Chester A. Arthur

Arthur's birthplace in Fairfield, Vermont

Chester Alan Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vermont.[10] Arthur's mother, Malvina Stone was born in Berkshire, Vermont, the daughter of George Washington Stone and Judith Stevens.[11] Her family was primarily of English and Welsh descent, and her maternal grandfather, Uriah Stone, had served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.[10]

Arthur's father, William Arthur, was born in 1796 in Dreen, Cullybackey, County Antrim, Ireland to a Presbyterian family of Scots-Irish descent. William's mother was born Eliza McHarg and she married Alan Arthur.[12] William graduated from college in Belfast and migrated to the Province of Lower Canada in 1819 or 1820.[13] Malvina Stone met William Arthur when Arthur was teaching school in Dunham, Quebec, near the Vermont border.[14] They married in Dunham on April 12, 1821, soon after meeting.[10]

The Arthurs moved to Vermont after the birth of their first child, Regina.[14] They quickly moved from Burlington to Jericho, and finally to Waterville, as William received positions teaching at different schools.[10] William Arthur also spent a brief time studying law, but while still in Waterville, he departed from both his legal studies and his Presbyterian upbringing to join the Free Will Baptists; he spent the rest of his life as a minister in that sect.[10] William Arthur became an outspoken abolitionist, which often made him unpopular with some members of his congregations and contributed to the family's frequent moves.[15]

In 1828, the family moved again, to Fairfield, where Chester Alan Arthur was born the following year; he was the fifth of nine children.[16][17] He was named "Chester" after Chester Abell,[18] the physician and family friend who assisted in his birth, and "Alan" for his paternal grandfather.[19][lower-alpha 3] The family remained in Fairfield until 1832, when William Arthur's profession took them to churches in several towns in Vermont and upstate New York. The family finally settled in the Schenectady, New York, area.[20]

Arthur had seven siblings who lived to adulthood:[21]

• Regina (1822–1910), the wife of William G. Caw, a grocer, banker, and community leader of Cohoes, New York, who served as town supervisor and village trustee[22]
• Jane (1824–1842)[23]
• Almeda (1825–1899), the wife of James H. Masten who served as postmaster of Cohoes and publisher of the Cohoes Cataract newspaper[24]
• Ann (1828–1915), a career educator who taught school in New York and worked in South Carolina in the years immediately before and after the Civil War.[25]
• Malvina (1832–1920), the wife of Henry J. Haynesworth who was an official of the Confederate government and a merchant in Albany, New York, before being appointed as a captain and assistant quartermaster in the U.S. Army during Arthur's presidency[26]
• William (1834–1915), a medical school graduate who became a career Army officer and paymaster, he was wounded during his Civil War service. William Arthur retired in 1898 with the brevet rank of lieutenant colonel, and permanent rank of major.[27]
• George (1836–1838)[28]
• Mary (1841–1917), the wife of John E. McElroy, an Albany businessman and insurance executive, and Arthur's official White House hostess during his presidency[29]

The family's frequent moves later spawned accusations that Arthur was not a native-born citizen of the United States. When Arthur was nominated for vice president in 1880, a New York attorney and political opponent, Arthur P. Hinman, initially speculated that Arthur was born in Ireland and did not come to the United States until he was fourteen years old.[30] Had that been true, opponents might have argued that Arthur was ineligible for the vice presidency under the United States Constitution's natural-born-citizen clause.[31][lower-alpha 4][32][lower-alpha 5][33] When Hinman's original story did not take root, he spread a new rumor that Arthur was born in Canada.[30] This claim, too, failed to gain credence.[33][lower-alpha 6][34]

Arthur spent some of his childhood years living in the New York towns of York, Perry, Greenwich, Lansingburgh, Schenectady, and Hoosick.[35] One of his first teachers said Arthur was a boy "frank and open in manners and genial in disposition".[36] During his time at school, he gained his first political inclinations and supported the Whig Party. He joined other young Whigs in support of Henry Clay, even participating in a brawl against students who supported James K. Polk during the 1844 United States presidential election.[20] Arthur also supported the Fenian Brotherhood, an Irish republican organization founded in America; he showed this support by wearing a green coat.[37] After completing his college preparation at the Lyceum of Union Village (now Greenwich) and a grammar school in Schenectady, Arthur enrolled at Union College there in 1845, where he studied the traditional classical curriculum.[20] He was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity,[38] and as a senior he was president of the debate society and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.[37] During his winter breaks, he served as a teacher at a school in Schaghticoke.[37]

The home in Manhattan where Arthur spent most of his adulthood years

After graduating in 1848, Arthur returned to Schaghticoke and became a full-time teacher, and soon began to pursue an education in law.[39] While studying law, he continued teaching, moving closer to home by taking a job at a school in North Pownal, Vermont.[39] Coincidentally, future president James A. Garfield taught penmanship at the same school three years later, but the two did not cross paths during their teaching careers.[40] In 1852, Arthur moved again, to Cohoes, New York, to become the principal of a school at which his sister, Malvina, was a teacher.[40] In 1853, after studying at State and National Law School in Ballston Spa, New York, and then saving enough money to relocate, Arthur moved to New York City to read law at the office of Erastus D. Culver, an abolitionist lawyer and family friend.[41] When Arthur was admitted to the New York bar in 1854, he joined Culver's firm, which was subsequently renamed Culver, Parker, and Arthur.[42]

Arthur as a young lawyer

Arthur married Ellen Herndon in 1859.

