Chester A. Arthur
Dignified, tall, and handsome, with clean-shaven chin and side-whiskers, Chester
A. Arthur "looked like a President."
The son of a Baptist preacher who had emigrated from northern Ireland, Arthur
was born in Fairfield, Vermont, in 1829. He was graduated from Union College in
1848, taught school, was admitted to the bar, and practiced law in New York
City. Early in the Civil War he served as Quartermaster General of the State of
New York.
President Grant in 1871 appointed him Collector of the Port of New York. Arthur
effectively marshalled the thousand Customs House employees under his
supervision on behalf of Roscoe Conkling's Stalwart Republican machine.
Honorable in his personal life and his public career, Arthur nevertheless was a
firm believer in the spoils system when it was coming under vehement attack from
reformers. He insisted upon honest administration of the Customs House, but
staffed it with more employees than it needed, retaining them for their merit as
party workers rather than as Government officials.
In 1878 President Hayes, attempting to reform the Customs House, ousted Arthur.
Conkling and his followers tried to win redress by fighting for the renomination
of Grant at the 1880 Republican Convention. Failing, they reluctantly accepted
the nomination of Arthur for the Vice Presidency.
During his brief tenure as Vice President, Arthur stood firmly beside Conkling
in his patronage struggle against President Garfield. But when Arthur succeeded
to the Presidency, he was eager to prove himself above machine politics.
Avoiding old political friends, he became a man of fashion in his garb and
associates, and often was seen with the elite of Washington, New York, and
Newport. To the indignation of the Stalwart Republicans, the onetime Collector
of the Port of New York became, as President, a champion of civil service
reform. 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, 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.
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. 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 lunatics.
Congress suspended Chinese immigration for ten years, later making the
restriction permanent.
Arthur demonstrated as President that he was above factions within the
Republican Party, if indeed not above the party itself. Perhaps in part his
reason was the well-kept secret he had known since a year after he succeeded to
the Presidency, that he was suffering from a fatal kidney disease. He kept
himself in the running for the Presidential nomination in 1884 in order not to
appear that he feared defeat, but was not renominated, and died in 1886.
Publisher Alexander K. McClure recalled, "No man ever entered the Presidency so
profoundly and widely distrusted, and no one ever retired ... more generally
respected." |
