Hail to the Chiefs Part XXI: Chester Arthur, Eh?
Earlier this week I put a comment about Ron Reagan's book "My Father At 100" on my facebook status. All I said was that Ron mistakenly referred to his father as the "44th president of the United States"...which would make his father Barack Obama. Kind of a tricky thing as Barack Obama is younger than Ron Reagan. That one innocuous comment spouted off a firestorm of pro- and anti-Reagan vitriol. One of my friends remarked how amazing it was that even just mention Reagan could produce so much passion 20 years after he was out of office.
However the president I'll be talking about today is at the opposite end of the spectrum. People weren't very passionate about him even during his administration. Afterwards, he was quickly forgotten. Which is why don't be surprised if this is the first time you've heard about President Chester A. Arthur.
Chester Alan Arthur was born October 5, 1829 in the Northern Vermont town of Fairfield. Out of vanity, he would later shave a year off and claim he was really born in 1830. His mother was a Vermont native, and his father was an Irish immigrant. When Arthur was the Republican vice-presidential candidate, A.P. Hinman, a spin doctor of the day, started rumors that Arthur was actually born in Canada and therefore ineligible to be elected as Vice-President. I can't imagine such a situation happening today with the child of an immigrant father being accused of being foreign born. Lucky for Arthur, Vermont was never inundated for requests of his birth certificate.
Although born In Vermont (or just north of the border...) Arthur spent the majority of his childhood in rural New York state. After college and law school, he started a law practice in New York City. It was the 1850's, the Kansas-Nebraska Act had just passed, and the United States was right in the middle of the pre-Civil War tension. Arthur was adamantly anti-slavery. He and his law practice partner decided to move to Kansas to do what they could to help the anti-slavery movement. Now imagine if a week or two ago I had said to one of you, "You know democracy is very important to me, and I know it's important to you too. Let's pack our bags and hop on the next plane to Cairo to see what we can do to help!"
Arthur and his friend found out very quickly that culturally the pro and anti-slave farmers had far more in common with each other than two lawyers from New York City. Not to mention that 1850's Kansas was one of the scariest and most violent parts of the country. Arthur soon retreated back to New York City and continued his law practice and joined the new Republican Party. In 1860 he was part of the law case that decided that any slaves going through New York State would be automatically emancipated.
Clearly Arthur was more effective at home than on the front lines. He proved this again during the Civil War. He was appointed first as engineer-in-chief and later Quarter-master general of the New York militia, with the rank of brigadier general. He never saw combat. His job was basically to make sure the troops had food, shelter and supplies. He did a good job of it. This also meant that he worked quite a bit with the governor, and was a springboard to his government career. Arthur lived quite comfortably throughout the war period. In Ken Burn's Civil War documentary, Shelby Foote comments that the North fought the Civil War with "one hand tied behind its back." While the South was giving everything it had in terms of man power, the North had enough people staying behind, that despite a major war going on, a lot of people could live their lives pretty normally.
As I've said before, a big reason the American presidents from the Gilded Age are so forgettable is because they didn't have the real power. The power was with the captains of industry (such as the Carnegies, the Vanderbilts, etc.) This was also an era when there was a week executive branch, but a strong legislative branch. So a few key legislators had quite a bit of power. One of those was New York Senator Roscoe Conkling. Chester A. Arthur more or less became Conkling's sidekick, or lackey.
In 1871 Arthur got the plum government job of Collector of the Port of New York. In that era under the spoils systems, government jobs were all about who you knew and which palms you greased. Arthur became even wealthier with the Collector position. It was a happy time for him. While he was happily married with children, his favorite activity was hanging out at the Delmonico Club with the other fat cats. Reading about him, I could picture a bunch of men that all looked like that man on the Monopoly game, all chomping their cigars.
In 1878 equally obscure President Hayes removed Arthur from the office in an attempt to curb government corruption. Arthur then became the head of the Republican party.
Two years later, still recovering from the death of his wife, in 1880 Arthur was offered the opportunity to be the running mate for James Garfield. The Republican party was deeply divided, and it was seen as a compromise to have Garfield from one faction (the Half Breeds) and Arthur from the other (the Stalwarts.) Arthur accepted. Despite a long career with government and political positions, becoming Vice President would be the first time Arthur was in an elected office.
Initially there was some draaaamaaa between the two factions of the Republican party. Then Senator Conkling, full of delusions of grandeur, resigned his senate seat thinking the people would rally around him. He soon found out that without power, people were not interested in him anymore.
Then in July 1881, just 4 months after Garfield's inauguration, "disappointed office seeker" and full time nut job Charles Guiteau shot Garfield. He stated "I did it and will go to jail for it. I am a Stalwart, and Arthur will be President."