When Arthur joined the firm, Culver and New York attorney John Jay (the grandson of the Founding Father John Jay) were pursuing a habeas corpus action against Jonathan Lemmon, a Virginia slaveholder who was passing through New York with his eight slaves.[43] In Lemmon v. New York, Culver argued that, as New York law did not permit slavery, any slave arriving in New York was automatically freed.[43] The argument was successful, and after several appeals was upheld by the New York Court of Appeals in 1860.[43] Campaign biographers would later give Arthur much of the credit for the victory; in fact his role was minor, although he was certainly an active participant in the case.[44] In another civil rights case in 1854, Arthur was the lead attorney representing Elizabeth Jennings Graham after she was denied a seat on a streetcar because she was black.[44] He won the case, and the verdict led to the desegregation of the New York City streetcar lines.[44]

In 1856, Arthur courted Ellen Herndon, the daughter of William Lewis Herndon, a Virginia naval officer.[45] The two were soon engaged to be married.[46] Later that year, he started a new law partnership with a friend, Henry D. Gardiner, and traveled with him to Kansas to consider purchasing land and setting up a law practice there.[44] At that time, the state was the scene of a brutal struggle between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces, and Arthur lined up firmly with the latter.[47] The rough frontier life did not agree with the genteel New Yorkers; after three or four months the two young lawyers returned to New York City, where Arthur comforted his fiancée after her father was lost at sea in the wreck of the SS Central America.[47] In 1859, they were married at Calvary Episcopal Church in Manhattan.[48] The couple had three children:

• William Lewis Arthur (December 10, 1860 – July 7, 1863), died of "convulsions"
• Chester Alan Arthur II (July 25, 1864 – July 18, 1937), married Myra Townsend, then Rowena Graves, father of Gavin Arthur
• Ellen Hansbrough Herndon "Nell" Arthur Pinkerton (November 21, 1871 – September 6, 1915), married Charles Pinkerton

After his marriage, Arthur devoted his efforts to building his law practice, but also found time to engage in Republican party politics. In addition, he indulged his military interest by becoming Judge Advocate General for the Second Brigade of the New York Militia.[49]

In 1861, Arthur was appointed to the military staff of Governor Edwin D. Morgan as engineer-in-chief.[49] The office was a patronage appointment of minor importance until the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861, when New York and the other northern states were faced with raising and equipping armies of a size never before seen in American history.[50] Arthur was commissioned as a brigadier general and assigned to the state militia's quartermaster department.[50] He was so efficient at housing and outfitting the troops that poured into New York City that he was promoted to inspector general of the state militia in March 1862, and then to quartermaster general that July.[51] He had an opportunity to serve at the front when the 9th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment elected him commander with the rank of colonel early in the war, but at Governor Morgan's request, he turned it down to remain at his post in New York.[52] He also turned down command of four New York City regiments organized as the Metropolitan Brigade, again at Morgan's request.[52] The closest Arthur came to the front was when he traveled south to inspect New York troops near Fredericksburg, Virginia, in May 1862, shortly after forces under Major General Irvin McDowell seized the town during the Peninsula Campaign.[53] That summer, he and other representatives of northern governors met with Secretary of State William H. Seward in New York to coordinate the raising of additional troops, and he spent the next few months helping to enlist New York's quota of 120,000 men.[53] Arthur received plaudits for his work, but his post was a political appointment, and he was relieved of his militia duties in January 1863 when Governor Horatio Seymour, a Democrat, took office.[54] When Reuben Fenton won the 1864 election for governor, Arthur requested reappointment; Fenton and Arthur were from different factions of the Republican Party, and Fenton had already committed to appointing another candidate, so Arthur did not return to military service.[55]

Arthur returned to practicing law, and with the help of additional contacts made in the military, he and the firm of Arthur & Gardiner flourished.[56] Even as his professional life improved, however, Arthur and his wife experienced a personal tragedy as their only child, William, died suddenly that year at the age of two.[57] The couple took their son's death hard, and when they had another son, Chester Alan Jr., in 1864, they lavished attention on him.[58] They also had a daughter, Ellen, in 1871.[59] Both children survived to adulthood.[59]

Arthur's political prospects improved along with his law practice when his patron, ex-Governor Morgan, was elected to the United States Senate.[60] He was hired by Thomas Murphy, a Republican politician, but also a friend of William M. Tweed, the boss of the Tammany Hall Democratic organization. Murphy was also a hatter who sold goods to the Union Army, and Arthur represented him in Washington. The two became associates within New York Republican party circles, eventually rising in the ranks of the conservative branch of the party dominated by Thurlow Weed.[60] In the presidential election of 1864, Arthur and Murphy raised funds from Republicans in New York, and they attended the second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln in 1865.[61]

The New York Custom House (formerly the Merchants' Exchange building at 55 Wall Street) was Arthur's office for seven years.

