The Civil War Presidents: Chester Alan Arthur
Chester Alan Arthur is one of my favorite presidents, probably because there was more to him than people made him out to be. While he had been one of the biggest proponents of the spoils system, and a key cog in the New York political machine of Senator Roscoe Conkling known as the Stalwarts, the man also had some principles. But since he only ran for office once in his life (as Vice-President in 1880), he never had to parade them in front of voters or put them on display.
As a young man in the 1850s, Arthur became a lawyer, and civil rights cases seemed to be a specialty of his. In 1853, after studying at State and National Law School in Ballston Spa, New York, Arthur moved to New York City to read law at the law office of Erastus D. Culver, an abolitionist lawyer and family friend. (Arthur's father William had been an outspoken abolitionist Baptist preacher.) When Arthur was admitted to the bar in 1854, he joined Culver's firm, which was later renamed Culver, Parker, and Arthur.
One of the cases Arthur worked on was an action for habeas corpus action against Jonathan Lemmon, a Virginia slaveholder who was passing through New York with his eight slaves. In the case known as Lemmon v. New York, Culver argued that, as New York law did not permit slavery, any slave arriving in New York was automatically freed. The argument succeeded, and after several appeals was upheld by the New York Court of Appeals in 1860. Two decades later, his campaign biographers would give Arthur much of the credit for the victory, but in reality he played a minor role in the case.
But Arthur was lead counsel in another civil rights case in 1854. His client was Elizabeth Jennings Graham (who I think of as a sort of Rosa Parks of her day). Graham was denied a seat on a streetcar because she was African-American. Arthur was successful in the litigation and the verdict led to the desegregation of the New York City streetcar lines.
In 1856, Arthur courted the lovely Ellen Herndon. She was the daughter of William Lewis Herndon, a Virginia naval officer. The two were soon engaged to be married. Later that year, Arthur began a new law partnership with his friend Henry D. Gardiner. The two men traveled to the new territory of Kansas to consider purchasing land and setting up a law practice there. 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 abolitionists. According to Arthur's biographer Thomas Reeves, the rough frontier life did not agree with the genteel New Yorkers and after three or four months Arthur and Gardiner returned to New York City.
When Arthur returned to New York, Ellen Herndon's father Captain William Herndon was lost at sea in the wreck of the SS Central America and he tried to console her. In 1859, the young couple were married at Calvary Episcopal Church in Manhattan. What is interesting is that Arthur came from an abolitionist background and Ellen came from a slaveholding family. After his marriage, Arthur became involved in Republican party politics. He also became the Judge-Advocate-General for the Second Brigade of the New York Militia.
In 1860, Arthur was appointed to the military staff of Governor Edwin D. Morgan. This was a minor patronage appointment, but the outbreak of the Civil War increased its significance. In April of 1861, New York and the other northern states were faced with raising and equipping armies of a size never before seen in American history. Arthur was given the rank of brigadier general and assigned to the quartermaster department. He was so efficient at housing and outfitting the troops that poured into New York City that he was promoted within the state militia to inspector general in February 1862, and then to quartermaster general that July.
Arthur had the chance to serve at the front when the 9th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment elected him colonel early in the war. At Governor Morgan's request, he turned it down to remain at his post in New York. He likely did not want to fight in a war in which his wife's family was fighting on the other side. 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 Irwin McDowell seized the town during the Peninsula Campaign. That summer, he and other representatives of northern governors met with Secretary of State William H. Seward in New York on the subject of raising of additional troops. Arthur received many compliments for his work, but his post was a political one, and he was relieved of his office in January 1863 when Governor Horatio Seymour, a Democrat, took office. Arthur returned to his law practice in 1863.
In the presidential election of 1864, Arthur and Murphy raised funds from Republicans in New York and Arthur attended Abraham Lincoln's second inauguration on March 4, 1865.
