CHESTER A. ARTHUR

21st President, 1881–1885

Overall Rank: 35

Total Score: 446

With thirty points separating his total score from Hoover’s, the next lowest president in the rankings, Arthur can be said to have escaped being ranked among the worst presidents. In 2017, his category rankings ranged from 27th in pursued equal justice for all to 37th in public persuasion.

Party: Republican

b. October 5, 1829, Fairfield, Vermont

d. November 18, 1886, New York City, New York

First Lady: Mary Arthur McElroy (sister)

Age entering office: 51

Historian: Scott S. Greenberger

Scott Greenberger is the executive editor of Stateline and former staff writer at the Boston Globe and Austin American-Statesman. He joined C-SPAN’s Q & A on September 7, 2017, to discuss his book, The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur.

Every president has an interesting story. Chester Arthur may be, if he’s not the most obscure president, he’s certainly one of them.… The only thing that most people remember about him is his very distinctive facial hair, his muttonchop sideburns. But there are a few reasons why it’s an interesting period to focus on. First, it’s the Gilded Age—the era beginning with Reconstruction and leading up to Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressives. It’s a period that a lot of people give short shrift to in American history in schools.… But this is a period where a lot of what we think of as the modern world, modern America, really starts to take shape. This is the era where Americans, for the first time, heard the term “millionaire,” and the country really was transformed from a largely agrarian country to an industrial country with very large corporations that were beginning to exert their power politically as well as economically.

Chester Arthur, referred to as an “accidental president,” is better known for his mutton chops than for his significant civil service reform. He is seen in this 1881 oil on canvas by Ole Peter Hansen Balling. Courtesy National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Mrs. Harry Newton Blue

Chester Arthur is… really a story of redemption. His father was a very rigid abolitionist preacher, and he was a guy who grew up in that very religious environment. Shortly after college, he was a teacher, became a lawyer, moved to New York, and was involved in a very important case that results in the desegregation of New York City streetcars. So, he was on this moral path. Then he also was a quartermaster in the Union Army during the Civil War, in New York City. It was a very important job with a lot of opportunities for lining his own pockets, which he did not do, but as many others did.

After the war, he became involved in the machine politics of that era, and he became very close to the New York Republican boss, a very flamboyant and interesting character named Roscoe Conkling. I would have to say that Chester Arthur is my favorite character [of the period], and Roscoe Conkling would be a very close second.

There was no income tax [in the 1870s]. Something like 70 percent of the [federal] revenues came through the [New York] Custom House. New York, then as now, was a major port, and importers paid duties on the goods that came in. There was a system, the moiety system, which was designed as an incentive for the officials to find malfeasance. If somebody was found to be shirking their responsibilities in terms of paying duties, then they had to pay a fine and the officers in the Custom House, including Chester Arthur, got a cut of that. So, it was a high- paying job, and Arthur also benefited from this moiety system.

Ulysses Grant was the president who appointed, at Conkling’s behest, Arthur to the Custom House, so Grant really got Arthur started on his formal political career. During his second term while Grant personally wasn’t tied to any corrupt activity, certainly, many members of his administration, up to the cabinet level, were. Grant was tainted by that second term, and that really cleared the way for Rutherford B. Hayes, who was a reformer. People wanted something different. They were tired of Grantism, as it was called.

Rutherford B. Hayes [who was Grant’s successor] also was a Civil War hero. He also pledged to serve only one term, and the idea was that he was going to reform the civil service, which was the gigantic issue of the time. By agreeing to only serve one term, it would be easier for him to do that. Civil service reform was a huge issue because at the time the program was largely, if not entirely, populated by people who were political loyalists. There was no thought given to who might actually be able to do the job, who had the proper education or qualifications, et cetera. It really was a way for the party in power to perpetuate its power. They also required people who had gotten their jobs because of their party to contribute to the party. They had what were called assessments, which were basically mandatory contributions.… In fact, there was a street near the Custom House called Hanover Street, and the workers of the Custom House used to call it “Handover Street.” That’s where they had to go and sign over a portion of their checks to the Republican Party.

Civil service reform was important [in this era]. And in the sweep of history, it’s also important because in later years, the Progressives and Teddy Roosevelt—as did later presidents—wanted to imbue the federal government with more powers and a more active role in everything from the safety of food and drugs to the national parks. All of this needed to be… overseen by people who knew what they were doing. So, civil service reform laid the groundwork for the more expansive role that the federal government played later on.