The end of the Civil War meant new opportunities for the men in Morgan's Republican machine, including Arthur.[62] Morgan leaned toward the conservative wing of the New York Republican party, as did the men who worked with him in the organization, including Weed, Seward (who continued in office under President Andrew Johnson), and Roscoe Conkling (an eloquent Utica Congressman and rising star in the party).[62] Arthur rarely articulated his own political ideas during his time as a part of the machine; as was common at the time, loyalty and hard work on the machine's behalf was more important than actual political positions.[63]

At the time, U.S. custom houses were managed by political appointees who served as Collector, Naval Officer, and Surveyor. In 1866, Arthur unsuccessfully attempted to secure the position of Naval Officer at the New York Custom House, a lucrative job subordinate only to the Collector.[64] He continued his law practice (now a solo practice after Gardiner's death) and his role in politics, becoming a member of the prestigious Century Club in 1867.[64] Conkling, elected to the United States Senate in 1867, noticed Arthur and facilitated his rise in the party, and Arthur became chairman of the New York City Republican executive committee in 1868.[65] His ascent in the party hierarchy kept him busy most nights, and his wife resented his continual absence from the family home on party business.[66]

Conkling succeeded to leadership of the conservative wing of New York's Republicans by 1868 as Morgan concentrated more time and effort on national politics, including serving as chairman of the Republican National Committee. The Conkling machine was solidly behind General Ulysses S. Grant's candidacy for president, and Arthur raised funds for Grant's election in 1868.[67] The opposing Democratic machine in New York City, known as Tammany Hall, worked for Grant's opponent, former New York Governor Horatio Seymour; while Grant was victorious in the national vote, Seymour narrowly carried the state of New York.[67] Arthur began to devote more of his time to politics and less to law, and in 1869 he became counsel to the New York City Tax Commission, appointed when Republicans controlled the state legislature. He remained at the job until 1870 at a salary of $10,000 a year.[68][lower-alpha 7] Arthur resigned after Democrats controlled by William M. Tweed of Tammany Hall won a legislative majority, which meant they could name their own appointee.[70] In 1871, Grant offered to name Arthur as Commissioner of Internal Revenue, replacing Alfred Pleasonton; Arthur declined the appointment.[71]

In 1870, President Grant gave Conkling control over New York patronage, including the Custom House at the Port of New York. Having become friendly with Murphy over their shared love of horses during summer vacations on the Jersey Shore, in July of that year, Grant appointed him to the Collector's position.[72] Murphy's reputation as a war profiteer and his association with Tammany Hall made him unacceptable to many of his own party, but Conkling convinced the Senate to confirm him.[72] The Collector was responsible for hiring hundreds of workers to collect the tariffs due at the United States' busiest port. Typically, these jobs were dispensed to adherents of the political machine responsible for appointing the Collector. Employees were required to make political contributions (known as "assessments") back to the machine, which made the job a highly coveted political plum.[73] Murphy's unpopularity only increased as he replaced workers loyal to Senator Reuben Fenton's faction of the Republican party with those loyal to Conkling's.[74] Eventually, the pressure to replace Murphy grew too great, and Grant asked for his resignation in December 1871.[74] Grant offered the position to John Augustus Griswold and William Orton, each of whom declined and recommended Arthur.[75] Grant then nominated Arthur, with the New York Times commenting, "his name very seldom rises to the surface of metropolitan life and yet moving like a mighty undercurrent this man during the last 10 years has done more to mold the course of the Republican Party in this state than any other one man in the country."[76]

The Senate confirmed Arthur's appointment; as Collector he controlled nearly a thousand jobs and received compensation as great as any federal officeholder.[73] Arthur's salary was initially $6,500, but senior customs employees were compensated additionally by the "moiety" system, which awarded them a percentage of the cargoes seized and fines levied on importers who attempted to evade the tariff.[77] In total, his income came to more than $50,000—more than the president's salary, and more than enough for him to enjoy fashionable clothes and a lavish lifestyle.[77][lower-alpha 8] Among those who dealt with the Custom House, Arthur was one of the era's more popular collectors.[78] He got along with his subordinates and, since Murphy had already filled the staff with Conkling's adherents, he had few occasions to fire anyone.[79] He was also popular within the Republican party as he efficiently collected campaign assessments from the staff and placed party leaders' friends in jobs as positions became available.[66] Arthur had a better reputation than Murphy, but reformers still criticized the patronage structure and the moiety system as corrupt.[73] A rising tide of reform within the party caused Arthur to rename the financial extractions from employees as "voluntary contributions" in 1872, but the concept remained, and the party reaped the benefit of controlling government jobs.[80] In that year, reform-minded Republicans formed the Liberal Republican party and voted against Grant, but he was re-elected in spite of their opposition.[81] Nevertheless, the movement for civil service reform continued to chip away at Conkling's patronage machine; in 1874 Custom House employees were found to have improperly assessed fines against an importing company as a way to increase their own incomes, and Congress reacted, repealing the moiety system and putting the staff, including Arthur, on regular salaries.[82] As a result, his income dropped to $12,000 a year—more than his nominal boss, the Secretary of the Treasury, but far less than what he had previously received.[82]

