the candidates available in 1880, Arthur was one of the least qualified to serve as vice president and had no qualifications that would have justified his nomination for the office of the president. Arthur was chosen because he was Conkling’s right-hand man. Without the support of the New York political machine, the Republican Party could not win the election. At the outset, Conkling squawked at Arthur’s decision to join the Garfield forces, but before the campaign ended, he gave some support.

As the campaign got under way in 1880, the jockeying by the various factions for control left the Republican Party in a state of disarray, and consequently, the opposing forces expediently closed ranks. One of the most thrilling national political conventions in American history produced one of the most unusual tickets in the history of presidential nominating conventions: The presidential candidate thoroughly qualified, with seventeen years of yeoman’s service in the House of Representatives on behalf of the people of his district and the nation; the vice presidential candidate a skilled politician deeply tied to a powerful political machine, with all of his work experience limited to his home state, and with no experience that equipped him to serve as president. The ticket that had surprised the party, the nation, and the candidates themselves succeeded in achieving a narrow victory at the polls in November.

Only a few months after his inauguration, however—on July 2, 1881—Garfield was shot by a deranged office-seeker, Charles J. Guiteau, in a Washington railroad station. Eighty days later, Garfield died, and the agonizing wait of the people who had prayed so hard for his recovery came to an end. Arthur remained extremely apprehensive throughout the lingering death struggle, hoping that somehow Garfield would survive, recover, and resume his duties as president. When Arthur accepted the invitation to run on the ticket with Garfield, he did so on the basis that it would give him the opportunity to escape the continual and perplexing problems associated with his management of the political machine. After his removal from his position as collector of the New York Customhouse by the outgoing President Hayes, Arthur regarded his selection as vice presidential candidate as a vindication of his integrity.

Garfield’s tragic death cast the nation into a state of shock that for a while quelled the political discord that to an appreciable degree remained constant in the wake of the presidential campaign of the previous year. As the shock gradually subsided, however, consternation gripped the nation, for the office and power of the president had devolved on the second most powerful political boss in the country, who himself was the chief lieutenant of the most powerful boss in America. To allay such fears, Arthur gradually dissolved his relationship with Conkling and his machine.

During his term as president, Arthur fought hard for a canal in Nicaragua that would be owned and operated by the United States; advocated a program of reciprocal trade agreements; developed the first modern American steel navy; prosecuted those who defrauded the Post Office Department; and vetoed the Chinese Exclusion Act, changing the suspension of Chinese immigration from twenty to ten years. Possibly Arthur’s greatest achievement was his strong support of the act that became the foundation of civil service reform—the Pendleton Act of 1883.

In addition, Arthur recognized the significance of issues that, although not resolved during his presidency, were later to confirm the soundness of his judgment. Among the recommendations Arthur proposed were statehood for Alaska, a building for the Library of Congress, a law determining who should count the electoral votes in order to avoid the type of dispute that occurred in 1876, and the regulation of interstate commerce. In order to avoid another presidential succession crisis, Arthur strongly recommended a constitutional amendment that would provide for the expedient resolution of questions pertaining to presidential succession. Arthur’s proposal concerning presidential succession was ultimately realized with the ratification of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution on February 10, 1967.

Arthur’s long bout with Bright’s disease (he had it at the time he assumed the presidency) failed to affect his administration significantly; it did, however, to a large extent prevent him from succeeding himself, which was an eventuality he very much desired. After his unsuccessful efforts to obtain the nomination of his party in 1884, his supporters in the Republican Party of New York tried to urge him for a seat in the US Senate in their efforts to repair their badly damaged “machine.” Because of his infirmity and lack of interest (after having been president, he considered campaigning for the Senate to be improper), he rejected the idea. He attended ceremonies opening the Brooklyn Bridge in May, 1883. Just before his term expired, Arthur dedicated the Washington Monument, on February 22, 1885.

After Arthur left office, he was elected president of his fraternity, Psi Upsilon, and elected head of the forerunner of the subway system of New York City, the New York Arcade Railway. Arthur died on November 18, 1886, at his home in New York City.

Significance

Arthur showed that the aura of the office and power of the presidency can transform a politician wedded to a political machine into a president who dissociates himself from the machine and bases his policies and programs on what he deems best for the people and the nation. Under the leadership of President Arthur, the intense perturbation of the American people caused by the assassination of Garfield was greatly alleviated. Arthur demonstrated that a man of limited experience could be inspired by the prestige, office, and authority of the presidency to exploit his talents and experience to the fullest extent possible, to become an effective president.

When the leading historians in the United States were polled to rate the presidents, they evaluated their subjects as great, near great, above average, average, or below average, with a final slot reserved for outright failures. The historians assigned Arthur to the average class, along with seven other presidents: William McKinley, William Howard Taft, Martin Van Buren, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, Zachary Taylor, and Jimmy Carter. Arthur’s rating indicates that he overcame his political handicaps and commendably performed his responsibilities as president.

Bibliography

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Doenecke, Justus D. The Presidencies of James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. Lawrence: UP of Kansas, 1981. Print..

Haberman, Clyde. "A Forgotten Swearing-In, 123 Years Ago." New York Times. New York Times, 21 Jan. 2005. Web. 18 Mar. 2013.

Howe, George Frederick. Chester A. Arthur: A Quarter-Century of Machine Politics. New York: Dodd, 1934. Print.

Karabell, Zachary. Chester Alan Arthur. New York: Times, 2004. Print.

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MacAdam, Pat. "Arthur's Secret." Beaver 80.3 (2000): 16. Print.

Reeves, Thomas C. Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester Alan Arthur. New York: Knopf, 1975. Print.

Sievers, Harry J., ed. Six Presidents from the Empire State. Tarrytown: Sleepy Hollow Restorations, 1974. Print.