Arthur was hanging out with his buddy Conkling in New York when he got the news. He was understandably quite shook up. He had never wanted the job of president. Guiteau's comment about Arthur becoming president didn't help matters for him either.
After months of gradually worsening health, Garfield died. Many people dreaded what would happen under an Arthur administration as he was pretty notoriously partisan. However the first thing that Arthur did was look around and decide the White House needed major redecorating. It was the most major restoration of the White House until Jackie Kennedy. Those two probably would have gotten on famously. "Men may die, but the fabrics of our free institutions remain unshaken," Arthur said...although technically he wasn't referring to his decorating project at the time.
While Arthur was no slacker, he certainly wouldn't have been accused of being a workaholic. He slept in, and enjoyed besides revamping the decor of the White House, reviving White House social dinners. The economy was good, the government was running a surplus, so he pretty much was a caretaker president. There were a few surprises in the administration, though.
In California there had been a large influx of Chinese immigrants. Many of these immigrants worked on building the railroads. Responding to the immigration backlash of the day, in 1882 Congress passed the Anti-Chinese immigration Bill. This would restrict Chinese immigration for the next 20 years and all Chinese immigrants in the U.S. would need to register. Arthur surprised everybody by vetoing the bill, stating it would violate the trade treaty the U.S. had with China, and would be bad for diplomacy. He also talked about what an important role Chinese immigrants had played in building the railroads. However, when Congress resubmitted a weaker version of the bill with 10 year immigration restriction Arthur, realizing that there would be enough votes to overturn his veto, capitulated and the act passed.
The other thing Arthur did that surprised everybody was despite being notorious as a partisan and a beneficiary of the spoils system, helped promote Civil Service reform. The Pendleton Civil Service Act passed in 1882. While initially very few government organizations actually had to follow it, this was the beginning of the end for the spoils system. This would be the end of every presidential administration beginning by having to wade through crowds of office seekers. This was also the beginning of the bureaucracy we are all familiar with today.
In 1884 despite not being overly crazy about the job, Arthur sought out the presidential nomination. He wasn't very popular with his party at that point, but he did have one celebrity endorsement. Mark Twain commented "It would be hard to better President Arthur's administration." However the Republican party opted to nominate James Blaine instead. Before Arthur left office, he had most of his papers destroyed. This is one reason you won't see many Chester A. Arthur biographies floating around. A few months after he left office, Arthur died from a kidney disease.
As one of my favorite aspects of Chester A. Arthur is that he may have been our first Canadian President....I thought this would be an appropriate song to end on.
However the president I'll be talking about today is at the opposite end of the spectrum. People weren't very passionate about him even during his administration. Afterwards, he was quickly forgotten. Which is why don't be surprised if this is the first time you've heard about President Chester A. Arthur.
Chester Alan Arthur was born October 5, 1829 in the Northern Vermont town of Fairfield. Out of vanity, he would later shave a year off and claim he was really born in 1830. His mother was a Vermont native, and his father was an Irish immigrant. When Arthur was the Republican vice-presidential candidate, A.P. Hinman, a spin doctor of the day, started rumors that Arthur was actually born in Canada and therefore ineligible to be elected as Vice-President. I can't imagine such a situation happening today with the child of an immigrant father being accused of being foreign born. Lucky for Arthur, Vermont was never inundated for requests of his birth certificate.
Although born In Vermont (or just north of the border...) Arthur spent the majority of his childhood in rural New York state. After college and law school, he started a law practice in New York City. It was the 1850's, the Kansas-Nebraska Act had just passed, and the United States was right in the middle of the pre-Civil War tension. Arthur was adamantly anti-slavery. He and his law practice partner decided to move to Kansas to do what they could to help the anti-slavery movement. Now imagine if a week or two ago I had said to one of you, "You know democracy is very important to me, and I know it's important to you too. Let's pack our bags and hop on the next plane to Cairo to see what we can do to help!"
Arthur and his friend found out very quickly that culturally the pro and anti-slave farmers had far more in common with each other than two lawyers from New York City. Not to mention that 1850's Kansas was one of the scariest and most violent parts of the country. Arthur soon retreated back to New York City and continued his law practice and joined the new Republican Party. In 1860 he was part of the law case that decided that any slaves going through New York State would be automatically emancipated.