James Garfield [who became the Republican presidential candidate in 1880] was a fascinating figure. He had also served in the Civil War, was a self-made, Lincolnesque figure in that sense. [He] grew up poor but was very academically inclined—ended up graduating from Williams and rose pretty quickly through the ranks. While he was still serving in the Civil War, he was elected to Congress. Once he was in Congress,… he managed to straddle both sides on a lot of issues, which, of course, can be a formula for success.… He was very much a surprise choice for president in 1880, and there was this very dramatic convention in which he was the classic dark horse candidate. When the convention was deadlocked, and couldn’t decide on a candidate, they chose Garfield as somebody who apparently would appeal to everybody.

The Republicans really needed [New York senator] Roscoe Conkling’s help to win that election. New York at that time was the most populous state in the Union and had the most electoral votes.

… The whole reason that Chester Arthur ended up as vice president was an effort by the Republicans to placate Conkling and to make sure that New York would throw its support behind Garfield. So, Arthur was an accidental vice president, and he didn’t have any relationship at all with Garfield. It was a time in history, frankly, when vice presidents didn’t have close relationships with the presidents.

[James A. Garfield was elected president in November 1880 and was shot on July 2, 1881, less than four months into his term.] When Garfield was shot, Chester Arthur was up in Albany trying to help Conkling win back his Senate seat. Garfield was trying to institute reforms, fighting back against machine politicians like Conkling. He insulted Conkling by putting someone in the New York Custom House without consulting him. Conkling and the other senator from New York resigned in protest thinking that, certainly, the New York legislature would very quickly restore him to his seat… and that he would have made his point. But as it turned out, the legislature had enough of Conkling’s antics, so getting his seat back was a tougher job than he had anticipated. Chester Arthur went to Albany to help Conkling and this was in direct opposition to what Garfield was trying to do.

It was widely noted that Arthur, even though he was Garfield’s vice president, was in New York doing Conkling’s bidding, and therefore opposing Garfield, at the time when Garfield was shot. In fact, the tensions between these two factions, Garfield’s Reform wing of the Republican Party and what was known as the Stalwarts wing of the party, home to Conkling and Arthur, was so great that when Garfield was shot, there were many people who suspected that Arthur and Conkling had something to do with it.

The “Stalwarts” name referred to the fact that when Conkling and his wing of the party wanted President Grant to serve a third term, which would have been unprecedented, the Republicans who stood together at the [1880] convention and stuck with Grant vote after vote became known as the Stalwarts.

[Charles Guiteau was President Garfield’s assassin.] He had a very troubled childhood and young adulthood, and probably was mentally ill. In fact, his life story bears a lot of resemblance to some of the other characters throughout American history who ended up doing the same kinds of things that he did. It’s pretty fair to say that modern medicine would have judged him to be mentally ill. However, the direct instigation of his act was the fact that he thought that he was owed an office for the work he had done for the Garfield-Arthur campaign in 1880. When he was rejected, he decided that the problem was Garfield and that if he would remove Garfield, then the split in the Republican Party would be mended and the Republic would be saved. When the shooting took place, immediately a police officer on the scene seized Guiteau, who said, “I’m a Stalwart… and Arthur will be president.” That statement only added to the suspicion that somehow Arthur and the Stalwarts had something to do with the assassination.

Chester Arthur served as president from 1881, when Garfield was shot and eventually died, until the end of [what would have been Garfield’s full] term in 1885.

Julia Sand was a woman in her early thirties who was bedridden, or at least confined to her home, in New York City. She didn’t know Chester Arthur; Arthur didn’t know her. During that long summer where Garfield was lingering on what would end up being his deathbed, Sand started writing letters to Arthur urging him to return to his better self, the person he had been as a younger man. Even though she had never met him, she really seemed to have a sense of where he was psychologically. He’d already been very deeply affected by the shooting of Garfield and the very intense criticism that he faced in the wake of that shooting and the suspicions that, somehow, he’d been involved in this assassination attempt. At this point, he began to think about his political career and the kind of politician he had been, and if he were to become president, what sort of responsibilities would be on his shoulders and what he had to do to meet those responsibilities.

Sand wrote twenty-three letters to Arthur, which are now archived at the Library of Congress. He saved the letters, which I think is interesting because before his death he ordered almost all his papers to be burned. He was ashamed of what he had done before his time in the White House. But he made very explicit instructions that those letters from Julia Sand were to be saved.

Sand called herself “a little dwarf” because in a royal court, the dwarf, or the court jester, traditionally was the one person who could speak truth to the king. She viewed herself as the one person who would speak plainly to Chester Arthur. Even though she didn’t know him, even though she wasn’t in his court or wasn’t an official adviser, she spoke her mind and was very bold, considering he was the vice president and then president of the United States. She didn’t pull any punches.