A cartoon depicting President Rutherford B. Hayes kicking Arthur out of the New York Custom House

Arthur's four-year term as Collector expired on December 10, 1875, and Conkling, then among the most powerful politicians in Washington, arranged his protégé's reappointment by President Grant.[83] In 1876, Conkling was a candidate for president at the 1876 Republican National Convention, but the nomination was won by reformer Rutherford B. Hayes on the seventh ballot.[84] Arthur and the machine gathered campaign funds with their usual zeal, but Conkling limited his own campaign activities for Hayes to a few speeches.[85] Hayes's opponent, New York Governor Samuel J. Tilden, carried New York and won the popular vote nationwide, but after the resolution of several months of disputes over twenty electoral votes (from Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina), Hayes was declared the winner.[86]

Hayes entered office with a pledge to reform the patronage system; in 1877, he and Treasury Secretary John Sherman made Conkling's machine the primary target.[85] Sherman ordered a commission led by John Jay to investigate the New York Custom House.[87] Jay, with whom Arthur had collaborated in the Lemmon case two decades earlier, suggested that the Custom House was overstaffed with political appointments, and that 20% of the employees were expendable.[88] Sherman was less enthusiastic about the reforms than Hayes and Jay, but he approved the commission's report and ordered Arthur to make the personnel reductions.[89] Arthur appointed a committee of Custom House workers to determine where the cuts were to be made and, after a written protest, carried them out.[90] Notwithstanding his cooperation, the Jay Commission issued a second report critical of Arthur and other Custom House employees, and subsequent reports urging a complete reorganization.[90]

Hayes further struck at the heart of the spoils system by issuing an executive order that forbade assessments, and barred federal office holders from "...tak[ing] part in the management of political organizations, caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns."[91] Arthur and his subordinates, Naval Officer Alonzo B. Cornell and Surveyor George H. Sharpe, refused to obey the president's order; Sherman encouraged Arthur to resign, offering him appointment by Hayes to the consulship in Paris in exchange, but Arthur refused.[92] In September 1877, Hayes demanded the three men's resignations, which they refused to give.[93] Hayes then submitted the appointment of Theodore Roosevelt Sr., L. Bradford Prince, and Edwin Merritt (all supporters of Conkling's rival William M. Evarts) to the Senate for confirmation as their replacements.[94] The Senate's Commerce Committee, chaired by Conkling, unanimously rejected all the nominees; the full Senate rejected Roosevelt by a vote of 31–25[95] and similarly turned down the nomination of Prince by the same margin, later confirming Merritt only because Sharpe's term had expired.[96]

Arthur's job was spared only until July 1878, when Hayes took advantage of a Congressional recess to fire him and Cornell, replacing them with the recess appointment of Merritt and Silas W. Burt.[97][lower-alpha 9] Hayes again offered Arthur the position of consul general in Paris as a face-saving consolation; Arthur again declined, as Hayes knew he probably would.[99] Conkling opposed the confirmation of Merritt and Burt when the Senate reconvened in February 1879, but Merritt was approved by a vote of 31–25, as was Burt by 31–19, giving Hayes his most significant civil service reform victory.[100] Arthur immediately took advantage of the resulting free time to work for the election of Edward Cooper as New York City's next mayor.[101] In September 1879 Arthur became chairman of the New York State Republican Executive Committee, a post in which he served until October 1881.[102][103] In the state elections of 1879, he and Conkling worked to ensure that the Republican nominees for state offices would be men of Conkling's faction, who had become known as Stalwarts.[104] They were successful, but narrowly, as Cornell was nominated for governor by a vote of 234–216.[104] Arthur and Conkling campaigned vigorously for the Stalwart ticket and, owing partly to a splintering of the Democratic vote, were victorious.[105] Arthur and the machine had rebuked Hayes and their intra-party rivals, but Arthur had only a few days to enjoy his triumph when, on January 12, 1880, his wife died suddenly while he was in Albany organizing the political agenda for the coming year.[106] Arthur felt devastated, and perhaps guilty, and never remarried.[107]

Arthur arrived in Washington, D.C., on September 21.[136] On September 22, he re-took the oath of office, this time before Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite. Arthur took this step to ensure procedural compliance; there had been a lingering question about whether a state court judge (Brady) could administer a federal oath of office.[137][lower-alpha 13] He initially took up residence at the home of Senator John P. Jones, while a White House remodeling he had ordered was carried out, including addition of an elaborate fifty-foot glass screen by Louis Comfort Tiffany.[138]

On the threshold of office, what have we to expect of him? In an 1881 Puck cartoon, Arthur faces the cabinet after President Garfield was shot.

