Chester Alan Arthur, the twenty-first President of the United States, was a handsome and stylish gentlemen who was exceedingly fond of expensive clothes. He was a tall man of medium build, with a slightly chubby, round face, and a cleft chin. Being of Irish heritage, his hair was thick and prematurely gray. He wore an ample mustache and long bushy sideburns. Though Chester A. Arthur had the congenial manner of a politician, the only office he ever received by way of election was that of the Vice Presidency. As a young lawyer, Arthur was dedicated to defending the civil rights of blacks and Native Americans. A fierce abolitionist, Arthur presided over the first meeting of the New York State Republican Party. As a Republican he became a firm believer in the spoils system and a close friend of Roscoe Conkling, the leader of the New York political machine. During the Grant Administration, Arthur was rewarded for his dedication to partisan politics with the much coveted position of controller of the Port of New York. President Hayes later forced Arthur to resign on suspicion of corruption and mismanagement. In 1880, when the Conkling-backed candidate, former President Grant, failed to secure the National Republican Party nomination, Chester A. Arthur was nominated to the Vice Presidency in order to quell Conkling and unite the party. Vice President Arthur's faith in the spoils system was soon shaken, however, by the assassination of his successor, President Garfield. Upon assuming office, President Arthur proceeded to break all of his ties with the Republican political machine, going so far as to sign the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 and to back federal investigations which implicated his closest associates in the Republican Party. President Arthur's years in office, however, fell victim to a lack of Congressional support. With his new policy of reform, Arthur had alienated himself from his former supporters and could not secure the support of reformers because of his notorious past.
Chester Alan Arthur was born October 5, 1830 in Fairfield, Franklin County, Vermont. He was the first son, and fifth child of nine born to Malvina and William Arthur. William Arthur was a Baptist minister and farmer who had emigrated from County Antrim, Ireland. As the son of a minister, Chester Arthur's early life was spent continuously moving around Vermont and upstate New York. Chester Arthur received his elementary education from formal schools, which he attended three months out of the year, and from private tutors. He enrolled at Union College in Schnectady, New York as a sophomore in 1845. At Union, Arthur studied Greek and Latin and led an active social life, joining various clubs and sports. Arthur graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1848. After graduation he moved to North Pownal, Vermont, where he taught for a year at the North Pownal Academy before becoming principal in 1849. He studied law while working as principal, and in 1853, Arthur took a job as a law clerk at the firm of Parker and Culver. Upon passing the bar in 1854, Chester A. Arthur became a full member of Parker and Culver.
On October 25, 1859 Chester Alan Arthur married Ellen Lewis Herndon, the daughter of a captain in the U.S. Navy. Arthur and his wife had two sons, one of whom died in infancy, and one daughter. Ellen Arthur died on January 2, 1880, five months before her husband's nomination to the office of Vice President. President Arthur's daughter, Mary Arthur McElroy, served as White House hostess during his years in office.
Chester Arthur attended the first New York Republican convention in 1856, where he befriended Governor Edward D Morgan. Morgan appointed Arthur state engineer in chief and commissioned him with the military rank of brigadier general. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Governor Morgan promoted Arthur to the position of assistant quarter master general. Arthur was promoted two more times, once to inspector general and finally to quarter master general of the New York troops, before resigning his commission when Democrat Horatio Seymour became governor in 1863.
By 1868, Chester A. Arthur had befriended Roscoe Conkling and become one of the chief players in the New York State Republican machine. During the Grant administration, Arthur was rewarded for his partisan politics with an appointment to the position of controller of the Port of New York. As controller, Arthur was responsible for overseeing the collection of two thirds of the United States Government's tariff revenue income, and commanded a personal salary of $40,000 a year. Though Arthur proved to be an efficient administrator, his insistence on appointing subordinates by way of the spoils system in defiance of the reformatory measures of the Hayes administration caused President Hayes to demand his resignation. Arthur and two other top customhouse officials were fired in 1878, but following the advice of Senator Roscoe Conkling, refused to relinquish their positions until Congress approved their replacements. Senator Conkling was able to delay proceedings in Congress so that the Republican Party, and Chester A. Arthur, could remain in control of the Port of New York for another year.
