The Obscure Presidents: Chester Alan Arthur (Part III-After the Presidency)
Unfortunately for Chester Alan Arthur, the man didn't have many years left after leaving the White House in March of 1885. Bright's Disease, the kidney ailment that afflicted Arthur during his presidency, was taking its toll on him. He was only 54 years old when he left office, and in less than two years his life would be over.
After leaving office, Arthur returned to his New York City home. Two months before the end of his term, several New York Stalwarts had approached him and requested that he run for United States Senate, but he declined the offer. Perhaps he had enough of politics, perhaps his health was such that the life of a senator would be too hard on him or perhaps it was a combination of both. Instead Arthur decided that he wanted to return to his old law practice at the firm of Arthur, Knevals & Ransom. But even there, his health limited his activity, and Arthur served in the role known as "of counsel", which meant that he did not actively practice law, other than to give advice to other lawyers and to attract clients to the firm with his name. He took on a few assignments, but much of the time he was too ill to leave his house. He did make a few public appearances, but those ended sometime around the end of 1885.
Arthur went to New London, Connecticut, for the summer of 1886, but he he returned home feeling quite ill. Later that fall, Arthur knew that his end was near. On November 16, in a move regretted by many historians, Arthur ordered nearly all of his papers, both personal and official, to be burned. No one is certain why he did this, or what information he wanted to conceal, but he did so to the regret of those wanting to know more about the man and about his presidency.
The next morning, on November 17, Arthur suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. He never regained consciousness. Chester Alan Arthur died on November 18, 1886, about six weeks after his 57th birthday. His funeral was held on November 22 at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City. It was a private ceremony, but in attendance were his successor, President Grover Cleveland and ex-President Rutherford Hayes, the man who had once fired Arthur as Collector of the New York Customs House. Arthur was buried with his family members and ancestors in the Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands, New York, next to his wife Ellen, who had died in January of 1880. In 1889, a monument created by the sculptor Ephraim Keyser was placed on Arthur's burial plot. It has a figure of a giant bronze female angel placing a bronze palm leaf on a granite sarcophagus.
In 1898, a fifteen foot bronze memorial statue of Arthur standing on a Barre Granite pedestal was created by sculptor George Edwin Bissell and installed at Madison Square, in New York City. The statue was dedicated in 1899 and unveiled by Arthur's sister, Mary Arthur McElroy. At the dedication, Secretary of War Elihu Root described Arthur as "wise in statesmanship and firm and effective in administration".
Chester Alan Arthur has never been appreciated by historians, perhaps because his good work as president is overshadowed by his prior reputation as a party hack, a spoilsman and an underling of political boss Roscoe Conkling. In 1935, historian George F. Howe said that Arthur had achieved "an obscurity in strange contrast to his significant part in American history." But that wasn't the universal opinion of his contemporaries. Journalist Alexander McClure later wrote of him, "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 wrote of Arthur's presidency at the time of his death in 1886: "No duty was neglected in his administration, and no adventurous project alarmed the nation." Mark Twain wrote of him: "It would be hard indeed to better President Arthur's administration."
The image of Arthur as the bag man or the backroom schemer ignores much that Arthur did to place him on the right side of history, often ahead of his time. His advocacy as a civil rights lawyer for African-Americans in the antebellum era shows him to be a man with a strong social conscience. His action of biting the hand that fed him by accepting the nomination for the vice-presidency against the wishes of Senator Roscoe Conkling and his recognition that the time had come for civil service reform proves him to be his own man and nobody's puppet. His hopes of educating the children of freedmen and his refusal to be swept up in the bigotry of his day against the Chinese as well as his principled stances on tariffs and on how the surplus was spent all make Chester Alan Arthur out to be a man of integrity. History is full of "what ifs" and it is interesting to speculate what might have happened if Arthur had been healthy enough to mount a proper campaign for re-election.
Arthur's leading biographer Thomas C. Reeves wrote of Arthur, "The corruption and scandal that dominated business and politics of the period did not tarnish his administration." Zachary Karabell who wrote the biography of Arthur for the American Presidents Series, described Arthur as "physically stretched and emotionally strained, he strove to do what was right for the country." Finally, biographer George Howe wrote that Arthur adopted three guiding principles: "he remained to everyone a man of his word; he kept scrupulously free from corrupt graft; he maintained a personal dignity, affable and genial though he might be." That's not a bad legacy to have and that's why Chester Alan Arthur is probably my favorite of the obscure presidents.