I quoted long passages of her letters in my book because they are so compelling and so interesting. Not only did she give him political advice, but she advised him on his health and teased him about his weight. He had gained a little weight, and she jokes that riding is very good exercise, but be conscious of the fact that it’s not really fair to the horse if he has to carry too much weight. So, the letters are very entertaining. [Here is a passage from her first letter to him: “The hours of Garfield’s life are numbered. Before this meets your eye, you may be president. The people are bowed in grief but do you realize it—not so much because he is dying, as because you are his successor. What president ever entered office under circumstances so sad?”]

It is just amazing because she really seems to have, even though she has never met him, some insight into his psychology at this point. We have other reports of how distraught he was during that summer, and these charges [regarding the assassination] in the newspapers… were deeply wounding to him. I think he recognized that he really wasn’t qualified for the job. He had ended up on the ticket by accident. He was surprised to be there. He never imagined that he would be president of the United States, and then all of a sudden, he’s on the threshold of the office. There are reports that right after he got the news that Garfield had finally succumbed to his wounds, his doorkeeper says to a reporter who comes to the door, “He can’t come right now; he’s in his office sobbing on the desk.”

[Sand also wrote in that first letter: “Great emergencies awaken generous traits which have lain dormant half a life. If there is a spark of true nobility in you, now is the occasion to let it shine. Faith in your better nature forces me to write to you, but not to beg you to resign. Do what is more difficult and brave. Reform.”]

Reforming the civil service is what she’s talking about. This is the major issue at the top of the national agenda. It has divided the Republican Party. The civil service reformers are holding meetings in all the major American cities. They write songs about this cause. The amount of importance and emotion attached to this issue is really hard for us today to imagine.

She’s asking him to return to the sort of person he once was—the idealistic lawyer who once helped desegregate the New York City street cars. As Arthur takes office and starts to do some of the things that she wanted him to do, and specifically to push civil service reform, she sends him subsequent letters encouraging him to carry on. She is saying, “Look, people say this is just window dressing, that you’re just acting; you don’t mean it. I know better. You are surprising people but I am not surprised. I know who you really are.” These are really extraordinary letters.

During this period when she was writing to him, as she became more and more comfortable with him, she kept inviting him to visit her, noting that they both were New Yorkers. She said she lived close to Central Park, and “you could easily go for a ride in the park and just stop by and see me.” Arthur finally did come by and pay her a surprise visit.… He was president, and he just showed up unannounced, which is pretty extraordinary. It’s that visit, combined with the fact that many of the specific bits of political advice that she gave him in her letters that he ended up following, that have convinced many people that Julia Sand really did have an impact on Chester Arthur.

… You can’t really understand the Julia Sand letters and put them in any context without knowing about Chester Arthur’s father, William Arthur, who was this rigid preacher, abolitionist, and a moralist, and about Chester’s career as a teacher and as a young lawyer and the Civil War. This all leads up to a guy who started down a certain path and then veered off onto a darker path in search of power and wealth and fame. That happens to a lot of people. Then, he got jerked back.

Arthur put civil service reform in his first annual message, which was what we now call the State of the Union address. It was written; presidents didn’t go before Congress to deliver this address. But he delivered it in writing, and he did call for civil service reform, which surprised a lot of people, given his history. It didn’t go anywhere. Basically, no one in Congress had an interest in pushing this; they all benefited from the system in one way or another; both parties did.

It was only after the elections in 1882 when the Republicans got beaten pretty badly that there was a general sense among the politicos of the day that this had been a reaction against machine politics and against the status quo. The momentum had now gotten to a point where it was time for Congress to do something, and they did pass what was called the Pendleton Act, a piece of legislation [mandating merit-based federal hiring] that had been lingering for some time.

Arthur signed it, which was nice, but people noted at that time that as the executive, he was going to have the ability to short circuit this if he wanted to stall—to not appoint the members of the new Civil Service Commission, et cetera. He surprised everybody and vigorously pursued these reforms and really laid the groundwork for future reforms and for a more expansive role for the federal government. He doesn’t get much credit for that today, and isn’t really remembered at all.

Chester Arthur started the rebuilding of the navy, which Teddy Roosevelt also accelerated as president, but civil service reform really is his lasting legacy. The irony, of course, is that he was a creature of [the] spoils system and Chester Arthur was the last person in the world that people would have imagined who would have done this.