Happy Birthday Chester A. Arthur
Happy birthday to one of my favourite Presidents, Chester Alan Arthur, who was born on October 5, 1829 (183 years ago today.) Maybe it's the mutton chops, maybe it's the fact that he was accused of being, gasp, CANADIAN!!! or maybe it's because he was called "the Dude" for his sartorial splendour. Maybe it's because he lied about when he was born (likely out of vanity), maybe it's because he bit the hand that fed him in order to do the right thing, but probably it's because he once said to a woman from the temperance league: "I may be President of the United States, but my private life is nobody's damn business!" Whatever the reason, when I get around to writing my first book about the life of a President, I pick Chester Alan Arthur as my subject.
Chester Alan (pronounced "uh-LAWN") Arthur was born on October 5, 1829 in Fairfield, Vermont, the son of an Irish Baptist minister who emigrated from Ireland to Canada and later moved to Vermont. When Arthur was running for Vice-President, an opposition researcher from the other side named Arthur Hinman claimed that Arthur was actually born in Canada (and therefore ineligible under the Constitution to be elected Vice-President). Hinman was a "birther". But community records present strong evidence that Arthur was born in Fairfield, although not in 1830 as he claimed (and as appears on his grave), but in 1829. Why he lied about his age is unclear.
I love how, as a young lawyer in New York, Arthur made a name for himself defending African-Americans in civil rights cases, including his defence of Elizabeth Jennings Graham (the Rosa Parks of her day) who was denied a seat on a streetcar because she was African-American. Arthur won the case, and the verdict led to the desegregation of the New York City streetcar lines. He became very involved in Republican politics and quickly rose in the political machine run by New York Senator Roscoe Conkling. He was an excellent political organizer. He was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant to the lucrative and politically powerful post of Collector of the Port of New York in 1871, but in 1878 he was fired from that job by President Rutherford B. Hayes, who was trying to reform the federal patronage system in New York.
When James Garfield won the Republican nomination for President in 1880, Arthur was nominated for Vice President to balance the ticket by adding an eastern Stalwart to it. He was ordered by his boss Roscoe Conkling not to take the job, but he made up his own mind and accepted the position. His wife Ellen had died unexpectedly prior to the convention. After just half a year as Vice President, Arthur found himself, unexpectedly, in the Presidency when Garfield was assassinated by Charles Guiteau.
To the surprise of everyone including his former colleagues in the Stalwart faction, Arthur took up the reform cause that had once led to his expulsion from office. He signed the Pendleton Act into law which legislated civil service reform, and enforced its provisions vigorously. He won plaudits for his veto of a Rivers and Harbors Act that would have appropriated federal funds in a manner he thought excessive. He presided over the rebirth of the United States Navy and had a huge budget surplus.
I think Arthur would have sought election in his own right in 1884 were it not for the fact that he was suffering from poor health in the form of a kidney ailment known as Bright's Disease. He retired at the close of his term and died on November 18, 1886 at the age of 57. Journalist Alexander McClure would later write, "No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted as Chester Alan Arthur, and no one ever retired ... more generally respected, alike by political friend and foe." The New York World said of his presidency at the time of his death: "No duty was neglected in his administration, and no adventurous project alarmed the nation." And the eloquent Mark Twain wrote of him, "It would be hard indeed to better President Arthur's administration."
Chester Alan (pronounced "uh-LAWN") Arthur was born on October 5, 1829 in Fairfield, Vermont, the son of an Irish Baptist minister who emigrated from Ireland to Canada and later moved to Vermont. When Arthur was running for Vice-President, an opposition researcher from the other side named Arthur Hinman claimed that Arthur was actually born in Canada (and therefore ineligible under the Constitution to be elected Vice-President). Hinman was a "birther". But community records present strong evidence that Arthur was born in Fairfield, although not in 1830 as he claimed (and as appears on his grave), but in 1829. Why he lied about his age is unclear.
I love how, as a young lawyer in New York, Arthur made a name for himself defending African-Americans in civil rights cases, including his defence of Elizabeth Jennings Graham (the Rosa Parks of her day) who was denied a seat on a streetcar because she was African-American. Arthur won the case, and the verdict led to the desegregation of the New York City streetcar lines. He became very involved in Republican politics and quickly rose in the political machine run by New York Senator Roscoe Conkling. He was an excellent political organizer. He was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant to the lucrative and politically powerful post of Collector of the Port of New York in 1871, but in 1878 he was fired from that job by President Rutherford B. Hayes, who was trying to reform the federal patronage system in New York.
When James Garfield won the Republican nomination for President in 1880, Arthur was nominated for Vice President to balance the ticket by adding an eastern Stalwart to it. He was ordered by his boss Roscoe Conkling not to take the job, but he made up his own mind and accepted the position. His wife Ellen had died unexpectedly prior to the convention. After just half a year as Vice President, Arthur found himself, unexpectedly, in the Presidency when Garfield was assassinated by Charles Guiteau.
To the surprise of everyone including his former colleagues in the Stalwart faction, Arthur took up the reform cause that had once led to his expulsion from office. He signed the Pendleton Act into law which legislated civil service reform, and enforced its provisions vigorously. He won plaudits for his veto of a Rivers and Harbors Act that would have appropriated federal funds in a manner he thought excessive. He presided over the rebirth of the United States Navy and had a huge budget surplus.
I think Arthur would have sought election in his own right in 1884 were it not for the fact that he was suffering from poor health in the form of a kidney ailment known as Bright's Disease. He retired at the close of his term and died on November 18, 1886 at the age of 57. Journalist Alexander McClure would later write, "No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted as Chester Alan Arthur, and no one ever retired ... more generally respected, alike by political friend and foe." The New York World said of his presidency at the time of his death: "No duty was neglected in his administration, and no adventurous project alarmed the nation." And the eloquent Mark Twain wrote of him, "It would be hard indeed to better President Arthur's administration."