By the election of 1880, the Republican Party was split into two groups, the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds. The Stalwarts, led by Senator Roscoe Conkling, supported former President Ulysses S. Grant for the nomination. The Half-Breeds supported James G. Blaine. When it became clear that neither the Stalwarts nor the Half-Breeds were going to be able to pull the two thirds majority necessary to secure the nomination, the party nominated James A. Garfield as a compromise. Senator Conkling protested and threatened to break up the party. Party leaders decided to nominate Stalwart Levi Morton for Vice President in order to quell Conkling and save the unity of the party. At the bequest of Conkling, who was not in the mood to be satiated by what he perceived as a token gesture, Morton rejected the nomination. Still looking to quell Conkling, the party then nominated Chester A. Arthur for Vice President. Conkling asked Arthur to turn the nomination down, but Arthur refused. The Republicans James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur went on to defeat Democrats Winfield Scott Hancock and William H. English in the general election of 1880.
President Garfield's cabinet heavily favored the Half-Breed faction of the Republican Party. The Stalwarts objected loudly and tried to block as many of the appointments as possible. When President Garfield appointed William Robertson, a major political rival of Senator Conkling, collector of the Port of New York, Conkling and a small number of Stalwart Senators resigned their seats in protest. Conkling asked voters to show their disapproval of all of the President's appointments by re-electing the protesting Stalwarts to the Senate. Conkling and his supporters failed to regain their seats in the midterm election.
On July 2, 1881, a man approached President Garfield and yelled, "I'm a Stalwart, now Arthur is President!" before firing two shots into the President's back. The President was taken to the White House where he lived for two and a half months while doctors tried repeatedly to remove a bullet that was lodged near his spine. President James A. Garfield died on the morning of September 19, 1881. Vice President Chester A. Arthur was inaugurated as the twenty-first President of the United States later that same day.
The assassin, Charles Guiteau, had become incensed when he failed to receive a diplomatic position which he felt was owed him as payment for canvassing work he had done on the 1880 Republican campaign. Despite his bold proclamation, Guiteau was not in any way connected to the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party. At his trial, Guiteau pleaded innocent by way of insanity. He was executed in Washington D.C.
The nation's newspapers viewed Chester A. Arthur as a symbol of the spoils system corruption that had killed President Garfield. Grave predictions were made about future corruption that would undoubtedly take place under such a man as Chester Arthur. Deeply hurt by all the bad press, Arthur set out to disprove all of the negative predictions. Upon assuming office, President Arthur did not appoint a new cabinet as was expected, but instead kept the one which had been appointed by President Garfield, despite Stalwart objections to such appointments as Half-Breed James G. Blaine as Secretary of State. President Arthur's fissure from the Stalwarts was more or less cemented when he refused to call off a federal investigation into a post office scandal which threatened to implicate a number of his Stalwart friends. On January 16, 1883, President Arthur signed into law the Pendleton Civil Service Act, which provided for the classification of 10% of civil service jobs, and the establishment of a non-partisan committee to draw up and administer tests that would ensure that those classified government jobs were given out to only the best qualified candidates. The Pendleton Civil Service Act also made the practice extorting political contributions from subordinate government employees illegal.
Throughout his term, President Arthur found himself almost completely without Congressional support. Concerned that the tariff system was injuring the economy by taking money out of circulation during a time of government surplus, President Arthur established a non-partisan committee that would study the tariff system and be able to make educated suggestions toward reform. He urged Congress to listen to the findings of his committee, but when the committee suggested an across-the-board tariff reduction of 20 percent, Congress ignored it. Recognizing the need to regulate interstate railroads, President Arthur petitioned Congress for legislation which he never received. President Arthur vetoed the Chinese Exclusion Bill which barred Chinese immigrants from entering the country, but his veto was overturned.
President Arthur did manage to extend the Navy and the Postal system and reduce the federal debt by shifting around the surplus revenue from the tariff system. He supported strict laws against polygamy and a program to provide Native Americans with an American education, enforcing the break up of the tribal system.
Friendless in the political world, President Arthur sought to build his own political party. In 1882, he ran Secretary of the Treasury, Charles J. Folger as a candidate for governor of New York. When Folger lost by a landslide to Democrat Grover Cleveland, Arthur abandoned the idea of establishing his own party.
President Arthur failed to secure the Republican nomination in 1884. He left office on March 4, 1885 and moved to New York City where he re-established his law practice. He became the president of the New York Arcade Railway Company, which was trying to secure a contract to build a subway in New York City. In February of 1886, Chester Arthur was diagnosed with Bright's Disease, a fatal kidney ailment, and retired his position in the railway company. Chester Alan Arthur died on November 18, 1886.
