Chester A Arthur

After the assassination of James Abram Garfield, Chester Alan Arthur as the twenty-first president of the United States from 1881 to 1885 supported the act of George Hunt Pendleton of 1883 to create the civil service commission to regulate Federal appointments.

This American attorney and politician succeeded. From his early career in politics as part of Republican political machine of New York, a slightly negative reputation stemmed at the outset, but he struggled to overcome it. He embraced the cause of reform to succeed. The centerpiece of his Administration advocated for the reform and subsequently enforced it.

Arthur in city of New York practiced law. He stood as quartermaster general in the militia of New York during the war. Following the war, he devoted more time to Republican politics and quickly rose in the machine that Roscoe Conkling, senator of New York, ran. Ulysses S. Grant gave the lucrative and politically powerful post of collector of the port of New York in 1871 to Arthur, an important friend of Conkling and the stalwart faction of the Republican Party.

In 1878, the new Rutherford Birchard Hayes fired Arthur as part of a plan to reform the Federal patronage system in New York. Arthur, an eastern stalwart, won the Republican nomination in 1880 for vice to balance the ticket.

After just half a year as vice, Arthur, due to death of his predecessor, found the executive mansion. From office, the cause of reform once led to his expulsion, but to the surprise of reformers, Arthur took it. He signed it into law and strongly enforced its provisions. He gained praise for his veto of an excessive appropriation of funds for rivers and harbors. He oversaw the rebirth of the Navy. After the end of the war, the budget surplus accumulated, and people criticized his failure to alleviate it.

Suffering from poor health, Arthur made only a limited effort to secure the nomination of the Republican Party in 1884 and retired at the close of his term. Alexander McClure, journalist, later wrote,

"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."

Although his failing health and political temperament combined to make less than a modern Administration, he earned praise among contemporaries for his solid performance in office. The New York World summed up Arthur at 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."

Over the 20th and 21st centuries, however, reputation of Arthur mostly faded among the public. Although some people praised his economic policies, present-day historians and scholars list and rank him among the bottom half of the Americans.