Arthur remained active in Republican politics. He became chairman of the New York City Republican Party, which in turn built his friendship with Senator Roscoe Conkling. Conkling's machine was solidly behind General Ulysses S. Grant's candidacy for president, and Arthur raised funds for Grant's election in 1868. As a reward. Grant appointed Arthur as the Collector of the Port of New York. This was considered the plum job of all political patronage positions. Arthur controlled nearly a thousand jobs and received excellent compensation. His salary was $6,500, but senior customs employees were also compensated by the "moiety" system, which awarded them a percentage of the fines levied on importers who attempted to evade the tariff. In total, his income came to more than $50,000, a princely sum in those days and more than the president's salary. He held the job until July of 1878 when he was fired by President Rutherford Hayes, who opposed the Stalwarts and who was attempting to promote civil service reform.
Two years later, Arthur was back on top, though he suffered personal tragedy with the untimely death of his wife Ellen in January of 1880. Conkling and his fellow Stalwarts attended the 1880 Republican National Convention hoping to win the nomination for their ally, former President Ulysses Grant. Instead a deadlocked convention turned to James A. Garfield, an Ohio Congressman and Civil War General as a compromise candidate. Garfield and his supporters knew they would face a difficult election without the support of the New York Stalwarts and decided to offer one of them the vice presidential nomination. Levi P. Morton, the first choice of Garfield's supporters, refused to run based on Conkling's advice. Arthur was their second choice. Conkling advised him to also reject the nomination, but in a surprise show of backbone, Arthur accepted, telling Conkling, "The office of the Vice-President is a greater honor than I ever dreamed of attaining." Conkling eventually relented, and campaigned for the ticket.
As expected, the election was close. The Democratic nominee was also a Civil War General, Winfield Scott Hancock, who was popular and avoided taking definitive positions on most issues. In those days candidates for high office did not personally campaign, but Arthur did what he did best: he raised money for the campaign. The Republicans carried New York by 20,000 votes and, in an election with the largest turnout of qualified voters ever recorded—78.4%—they won the nationwide popular vote by just 7,018 votes. The electoral college result was more decisive—214 to 155—and Garfield and Arthur were elected.
Arthur was Vice-President for just a few months before Garfield was shot by assassin Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled and mentally-unbalanced office seeker who was upset at being rejected for positions that he was unqualified for. Garfield had shut Arthur out of cabinet meetings and rejected his suggestions for appointments. When Guiteau shot Garfield, he exclaimed "I am a Stalwart, and Arthur will be President!" At first people suspected that Arthur was a party to some kind of conspiracy, but they quickly realized that Guiteau was a crazy man who no sane person would conspire with. As Garfield suffered over the next few months, Arthur was reluctant to be seen as waiting in the wings to become President.He refused to travel to Washington and was at his Lexington Avenue home when, on the night of September 19, he learned that Garfield had died. Judge John R. Brady of the New York Supreme Court administered the oath of office in Arthur's home at 2:15 a.m. the following day, and Arthur boarded a train for the nation's capital two days later.
As President, Arthur surprised many by carrying on with civil service reforms that Garfield had initiated, despite being a former spoilsman. Civil rights was an important issue to Arthur. He struggled with the question of how to challenge the Democrats in the South and how to protect the civil rights of African-American southerners. Since the end of Reconstruction, conservative white Democrats (or "Bourbon Democrats") had regained power in the South, and the Republican party lost all influence because their primary supporters in the region, African-Americans, were disenfranchised. Arthur saw one possibility with the growth of a new party, the Readjusters, in Virginia. This party won 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. Arthur saw the Readjusters as a more viable ally in the South and he directed the federal patronage in Virginia go through the Readjusters rather than the Republicans. He followed the same pattern in other Southern states, forging coalitions with independent parties. Some African-American Republicans felt betrayed, but others like Frederick Douglass, supported the move. But the strategy was only successful in Virginia, and by 1885 the Readjuster movement began to collapse with the election of a Democratic president.
Arthur faced other challenges in promoting civil rights for African-Americans. The Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875 in an 1883 decision. 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. Arthur intervened 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 based on racial prejudice and illegal.
Arthur wanted to seek election to the presidency in his own right, but he had been diagnosed with a kidney disease known then as Bright's Disease (now called Nephritis). His health deteriorated and he did not have sufficient support to win his party's nomination at the 1884 Republican Convention. He retired at the end of his term and returned to his home in New York. His illness worsened in 1886, and on November 16, ordered nearly all of his papers, both personal and official, burned. The next morning, Arthur suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and never regained consciousness; he died the following day, on November 18, 1886 at the age of 57.