Arthur's sister, Mary Arthur McElroy, served as White House hostess for her widowed brother;[138] Arthur became Washington's most eligible bachelor and his social life became the subject of rumors, though romantically, he remained singularly devoted to the memory of his late wife.[139] His son, Chester Jr., was then a freshman at Princeton University and his daughter, Nell, stayed in New York with a governess until 1882; when she arrived, Arthur shielded her from the intrusive press as much as he could.[139]

Arthur quickly came into conflict with Garfield's cabinet, most of whom represented his opposition within the party. He asked the cabinet members to remain until December, when Congress would reconvene, but Treasury Secretary William Windom submitted his resignation in October to enter a Senate race in his home state of Minnesota.[140] Arthur then selected Charles J. Folger, his friend and fellow New York Stalwart as Windom's replacement.[140][lower-alpha 14] Attorney General Wayne MacVeagh was next to resign, believing that, as a reformer, he had no place in an Arthur cabinet.[142] Despite Arthur's personal appeal to remain, MacVeagh resigned in December 1881 and Arthur replaced him with Benjamin H. Brewster, a Philadelphia lawyer and machine politician reputed to have reformist leanings.[142] Blaine, nemesis of the Stalwart faction, remained Secretary of State until Congress reconvened and then departed immediately.[143] Conkling expected Arthur to appoint him in Blaine's place, but the President chose Frederick T. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, a Stalwart recommended by ex-President Grant.[143] Frelinghuysen advised Arthur not to fill any future vacancies with Stalwarts, but when Postmaster General James resigned in January 1882, Arthur selected Timothy O. Howe, a Wisconsin Stalwart.[144] Navy Secretary William H. Hunt was next to resign, in April 1882, and Arthur attempted a more balanced approach by appointing Half-Breed William E. Chandler to the post, on Blaine's recommendation.[144] Finally, when Interior Secretary Samuel J. Kirkwood resigned that same month, Arthur appointed Henry M. Teller, a Colorado Stalwart to the office.[144] Of the Cabinet members Arthur had inherited from Garfield, only Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln remained for the entirety of Arthur's term.[144] Arthur could not appoint a new vice president to fill the vacancy, as this was prior to the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.

Arthur in 1881 (portrait by Ole Peter Hansen Balling)

In the 1870s, a scandal was exposed, in which contractors for star postal routes were greatly overpaid for their services with the connivance of government officials (including Second Assistant Postmaster General Thomas J. Brady and former senator Stephen Wallace Dorsey).[145] Reformers feared Arthur, as a former supporter of the spoils system, would not commit to continuing the investigation into the scandal.[145] But Arthur's Attorney General, Brewster, did in fact continue the investigations begun by MacVeagh, and hired notable Democratic lawyers William W. Ker and Richard T. Merrick to strengthen the prosecution team and forestall the skeptics.[146] Although Arthur had worked closely with Dorsey before his presidency, once in office he supported the investigation and forced the resignation of officials suspected in the scandal.[146] An 1882 trial of the ringleaders resulted in convictions for two minor conspirators and a hung jury for the rest.[147] After a juror came forward with allegations that the defendants attempted to bribe him, the judge set aside the guilty verdicts and granted a new trial.[147] Before the second trial began, Arthur removed five federal office holders who were sympathetic with the defense, including a former senator.[148] The second trial began in December 1882 and lasted until July 1883 and, again, did not result in a guilty verdict.[148] Failure to obtain a conviction tarnished the administration's image, but Arthur did succeed in putting a stop to the fraud.[148]

Garfield's assassination by a deranged office seeker amplified the public demand for civil service reform.[149] Both Democratic and Republican leaders realized that they could attract the votes of reformers by turning against the spoils system and, by 1882, a bipartisan effort began in favor of reform.[149] In 1880, Democratic Senator George H. Pendleton of Ohio introduced legislation that required selection of civil servants based on merit as determined by an examination.[149] This legislation greatly expanded similar civil service reforms attempted by President Franklin Pierce 30 years earlier. In his first annual presidential address to Congress in 1881, Arthur requested civil service reform legislation and Pendleton again introduced his bill, but Congress did not pass it.[149] Republicans lost seats in the 1882 congressional elections, in which Democrats campaigned on the reform issue.[150] As a result, the lame-duck session of Congress was more amenable to civil service reform; the Senate approved Pendleton's bill 38–5 and the House soon concurred by a vote of 155–47.[151] Arthur signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act into law on January 16, 1883.[151] In just two years' time, an unrepentant Stalwart had become the president who ushered in long-awaited civil service reform.[151]

Arthur in 1884 (portrait by George Peter Alexander Healy)

At first, the act applied only to 10% of federal jobs and, without proper implementation by the president, it could have gone no further.[152] Even after he signed the act into law, its proponents doubted Arthur's commitment to reform.[152] To their surprise, he acted quickly to appoint the members of the Civil Service Commission that the law created, naming reformers Dorman Bridgman Eaton, John Milton Gregory, and Leroy D. Thoman as commissioners.[152] The chief examiner, Silas W. Burt, was a long-time reformer who had been Arthur's opponent when the two men worked at the New York Custom House.[153] The commission issued its first rules in May 1883; by 1884, half of all postal officials and three-quarters of the Customs Service jobs were to be awarded by merit.[153] That year, Arthur expressed satisfaction with the new system, praising its effectiveness "in securing competent and faithful public servants and in protecting the appointing officers of the Government from the pressure of personal importunity and from the labor of examining the claims and pretensions of rival candidates for public employment."[154]