Clearly Arthur was more effective at home than on the front lines. He proved this again during the Civil War. He was appointed first as engineer-in-chief and later Quarter-master general of the New York militia, with the rank of brigadier general. He never saw combat. His job was basically to make sure the troops had food, shelter and supplies. He did a good job of it. This also meant that he worked quite a bit with the governor, and was a springboard to his government career. Arthur lived quite comfortably throughout the war period. In Ken Burn's Civil War documentary, Shelby Foote comments that the North fought the Civil War with "one hand tied behind its back." While the South was giving everything it had in terms of man power, the North had enough people staying behind, that despite a major war going on, a lot of people could live their lives pretty normally.
As I've said before, a big reason the American presidents from the Gilded Age are so forgettable is because they didn't have the real power. The power was with the captains of industry (such as the Carnegies, the Vanderbilts, etc.) This was also an era when there was a week executive branch, but a strong legislative branch. So a few key legislators had quite a bit of power. One of those was New York Senator Roscoe Conkling. Chester A. Arthur more or less became Conkling's sidekick, or lackey.
In 1871 Arthur got the plum government job of Collector of the Port of New York. In that era under the spoils systems, government jobs were all about who you knew and which palms you greased. Arthur became even wealthier with the Collector position. It was a happy time for him. While he was happily married with children, his favorite activity was hanging out at the Delmonico Club with the other fat cats. Reading about him, I could picture a bunch of men that all looked like that man on the Monopoly game, all chomping their cigars.
In 1878 equally obscure President Hayes removed Arthur from the office in an attempt to curb government corruption. Arthur then became the head of the Republican party.
Two years later, still recovering from the death of his wife, in 1880 Arthur was offered the opportunity to be the running mate for James Garfield. The Republican party was deeply divided, and it was seen as a compromise to have Garfield from one faction (the Half Breeds) and Arthur from the other (the Stalwarts.) Arthur accepted. Despite a long career with government and political positions, becoming Vice President would be the first time Arthur was in an elected office.
Initially there was some draaaamaaa between the two factions of the Republican party. Then Senator Conkling, full of delusions of grandeur, resigned his senate seat thinking the people would rally around him. He soon found out that without power, people were not interested in him anymore.
Then in July 1881, just 4 months after Garfield's inauguration, "disappointed office seeker" and full time nut job Charles Guiteau shot Garfield. He stated "I did it and will go to jail for it. I am a Stalwart, and Arthur will be President."
Arthur was hanging out with his buddy Conkling in New York when he got the news. He was understandably quite shook up. He had never wanted the job of president. Guiteau's comment about Arthur becoming president didn't help matters for him either.
After months of gradually worsening health, Garfield died. Many people dreaded what would happen under an Arthur administration as he was pretty notoriously partisan. However the first thing that Arthur did was look around and decide the White House needed major redecorating. It was the most major restoration of the White House until Jackie Kennedy. Those two probably would have gotten on famously. "Men may die, but the fabrics of our free institutions remain unshaken," Arthur said...although technically he wasn't referring to his decorating project at the time.
While Arthur was no slacker, he certainly wouldn't have been accused of being a workaholic. He slept in, and enjoyed besides revamping the decor of the White House, reviving White House social dinners. The economy was good, the government was running a surplus, so he pretty much was a caretaker president. There were a few surprises in the administration, though.
In California there had been a large influx of Chinese immigrants. Many of these immigrants worked on building the railroads. Responding to the immigration backlash of the day, in 1882 Congress passed the Anti-Chinese immigration Bill. This would restrict Chinese immigration for the next 20 years and all Chinese immigrants in the U.S. would need to register. Arthur surprised everybody by vetoing the bill, stating it would violate the trade treaty the U.S. had with China, and would be bad for diplomacy. He also talked about what an important role Chinese immigrants had played in building the railroads. However, when Congress resubmitted a weaker version of the bill with 10 year immigration restriction Arthur, realizing that there would be enough votes to overturn his veto, capitulated and the act passed.
The other thing Arthur did that surprised everybody was despite being notorious as a partisan and a beneficiary of the spoils system, helped promote Civil Service reform. The Pendleton Civil Service Act passed in 1882. While initially very few government organizations actually had to follow it, this was the beginning of the end for the spoils system. This would be the end of every presidential administration beginning by having to wade through crowds of office seekers. This was also the beginning of the bureaucracy we are all familiar with today.
In 1884 despite not being overly crazy about the job, Arthur sought out the presidential nomination. He wasn't very popular with his party at that point, but he did have one celebrity endorsement. Mark Twain commented "It would be hard to better President Arthur's administration." However the Republican party opted to nominate James Blaine instead. Before Arthur left office, he had most of his papers destroyed. This is one reason you won't see many Chester A. Arthur biographies floating around. A few months after he left office, Arthur died from a kidney disease.
As one of my favorite aspects of Chester A. Arthur is that he may have been our first Canadian President....I thought this would be an appropriate song to end on.