As a young man in the 1850s, Arthur became a lawyer, and civil rights cases seemed to be a specialty of his. In 1853, after studying at State and National Law School in Ballston Spa, New York, Arthur moved to New York City to read law at the law office of Erastus D. Culver, an abolitionist lawyer and family friend. (Arthur's father William had been an outspoken abolitionist Baptist preacher.) When Arthur was admitted to the bar in 1854, he joined Culver's firm, which was later renamed Culver, Parker, and Arthur.
One of the cases Arthur worked on was an action for habeas corpus action against Jonathan Lemmon, a Virginia slaveholder who was passing through New York with his eight slaves. In the case known as Lemmon v. New York, Culver argued that, as New York law did not permit slavery, any slave arriving in New York was automatically freed. The argument succeeded, and after several appeals was upheld by the New York Court of Appeals in 1860. Two decades later, his campaign biographers would give Arthur much of the credit for the victory, but in reality he played a minor role in the case.
But Arthur was lead counsel in another civil rights case in 1854. His client was Elizabeth Jennings Graham (who I think of as a sort of Rosa Parks of her day). Graham was denied a seat on a streetcar because she was African-American. Arthur was successful in the litigation and the verdict led to the desegregation of the New York City streetcar lines.
In 1856, Arthur courted the lovely Ellen Herndon. She was the daughter of William Lewis Herndon, a Virginia naval officer. The two were soon engaged to be married. Later that year, Arthur began a new law partnership with his friend Henry D. Gardiner. The two men traveled to the new territory of Kansas to consider purchasing land and setting up a law practice there. 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 abolitionists. According to Arthur's biographer Thomas Reeves, the rough frontier life did not agree with the genteel New Yorkers and after three or four months Arthur and Gardiner returned to New York City.
When Arthur returned to New York, Ellen Herndon's father Captain William Herndon was lost at sea in the wreck of the SS Central America and he tried to console her. In 1859, the young couple were married at Calvary Episcopal Church in Manhattan. What is interesting is that Arthur came from an abolitionist background and Ellen came from a slaveholding family. After his marriage, Arthur became involved in Republican party politics. He also became the Judge-Advocate-General for the Second Brigade of the New York Militia.
In 1860, Arthur was appointed to the military staff of Governor Edwin D. Morgan. This was a minor patronage appointment, but the outbreak of the Civil War increased its significance. In April of 1861, New York and the other northern states were faced with raising and equipping armies of a size never before seen in American history. Arthur was given the rank of brigadier general and assigned to the quartermaster department. He was so efficient at housing and outfitting the troops that poured into New York City that he was promoted within the state militia to inspector general in February 1862, and then to quartermaster general that July.
Arthur had the chance to serve at the front when the 9th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment elected him colonel early in the war. At Governor Morgan's request, he turned it down to remain at his post in New York. He likely did not want to fight in a war in which his wife's family was fighting on the other side. 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 Irwin McDowell seized the town during the Peninsula Campaign. That summer, he and other representatives of northern governors met with Secretary of State William H. Seward in New York on the subject of raising of additional troops. Arthur received many compliments for his work, but his post was a political one, and he was relieved of his office in January 1863 when Governor Horatio Seymour, a Democrat, took office. Arthur returned to his law practice in 1863.
In the presidential election of 1864, Arthur and Murphy raised funds from Republicans in New York and Arthur attended Abraham Lincoln's second inauguration on March 4, 1865.
Arthur remained active in Republican politics. He became chairman of the New York City Republican Party, which in turn built his friendship with Senator Roscoe Conkling. Conkling's machine was solidly behind General Ulysses S. Grant's candidacy for president, and Arthur raised funds for Grant's election in 1868. As a reward. Grant appointed Arthur as the Collector of the Port of New York. This was considered the plum job of all political patronage positions. Arthur controlled nearly a thousand jobs and received excellent compensation. His salary was $6,500, but senior customs employees were also compensated by the "moiety" system, which awarded them a percentage of the fines levied on importers who attempted to evade the tariff. In total, his income came to more than $50,000, a princely sum in those days and more than the president's salary. He held the job until July of 1878 when he was fired by President Rutherford Hayes, who opposed the Stalwarts and who was attempting to promote civil service reform.