Engraved portrait of Arthur as president (Bureau of Engraving and Printing)

With high revenue held over from wartime taxes, the federal government had collected more than it spent since 1866; by 1882 the surplus reached $145 million.[155] Opinions varied on how to balance the budget; the Democrats wished to lower tariffs, in order to reduce revenues and the cost of imported goods, while Republicans believed that high tariffs ensured high wages in manufacturing and mining. They preferred the government spend more on internal improvements and reduce excise taxes.[155] Arthur agreed with his party, and in 1882 called for the abolition of excise taxes on everything except liquor, as well as a simplification of the complex tariff structure.[156] In May of that year, Representative William D. Kelley of Pennsylvania introduced a bill to establish a tariff commission;[156] the bill passed and Arthur signed it into law but appointed mostly protectionists to the committee. Republicans were pleased with the committee's make-up but were surprised when, in December 1882, they submitted a report to Congress calling for tariff cuts averaging between 20 and 25%. The commission's recommendations were ignored, however, as the House Ways and Means Committee, dominated by protectionists, provided a 10% reduction.[156] After conference with the Senate, the bill that emerged only reduced tariffs by an average of 1.47%. The bill passed both houses narrowly on March 3, 1883, the last full day of the 47th Congress; Arthur signed the measure into law, with no effect on the surplus.[157]

Congress attempted to balance the budget from the other side of the ledger, with increased spending on the 1882 Rivers and Harbors Act in the unprecedented amount of $19 million.[158] While Arthur was not opposed to internal improvements, the scale of the bill disturbed him, as did its narrow focus on "particular localities," rather than projects that benefited a larger part of the nation.[158] On August 1, 1882, Arthur vetoed the bill to widespread popular acclaim;[158] in his veto message, his principal objection was that it appropriated funds for purposes "not for the common defense or general welfare, and which do not promote commerce among the States."[159] Congress overrode his veto the next day[158] and the new law reduced the surplus by $19 million.[160] Republicans considered the law a success at the time, but later concluded that it contributed to their loss of seats in the elections of 1882.[161]

A political cartoon from 1882, criticizing Chinese exclusion

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.[162] 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.[162] 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.[163] Frelinghuysen also discontinued Blaine's peace efforts in the War of the Pacific, fearing that the United States might be drawn into the conflict.[163] 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.[164] Legislation required to bring the treaty into force failed in the House, however, rendering it a dead letter.[164] 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.[165]

The 47th Congress spent a great deal of time on immigration, and at times was in accord with Arthur.[166] In July 1882 Congress easily passed a bill regulating steamships that carried immigrants to the United States.[166] To their surprise, Arthur vetoed it and requested revisions, which they made and Arthur then approved.[166] 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.[167]

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.[168] Three years later, after China had agreed to treaty revisions, Congress tried again to exclude working class Chinese laborers; Senator John F. Miller of California introduced another Chinese Exclusion Act that blocked entry of Chinese laborers for a twenty-year period.[169] 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 entry to Chinese laborers, Arthur acceded to the compromise measure, signing the Chinese Exclusion Act into law on May 6, 1882.[169][170] The Chinese Exclusion Act attempted to stop all Chinese immigration into the United States for ten years, with exceptions for diplomats, teachers, students, merchants, and travelers. It was widely evaded.[171][lower-alpha 15]

The "Squadron of Evolution" at anchor in 1889, after Yorktown had been added: Chicago, Yorktown, Boston, Atlanta

In the years following the Civil War, American naval power declined precipitously, shrinking from nearly 700 vessels to just 52, most of which were obsolete.[172] The nation's military focus over the fifteen years before Garfield and Arthur's election had been on the Indian wars in the Western United States, rather than the high seas, but as the region was increasingly pacified, many in Congress grew concerned at the poor state of the Navy.[173] Garfield's Secretary of the Navy, William H. Hunt advocated reform of the Navy.[174]

In his 1881 annual message, Arthur advocated a stronger Navy.[175] He gave full authority to his new Secretary of Navy William E. Chandler, Hunt's successor. Chandler, an aggressive administrator, purged the Navy of wood-and-canvas warship supporters and created the Naval War College.[175]

Chandler appointed an advisory board to prepare a report on modernization, whose goal was to create a Navy that would protect America thousands of miles away, rather than just coastal waters.[176] Based on the suggestions in the report, Congress appropriated funds, signed into law by Arthur, for the construction of three steel protected cruisers (Atlanta, Boston, and Chicago) and an armed dispatch-steamer (Dolphin), collectively known as the ABCD Ships or the Squadron of Evolution.[177][lower-alpha 16] The contracts to build the ABCD ships were all awarded to the low bidder, John Roach & Sons of Chester, Pennsylvania,[179] even though Roach once employed Secretary Chandler as a lobbyist.[179] Democrats turned against the "New Navy" projects and, when they won control of the 48th Congress, refused to appropriate funds for seven more steel warships.[179] Even without the additional ships, the state of the Navy improved when, after several construction delays, the last of the new ships entered service in 1889.[180] Chandler scrapped costly outdated vessels, exclaiming he did his "best work in destroying the old navy".[175]

Six Greely polar expedition survivors. The honor of the U.S. Navy saved.

