The twenty-first president of the United States, Chester Alan Arthur was reputed to be one of the leading spoilsmen in American politics when he took office, but he proved to be a dignified and an able administrator.
Background
Political enemies claimed that Chester A. Arthur was Canadian-born and therefore ineligible to be president of the United States. Arthur himself never replied to the charges and said that he was born on October 5, 1830, in Fairfield, Vt., the eldest of seven children of a Scotch-Irish Baptist minister.
Education
Arthur completed his primary education from a school at Union Villager near New York. One of his teachers remembered Arthur for his outspoken nature and being ‘genial in disposition’.
Chester Arthur later moved to Union College to pursue his further education. However, he was more focussed in being a part of extracurricular and political activities here, rather than concentrating on studies.
Union College awarded Arthur the honorary degree of LL.D. in 1883.
Moving to New York City, he built up a successful law practice and became interested in Republican party politics.
Arthur rose steadily, if undramatically, in the Republican party by virtue of his willingness to perform the less exciting labors necessary to building a new political movement. New York City was slipping into the clutches of the Democratic party machine of William Marcy Tweed during the Civil War, but Arthur moved up steadily as the protégé of the state's governor. He served as engineer in chief, inspector general, and quartermaster general of New York, raising, equipping, and dispatching state troops for the Federal government. In 1863, when the Republicans were turned out of office, he stepped aside for a Democratic successor. By unanimous agreement he had been an excellent administrator.
As a reward for his work for the party, in November 1871 President U.S. Grant named Arthur to be collector of customs for the Port of New York. In an age when political parties functioned almost primarily for patronage—the jobs and other "spoils" which accrued to the party in power— Arthur possessed one of the most powerful and lucrative positions in the patronage apparatus by the time he was 41. As collector, he supervised more than 1000 employees, and many of these were troops in the New York State Republican machine. Arthur helped oversee the distribution of the jobs and, at election time, supervised the collection of "assessments"—contributions to Republican campaign funds which were virtually a requirement for holding a Federal job. The Customs House was no stranger to graft but Arthur himself was honest. He once said that "if I had misappropriated five cents, and on walking down-town saw two men talking on the street together, I would imagine they were talking of my dishonesty and the very thought would drive me mad."
In a sense, corruption would have been superfluous. Arthur was paid by a fee of one-half of all monies he recovered for the government from importers misrepresenting what they owed. In one famous case Arthur and two other officials divided $135,000. His pay generally ran to $40,000 a year until 1874, when his salary was set at $12,000.
Not all of this money stayed in Arthur's bank account. Like all political appointees, he was expected to make large donations to the party. These expenditures earned Arthur a prominent place in New York State's patronage-oriented Republican party. With Alonzo Cornell and Levi Morton, he stood second only to Roscoe Conkling in the control of New York's powerful political organization. His reputation among reformers was disgraceful but, until 1880, he could afford to ignore any pressures but Conkling's.
In 1880 Republicans divided sharply and bitterly over the nomination of a presidential candidate. The two principal hopefuls were former president U.S. Grant (Conkling and Arthur were among his chief advocates) and James G. Blaine. The deadlocked convention resolved the issue only by turning to a dark-horse candidate, James A. Garfield of Ohio. Conkling, the leader of the pro-Grant faction, was furious—for Garfield was friendlier to Blaine than himself— and he insisted that Levi Morton decline the offered vice-presidential nomination. Arthur was the Garfield group's second vice-presidential choice and, though Conkling remained adamant, Arthur accepted. Arthur continued to pay court to Conkling, however, even after the election had made him vice president of the United States. In fact, Arthur was in Albany, lobbying for Conkling's reelection, when news arrived that President Garfield had been shot in Washington by a deranged man who claimed he did it in order to make Arthur president. Garfield died on September 19, 1881, and Arthur became president.
Historians tend to agree that Arthur was a much better president than anyone expected. He seemed sensitive to the dignity of his office, and, while he continued to send most patronage to his old allies, he generally extricated himself from their society. Though he offered Conkling a seat on the Supreme Court, he left one of Conkling's old enemies in the Customs House. Republicans on the side of reform were chagrined at this new president, but Arthur could be surprising. He even supported and signed a landmark civil service bill (providing, among other things, for examinations as a prerequisite to holding some government jobs), and he permitted an investigation of post office frauds, which implicated several cronies.
Arthur remained what he had always been, a good administrator. But, as H. Wayne Morgan (1969) points out, "Arthur liked the appearance of power more than its substance." He designed a flag for himself, relished military ceremonies, refurbished the shabby White House, and presented a perfect presidential appearance. He took little initiative in the significant events of his term, such as the Pendleton Civil Service Act and the construction of a modern navy.
Unfortunately for Arthur's political future (he would have liked to be reelected in 1884), he had alienated old supporters without winning over old enemies. In 1884 he had no real strength at the Republican Convention and was quietly shelved. He died in 1886. He had not inspired his contemporaries, and, though his biographers have been friendly, he has not inspired them either.
As a result of a religious experience, Arthur's father became a Baptist minister, but Arthur doesn't seem to have shared his father's faith. Arthur sometimes attended church, generally favoring Episcopal services. Franklin Steiner, in his book The Religious Beliefs Of Our Presidents, categorized Arthur among "Presidents Whose Religious Views Are Doubtful."
