CHESTER A. ARTHUR | 1881-1885
Son of a Baptist preacher who had emigrated from northern Ireland, Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vermont, on October 5,1829. He graduated from Union College in 1848, taught school, was admitted to the bar, and practiced law in New York City. In the Civil War he served as quartermaster general of the State of New York.
In 1871, when President Grant appointed him collector of the Port of New York, Arthur marshaled the 1,000 Customs House employees on behalf of Roscoe Conkling's Stalwart Republican machine. He staffed the Customs House with more workers than it needed, retaining them for their merit as party members rather than as government officials. President Hayes, attempting to reform the Customs House, ousted Arthur in 1878. Conkling and his followers fought for the re-nomination of Grant in 1880. Failing, they reluctantly accepted the nomination of Arthur for the vice presidency.
During his brief tenure as vice president, Arthur stood beside Conkling in his 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 associated with the elite of Washington, New York and Newport. To the indignation of the Stalwart Republicans, Arthur now championed civil service reform. Public pressure forced an unwieldy Congress to heed the President. In 1883 it passed the Pendleton Act, which established a bipartisan Civil Service Commission and provided for a "classified system" that made certain government positions obtainable only through competitive written examinations. The system also protected employees against removal for political reasons.
Enacting the first general federal immigration law, Arthur’s administration approved a measure in 1882 excluding paupers, criminals and lunatics. Congress suspended Chinese immigration for ten years, later making the restriction permanent. Arthur also tried to lower tariff rates so the government would not be embarrassed by annual surpluses of revenue. But Congress raised about as many rates as it trimmed. When Arthur signed the Tariff Act of 1883, angry westerners and southerners looked to the Democratic Party for redress, and the tariff emerged as a major political issue between the parties.
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 ran for the presidential nomination in 1884 in order not to appear that he feared defeat, but was not re-nominated. He died in 1886.