By 1883, the ill-fated crew of the U.S. Army 1881 Greely scientific polar expedition was stranded at Fort Conger on Lady Franklin Bay. On July 7, 1881, the Greely crew had left New Foundland, headed northward on the private whaling ship the Proteus. In August 1881, the crew arrived at Lady Franklin Bay without incident or blockage from ice flows. However, after the Proteus dropped off the men and ample provisions, the ship immediately departed and left the expedition to fend for themselves. The men built Fort Conger as a place of refuge and scientific study. Two U.S. supply efforts, in 1882 and 1883, to reach the Greely party, ended in dismal failure.[181] The first, on July 8, 1882, led by William Beebe, on the private steamship Neptune, left St. John's, but was trapped by ice and forced to turn around. On June 29, 1883, the second left St. John's, with two ships, the Proteus, commanded by First Lieutenant Ernest Garlington, U.S. 7th Calvary, and the steam gunboat USS Yantic. The Proteus was crushed by an ice pack, whose stranded crew was rescued by the USS Yantic. Afterward, Garlington abandoned the mission to save Greely and the crew at Fort Conger.[182]

On September 1, 1883, with no relief in sight, Greely and his party left the safety of Fort Conger on small boats, over rough ice-capped waters, and made a permanent base, Camp Clay, at Cape Sabine, on Pim Island, off the eastern shores of the Johan Peninsula, Ellesmere Island, where rations had been placed by the British a few years earlier. However, an attempt by two of Greely's men failed to retrieve the vital food cache over a long distance. Without food or game, the men began to slowly starve to death.[183][184] On December 17, 1883, President Arthur established a joint Army-Navy commission to make recommendations to Secretary of War Lincoln and Secretary of Navy Chandler on how to rescue the Greely party. Secretary Lincoln actively cooperated with Secretary Chandler in organizing the Greely rescue expedition.[185] Chandler was determined to accomplish a successful rescue of Greely and to restore the honor of the U.S. Navy. Chandler assigned Commander Winfield Schley to command the 1884 Greely Relief Mission. Chandler spared no expense in the rescue effort and had purchased one of the finest sealers afloat, the USS Bear, from Scottish owner Walter Grieve, for $100,000. This was done without authorization, prior to Arthur signing into law the much delayed Greely relief bill.[186][187]

Chandler vigorously demanded that all of his subordinates in the Naval Department be committed to the relief of the Greely expedition and he drew support from Navy officers. On July 17, 1884, after rescuing the Greely party, Schey arrived at Saint John's, New Foundland and telegraphed to Chandler that the rescue operation was successful. Of the seven rescued, Joseph Elison died on July 8 following multiple amputations. Evidence suggested that the men had survived through cannibalism.[188] In his fourth annual address to the nation Arthur devoted two paragraphs to the Greely rescue and concluded that "[The] organization and conduct of this relief expedition reflects great credit upon all who contributed to its success."[189]

Readjuster Party leader William Mahone pressed civil rights in Virginia

Like his Republican predecessors, Arthur struggled with the question of how his party was to challenge the Democrats in the South and how, if at all, to protect the civil rights of black southerners.[190] Since the end of Reconstruction, conservative white Democrats (or "Bourbon Democrats") had regained power in the South, and the Republican party dwindled rapidly as their primary supporters in the region, blacks, were disenfranchised.[190] One crack in the solidly Democratic South emerged with the growth of a new party, the Readjusters, in Virginia.[191] Having won an election in that state on a platform of more education funding (for black and white schools alike) and abolition of the poll tax and the whipping post, many northern Republicans saw the Readjusters as a more viable ally in the South than the moribund southern Republican party.[191] Arthur agreed, and directed the federal patronage in Virginia through the Readjusters rather than the Republicans.[191] He followed the same pattern in other Southern states, forging coalitions with independents and Greenback Party members.[191] Some black Republicans felt betrayed by the pragmatic gambit, but others (including Frederick Douglass and ex-Senator Blanche K. Bruce) endorsed the administration's actions, as the Southern independents had more liberal racial policies than the Democrats.[192] Arthur's coalition policy was only successful in Virginia, however, and by 1885 the Readjuster movement began to collapse with the election of a Democratic president.[193]

