Chester Arthur is known for becoming the 21st U.S. president after James Garfield’s assassination; his surprising and effective leadership, which defied his “state-based reputation as a slick machine politician” and for not having a Vice-President.
Chester Alan Arthur was born October 5, 1829 in Fairfield, Vermont, the fifth child of a fervent abolitionist preacher who moved his family from one Baptist parish to the next throughout New York and Vermont.
After graduating in 1848 from Union College in Schenectady, New York, Arthur studied law and simultaneously taught school. He was admitted to the New York bar in 1854 and joined a law firm in New York City.
One year later Arthur was the lead attorney representing Lizzie Jennings, a Black woman, in her suit against a Brooklyn streetcar company after the conductor physically removed her from a streetcar because she was Black, as the car was reserved for whites. The landmark victory led to a New York law forbidding discrimination in public transportation and the desegregation of the New York City streetcar lines.
An ardent abolitionist, Arthur also played a minor role in the case of an enslaved man who sued for his freedom on the ground that his master had brought him temporarily to the free state of New York.
Arthur served as quartermaster general of the New York Militia during the Civil War. Responsible for provisioning and housing several hundred thousand soldiers, as well as for the defenses of New York; Arthur dealt with hundreds of private contractors and military personnel. Through his military service he gained a reputation for efficiency, administrative genius, and reliability.
Upon his retirement from duty in 1863, Arthur threw himself into his law practice. Arthur also became a key figure in the New York Republican political machine.
He became the customs collector for the Port of New York City. As the customs collector he continued with the tradition of building up a powerful political base by awarding jobs to supporters.
Arthur was nominated by the Republicans for vice president and got the nomination primarily because of political reasons and as a favor to Arthur’s powerful friend, Senator Roscoe Conkling.
Garfield and Arthur won the 1880 presidential election and took office in March 1881. Four months into his term, Garfield was shot by an assassin, an event that shocked the nation. Garfield died 11 weeks later.
Arthur assumed the presidency, but was reluctant to be seen acting as president while Garfield lived. So, for the next two months there was a void of authority in the executive office, with Garfield too weak to carry out his duties, and Arthur reluctant to assume them. Through the summer, Arthur refused to travel to Washington and was at his Lexington Avenue home when he learned that Garfield had died on the night of September 19.
Once in office, Arthur confounded his critics and dismayed many of his friends among the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party. Despite a background in political patronage, he prioritized merit-based hiring for federal jobs, a major shift in American government. Arthur championed and signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in 1883. This law established a merit-based system for federal job applicants, a major departure from the patronage-based system.
His presidency oversaw the modernization of the U.S. Navy which lead to the largest expansion of the U.S. Navy at the time. Arthur’s administration implemented stricter restrictions on immigration, including signing the Chinese Exclusion Act into law in 1882.
Chester Arthur did not have a Vice President because the Constitution at the time did not provide a process to fill a vacancy in the vice presidency once it occurred. The vice-presidential office remained vacant until the next election. This issue was later addressed in 1967 by the Twenty-fifth Amendment, which established a method for filling such vacancies.
There were three presidents in 1881. Arthur succeeded James A, Garfield after his death, just months after Garfield assumed the office from Rutherford B. Hayes earlier that year. As a result, in the course of a single year there were three American presidents.
After his presidency ended in 1885, Arthur’s health began to fail. Arthur had been diagnosed with Bright disease in 1882, an incurable kidney ailment at that time. He tried to resume the practice of law after leaving the presidency, but his ill health prevented him from doing much work. Arthur’s post-presidency was the second-shortest of all presidents who lived past their presidencies, after that of James K. Polk who died just three months after leaving office.
Chester A. Arthur died on November 18, 1886, at the age of 56 from complications of Bright disease.
In spite of being a relatively unknown President, there are multiple statues of Chester A. Arthur. Madison Square Park, boasts a monumental bronze statue by George Edwin Bissell depicting Arthur in a frock coat standing before a rug-draped armchair.
The Union College’s bronze statue in Schenectady, New York, created by Ephraim Keyser, stands on the campus of the college Arthur attended. There is a statue of Arthur as part of a collection of all former U.S. Presidents in Rapid City, South Dakota.
While not a traditional statue, his gravesite in Albany Rural Cemetery, New York features a monument with a bronze sculpture, and it is sometimes referred to as a monument or memorial. Statues and monuments dedicated to Chester A. Arthur can also be found at the Seven Presidents Memorial and Arthur Monument in Long Branch, New Jersey and his birthplace in Fairfield, Vermont.
At the end of Chester Arthur’s presidential term, Mark Twain decided, “it would be hard to better President Arthur’s administration.”