Two years later, Arthur was back on top, though he suffered personal tragedy with the untimely death of his wife Ellen in January of 1880. Conkling and his fellow Stalwarts attended the 1880 Republican National Convention hoping to win the nomination for their ally, former President Ulysses Grant. Instead a deadlocked convention turned to James A. Garfield, an Ohio Congressman and Civil War General as a compromise candidate. Garfield and his supporters knew they would face a difficult election without the support of the New York Stalwarts and decided to offer one of them the vice presidential nomination. Levi P. Morton, the first choice of Garfield's supporters, refused to run based on Conkling's advice. Arthur was their second choice. Conkling advised him to also reject the nomination, but in a surprise show of backbone, Arthur accepted, telling Conkling, "The office of the Vice-President is a greater honor than I ever dreamed of attaining." Conkling eventually relented, and campaigned for the ticket.
As expected, the election was close. The Democratic nominee was also a Civil War General, Winfield Scott Hancock, who was popular and avoided taking definitive positions on most issues. In those days candidates for high office did not personally campaign, but Arthur did what he did best: he raised money for the campaign. The Republicans carried New York by 20,000 votes and, in an election with the largest turnout of qualified voters ever recorded—78.4%—they won the nationwide popular vote by just 7,018 votes. The electoral college result was more decisive—214 to 155—and Garfield and Arthur were elected.
Arthur was Vice-President for just a few months before Garfield was shot by assassin Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled and mentally-unbalanced office seeker who was upset at being rejected for positions that he was unqualified for. Garfield had shut Arthur out of cabinet meetings and rejected his suggestions for appointments. When Guiteau shot Garfield, he exclaimed "I am a Stalwart, and Arthur will be President!" At first people suspected that Arthur was a party to some kind of conspiracy, but they quickly realized that Guiteau was a crazy man who no sane person would conspire with. As Garfield suffered over the next few months, Arthur was reluctant to be seen as waiting in the wings to become President.He refused to travel to Washington and was at his Lexington Avenue home when, on the night of September 19, he learned that Garfield had died. Judge John R. Brady of the New York Supreme Court administered the oath of office in Arthur's home at 2:15 a.m. the following day, and Arthur boarded a train for the nation's capital two days later.
As President, Arthur surprised many by carrying on with civil service reforms that Garfield had initiated, despite being a former spoilsman. Civil rights was an important issue to Arthur. He struggled with the question of how to challenge the Democrats in the South and how to protect the civil rights of African-American southerners. Since the end of Reconstruction, conservative white Democrats (or "Bourbon Democrats") had regained power in the South, and the Republican party lost all influence because their primary supporters in the region, African-Americans, were disenfranchised. Arthur saw one possibility with the growth of a new party, the Readjusters, in Virginia. This party won 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. Arthur saw the Readjusters as a more viable ally in the South and he directed the federal patronage in Virginia go through the Readjusters rather than the Republicans. He followed the same pattern in other Southern states, forging coalitions with independent parties. Some African-American Republicans felt betrayed, but others like Frederick Douglass, supported the move. But the strategy was only successful in Virginia, and by 1885 the Readjuster movement began to collapse with the election of a Democratic president.
Arthur faced other challenges in promoting civil rights for African-Americans. The Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875 in an 1883 decision. 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. Arthur intervened 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 based on racial prejudice and illegal.
Arthur wanted to seek election to the presidency in his own right, but he had been diagnosed with a kidney disease known then as Bright's Disease (now called Nephritis). His health deteriorated and he did not have sufficient support to win his party's nomination at the 1884 Republican Convention. He retired at the end of his term and returned to his home in New York. His illness worsened in 1886, and on November 16, ordered nearly all of his papers, both personal and official, burned. The next morning, Arthur suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and never regained consciousness; he died the following day, on November 18, 1886 at the age of 57.