Other federal action on behalf of blacks was equally ineffective: when the Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875 in the Civil Rights Cases (1883), Arthur expressed his disagreement with the decision in a message to Congress, but was unable to persuade Congress to pass any new legislation in its place.[194] Arthur did, however, effectively intervene to overturn a court-martial ruling against a black West Point cadet, Johnson Whittaker, after the Judge Advocate General of the Army, David G. Swaim, found the prosecution's case against Whittaker to be illegal and based on racial bias.[195] The administration faced a different challenge in the West, where the LDS Church was under government pressure to stop the practice of polygamy in Utah Territory.[196] Garfield had believed polygamy was criminal behavior and was morally detrimental to family values, and Arthur's views were, for once, in line with his predecessor's.[196] In 1882, he signed the Edmunds Act into law; the legislation made polygamy a federal crime, barring polygamists both from public office and the right to vote.[196]

Portrait of Arthur by Eastman Johnson (1887)

The Arthur administration was challenged by changing relations with western Native American tribes.[197] 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.[198] 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.[198] 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.[199] During Arthur's presidency, settlers and cattle ranchers continued to encroach on Native American territory.[200] 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.[200] Arthur's successor, Grover Cleveland, finding that title belonged to the Native Americans, revoked Arthur's order a few months later.[200]

Arthur on an expedition in Yellowstone National Park along with Philip Sheridan and Robert Todd Lincoln

Shortly after becoming president, Arthur was diagnosed with Bright's disease, a kidney ailment now referred to as nephritis.[201] He attempted to keep his condition private, but by 1883 rumors of his illness began to circulate; he had become thinner and more aged in appearance, and struggled to keep the pace of the presidency.[201] To rejuvenate his health outside the confines of Washington, Arthur and some political friends traveled to Florida in April 1883.[202] The vacation had the opposite effect, and Arthur suffered from intense pain before returning to Washington.[202] Later that year, on the advice of Missouri Senator George Graham Vest, he visited Yellowstone National Park.[203] Reporters accompanied the presidential party, helping to publicize the new National Park system.[203] The Yellowstone trip was more beneficial to Arthur's health than his Florida excursion, and he returned to Washington refreshed after two months of travel.[204]

As the 1884 presidential election approached, James G. Blaine was considered the favorite for the Republican nomination, but Arthur, too, contemplated a run for a full term as president.[205] In the months leading up to the 1884 Republican National Convention, however, Arthur began to realize that neither faction of the Republican party was prepared to give him their full support: the Half-Breeds were again solidly behind Blaine, while Stalwarts were undecided; some backed Arthur, with others considering Senator John A. Logan of Illinois.[205] Reform-minded Republicans, friendlier to Arthur after he endorsed civil service reform, were still not certain enough of his reform credentials to back him over Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont, who had long favored their cause.[205] Business leaders supported him, as did Southern Republicans who owed their jobs to his control of the patronage, but by the time they began to rally around him, Arthur had decided against a serious campaign for the nomination.[206] He kept up a token effort, believing that to drop out would cast doubt on his actions in office and raise questions about his health, but by the time the convention began in June, his defeat was assured.[206] Blaine led on the first ballot, and by the fourth ballot he had a majority of 541 votes, while Arthur only received 207.[207] Arthur telegraphed his congratulations to Blaine and accepted his defeat with equanimity.[207] He played no role in the 1884 campaign, which Blaine would later blame for his loss that November to the Democratic nominee, New York governor Grover Cleveland.[208]

Arthur made appointments to fill two vacancies on the United States Supreme Court. The first vacancy arose in July 1881 with the death of Associate Justice Nathan Clifford, a Democrat who had been a member of the Court since before the Civil War.[209] Arthur nominated Horace Gray, a distinguished jurist from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to replace him, and the nomination was easily confirmed.[209] Gray would serve on the Court for over 20 years until resigning in 1902.[210] The second vacancy occurred when Associate Justice Ward Hunt retired in January 1882. Arthur first nominated his old political boss, Roscoe Conkling; he doubted that Conkling would accept, but felt obligated to offer a high office to his former patron.[209] The Senate confirmed the nomination but, as expected, Conkling declined it,[209] the last time a confirmed nominee declined an appointment.[211] Senator George Edmunds was Arthur's next choice, but he declined to be considered.[212] Instead, Arthur nominated Samuel Blatchford, who had been a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals for the prior four years.[209] Blatchford accepted, and his nomination was approved by the Senate within two weeks.[209] Blatchford served on the Court until his death in 1893.

Arthur's grave at Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands, New York

After spending the summer of 1886 in New London, Connecticut, he returned home where he became seriously ill, and on November 16, ordered nearly all of his papers, both personal and official, burned.[214][lower-alpha 17] The next morning, Arthur suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and never regained consciousness. He died the following day, on November 18, at the age of 57.[214] On November 22, a private funeral was held at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City, attended by President Cleveland and ex-President Hayes, among other notables.[216] Arthur was buried with his family members and ancestors in the Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands, New York.[lower-alpha 18] He was laid beside his wife in a sarcophagus on a large corner of the plot.[214] In 1889, a monument was placed on Arthur's burial plot by sculptor Ephraim Keyser of New York, consisting of a giant bronze female angel figure placing a bronze palm leaf on a granite sarcophagus.[218]

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.[219]