Tomorrow: Zachary Taylor
After leaving office, Arthur returned to his New York City home. Two months before the end of his term, several New York Stalwarts had approached him and requested that he run for United States Senate, but he declined the offer. Perhaps he had enough of politics, perhaps his health was such that the life of a senator would be too hard on him or perhaps it was a combination of both. Instead Arthur decided that he wanted to return to his old law practice at the firm of Arthur, Knevals & Ransom. But even there, his health limited his activity, and Arthur served in the role known as "of counsel", which meant that he did not actively practice law, other than to give advice to other lawyers and to attract clients to the firm with his name. He took on a few assignments, but much of the time he was too ill to leave his house. He did make a few public appearances, but those ended sometime around the end of 1885.
Arthur went to New London, Connecticut, for the summer of 1886, but he he returned home feeling quite ill. Later that fall, Arthur knew that his end was near. On November 16, in a move regretted by many historians, Arthur ordered nearly all of his papers, both personal and official, to be burned. No one is certain why he did this, or what information he wanted to conceal, but he did so to the regret of those wanting to know more about the man and about his presidency.
The next morning, on November 17, Arthur suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. He never regained consciousness. Chester Alan Arthur died on November 18, 1886, about six weeks after his 57th birthday. His funeral was held on November 22 at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City. It was a private ceremony, but in attendance were his successor, President Grover Cleveland and ex-President Rutherford Hayes, the man who had once fired Arthur as Collector of the New York Customs House. Arthur was buried with his family members and ancestors in the Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands, New York, next to his wife Ellen, who had died in January of 1880. In 1889, a monument created by the sculptor Ephraim Keyser was placed on Arthur's burial plot. It has a figure of a giant bronze female angel placing a bronze palm leaf on a granite sarcophagus.
In 1898, a fifteen foot bronze memorial statue of Arthur standing on a Barre Granite pedestal was created by sculptor George Edwin Bissell and installed at Madison Square, in New York City. The statue was dedicated in 1899 and unveiled by Arthur's sister, Mary Arthur McElroy. At the dedication, Secretary of War Elihu Root described Arthur as "wise in statesmanship and firm and effective in administration".
Chester Alan Arthur has never been appreciated by historians, perhaps because his good work as president is overshadowed by his prior reputation as a party hack, a spoilsman and an underling of political boss Roscoe Conkling. In 1935, historian George F. Howe said that Arthur had achieved "an obscurity in strange contrast to his significant part in American history." But that wasn't the universal opinion of his contemporaries. Journalist Alexander McClure later wrote of him, "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 wrote of Arthur's presidency at the time of his death in 1886: "No duty was neglected in his administration, and no adventurous project alarmed the nation." Mark Twain wrote of him: "It would be hard indeed to better President Arthur's administration."
The image of Arthur as the bag man or the backroom schemer ignores much that Arthur did to place him on the right side of history, often ahead of his time. His advocacy as a civil rights lawyer for African-Americans in the antebellum era shows him to be a man with a strong social conscience. His action of biting the hand that fed him by accepting the nomination for the vice-presidency against the wishes of Senator Roscoe Conkling and his recognition that the time had come for civil service reform proves him to be his own man and nobody's puppet. His hopes of educating the children of freedmen and his refusal to be swept up in the bigotry of his day against the Chinese as well as his principled stances on tariffs and on how the surplus was spent all make Chester Alan Arthur out to be a man of integrity. History is full of "what ifs" and it is interesting to speculate what might have happened if Arthur had been healthy enough to mount a proper campaign for re-election.
Arthur's leading biographer Thomas C. Reeves wrote of Arthur, "The corruption and scandal that dominated business and politics of the period did not tarnish his administration." Zachary Karabell who wrote the biography of Arthur for the American Presidents Series, described Arthur as "physically stretched and emotionally strained, he strove to do what was right for the country." Finally, biographer George Howe wrote that Arthur adopted three guiding principles: "he remained to everyone a man of his word; he kept scrupulously free from corrupt graft; he maintained a personal dignity, affable and genial though he might be." That's not a bad legacy to have and that's why Chester Alan Arthur is probably my favorite of the obscure presidents.
Tomorrow: Zachary Taylor