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Chester A. Arthur

Personal Profile

Chester A. Arthur
  • Birth Name:
    Chester Alan Arthur
  • Nickname:
    "The Gentleman Boss", "Elegant Arthur"
  • Date of Birth:
    October 5, 1829
  • Zodiac Sign:
    Libra
  • Place of Birth:
    Fairfield, Vermont
  • Place of Death:
    New York City, New York
  • Date of Death:
    November 18, 1886
  • Sex:
    Male
  • Nationality:
    American
  • Education:
    Union College

Family

Chester A. Arthur
  • Father:
    William Arthur
  • Mother:
    Malvina Stone Arthur
  • Spouse:
    Ellen Lewis Herndon Arthur
  • Son:
    William Lewis Herndon Arthur
    Chester Alan Arthur II
    Ellen Hansbrough Herndon Arthur

Career

Chester A. Arthur

Trivia

Chester A. Arthur
  • Arthur sold twenty-six wagons full of White House furniture for about eight thousand dollars. What he did not know was that the furniture was priceless.
  • Arthur changed his pants several times a day. He had over 80 pairs!
  • His favorite food was mutton chops.
  • Arthur was the first president to take the Oath of Office in his own home.
  • Arthur's citizenship was questioned when political opponents alledged that he was born across the Vermont border in Canada. Arthur denied this and continued on with his term.
  • Arthur destroyed all of his personal papers before his death.
  • He often took his friends on late night walks around Washington D.C. as early as three or four in the morning. He seldom went to bed before two o'clock.
  • Arthur was a skilled fisherman. He belonged to the Restigouche Salmon Club, a group of New York anglers who fished in Canada.
  • He was named after Dr. Chester Abell, the physician who delivered him, and his grandfather, Alan Arthur.

Quotes

Chester A. Arthur
  • “I don't think we had better go into the minute secrets of the campaign, so far as I know them, because I see the reporters are present, who are taking it all down.”
  • “Since I came here I have learned that Chester A. Arthur is one man and the President of the United States is another.”
  • “I may be president of the United States, but my private life is nobody's damned business.”
  • “Men may die, but the fabrics of free institutions remains unshaken.”
View all Quotes: Chester A. Arthur

Biography

Chester A. Arthur
Last Updated: Monday, September 28, 2009

Chester A. ArthurDignified, tall, and handsome, with clean-shaven chin and side-whiskers, Chester A. Arthur "looked like a President." The son of a Baptist preacher who had emigrated from northern Ireland, Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vermont, in 1829. He was graduated from Union College in 1848, taught school, was admitted to the bar, and practiced law in New York City. Early in the Civil War he served as Quartermaster General of the State of New York.

President Grant in 1871 appointed him Collector of the Port of New York. Arthur effectively marshalled the thousand Customs House employees under his supervision on behalf of Roscoe Conkling's Stalwart Republican machine.

Honorable in his personal life and his public career, Arthur nevertheless was a firm believer in the spoils system when it was coming under vehement attack from reformers. He insisted upon honest administration of the Customs House, but staffed it with more employees than it needed, retaining them for their merit as party workers rather than as Government officials.

In 1878 President Hayes, attempting to reform the Customs House, ousted Arthur. Conkling and his followers tried to win redress by fighting for the renomination of Grant at the 1880 Republican Convention. Failing, they reluctantly accepted the nomination of Arthur for the Vice Presidency.

During his brief tenure as Vice President, Arthur stood firmly beside Conkling in his patronage struggle against President Garfield. But when Arthur succeeded to the Presidency, he was eager to prove himself above machine politics.

Chester A. ArthurAvoiding old political friends, he became a man of fashion in his garb and associates, and often was seen with the elite of Washington, New York, and Newport. To the indignation of the Stalwart Republicans, the onetime Collector of the Port of New York became, as President, a champion of civil service reform. Public pressure, heightened by the assassination of Garfield, forced an unwieldy Congress to heed the President.

In 1883 Congress passed the Pendleton Act, which established a bipartisan Civil Service Commission, forbade levying political assessments against officeholders, and provided for a "classified system" that made certain Government positions obtainable only through competitive written examinations. The system protected employees against removal for political reasons.

Acting independently of party dogma, Arthur also tried to lower tariff rates so the Government would not be embarrassed by annual surpluses of revenue. Congress raised about as many rates as it trimmed, but Arthur signed the Tariff Act of 1883. Aggrieved Westerners and Southerners looked to the Democratic Party for redress, and the tariff began to emerge as a major political issue between the two parties.

The Arthur Administration enacted the first general Federal immigration law. Arthur approved a measure in 1882 excluding paupers, criminals, and lunatics. Congress suspended Chinese immigration for ten years, later making the restriction permanent.

Arthur demonstrated as President that he was above factions within the Republican Party, if indeed not above the party itself. Perhaps in part his reason was the well-kept secret he had known since a year after he succeeded to the Presidency, that he was suffering from a fatal kidney disease. He kept himself in the running for the Presidential nomination in 1884 in order not to appear that he feared defeat, but was not renominated, and died in 1886. Publisher Alexander K. McClure recalled, "No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted, and no one ever retired ... more generally respected."

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