Politics
During the Garfield administration, Secretary of State James G. Blaine attempted to invigorate United States diplomacy in Latin America, urging reciprocal trade agreements and offering to mediate disputes among the Latin American nations. Blaine, venturing a greater involvement in affairs south of the Rio Grande, proposed a Pan-American conference in 1882 to discuss trade and an end to the War of the Pacific being fought by Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. Blaine did not remain in office long enough to see the effort through, and when Frederick T. Frelinghuysen replaced him at the end of 1881, the conference efforts lapsed. Frelinghuysen also discontinued Blaine's peace efforts in the War of the Pacific, fearing that the United States might be drawn into the conflict. Arthur and Frelinghuysen continued Blaine's efforts to encourage trade among the nations of the Western Hemisphere; a treaty with Mexico providing for reciprocal tariff reductions was signed in 1882 and approved by the Senate in 1884. Legislation required to bring the treaty into force failed in the House, however, rendering it a dead letter. Similar efforts at reciprocal trade treaties with Santo Domingo and Spain's American colonies were defeated by February 1885, and an existing reciprocity treaty with the Kingdom of Hawaii was allowed to lapse.
The 47th Congress spent a great deal of time on immigration, and at times was in accord with Arthur. In July 1882 Congress easily passed a bill regulating steamships that carried immigrants to the United States. To their surprise, Arthur vetoed it and requested revisions, which they made and Arthur then approved. He also signed in August of that year the Immigration Act of 1882, which levied a 50-cent tax on immigrants to the United States, and excluded from entry the mentally ill, the intellectually disabled, criminals, or any other person potentially dependent upon public assistance.
A more contentious debate materialized over the status of Chinese immigrants; in January 1868, the Senate had ratified the Burlingame Treaty with China, allowing an unrestricted flow of Chinese into the country. As the economy soured after the Panic of 1873, Chinese immigrants were blamed for depressing workmen's wages; in reaction Congress in 1879 attempted to abrogate the 1868 treaty by passing the Chinese Exclusion Act, but President Hayes vetoed it. Three years later, after China had agreed to treaty revisions, Congress tried again to exclude Chinese immigrants; Senator John F. Miller of California introduced another Chinese Exclusion Act that denied Chinese immigrants United States citizenship and banned their immigration for a twenty-year period. The bill passed the Senate and House by overwhelming margins, but this as well was vetoed by Arthur, who concluded the 20-year ban to be a breach of the renegotiated treaty of 1880. That treaty allowed only a "reasonable" suspension of immigration. Eastern newspapers praised the veto, while it was condemned in the Western states. Congress was unable to override the veto, but passed a new bill reducing the immigration ban to ten years. Although he still objected to this denial of citizenship to Chinese immigrants, Arthur acceded to the compromise measure, signing the Chinese Exclusion Act into law on May 6, 1882.
The Arthur administration was challenged by changing relations with western Native American tribes. The American Indian Wars were winding down, and public sentiment was shifting toward more favorable treatment of Native Americans. Arthur urged Congress to increase funding for Native American education, which it did in 1884, although not to the extent he wished. He also favored a move to the allotment system, under which individual Native Americans, rather than tribes, would own land. Arthur was unable to convince Congress to adopt the idea during his administration but, in 1887, the Dawes Act changed the law to favor such a system. The allotment system was favored by liberal reformers at the time, but eventually proved detrimental to Native Americans as most of their land was resold at low prices to white speculators. During Arthur's presidency, settlers and cattle ranchers continued to encroach on Native American territory. Arthur initially resisted their efforts, but after Secretary of the Interior Henry M. Teller, an opponent of allotment, assured him that the lands were not protected, Arthur opened up the Crow Creek Reservation in the Dakota Territory to settlers by executive order in 1885. Arthur's successor, Grover Cleveland, finding that title belonged to the Native Americans, revoked Arthur's order a few months later.
Views
Quotations:
"Men may die, but the fabrics of free institutions remains unshaken."
"As is natural with contiguous states having like institutions and like aims of advancement and development, the friendship of the United States and Mexico has been constantly maintained."
"I may be president of the United States, but my private life is nobody's damned business."
Membership
He became a member of the prestigious Century Club in 1867.
Personality
Arthur was an amiable, easy-going fellow, an accomplished raconteur, a careful observer of social amenities, a man of charm, grace, and polish. Yet, observes biographer Thomas C. Reeves, “Though few would have guessed it of this urbane politician, Arthur was a deeply emotional, even romantic person, capable of great loyalties and easily brought to tears.” Reeves notes further that Arthur spent considerable effort to conceal that he retained much of the romanticism of his youth.
Physical Characteristics:
A sturdily built, handsome figure, Arthur stood 6 feet 2 inches tall and had a chubby, round face, high forehead, fleshy nose, black eyes, and wavy brown hair. As a young man he was trim, weighing perhaps 175-185 pounds, but a penchant for late-night feasts brought him up to 225 pounds by the time he became president. His most distinctive feature was the sidewhiskers and mustache he wore throughout most of his career. A fastidious dresser, he had an extensive wardrobe that is said to have included 80 pairs of pants and changed clothes for every occasion, often several times a day. He was nicknamed Elegant Arthur. While he was president his health steadily eroded from terminal Bright’s disease.
Quotes from others about the person
"I am but one of 55 million; still, in the opinion of this one-fifty-five-millionth of the country's population, it would be hard indeed to better President Arthur's administration."
—Mark Twain
Interests
Chester often slipped off to the country to do some fishing, a hobby cultivated as a boy. Salmon fishing was his idea of pure joy.
Connections
In 1859, Chester married Ellen Lewis Herndon, the daughter of a distinguished naval officer.