The 21st President of The United States, Chester A. Arthur

Chester A. Arthur: Dignified, tall, handsome, clean-shaven chin, sideburns, 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 graduated from Union University in 1848, taught at the school, she was admitted to the bar and practiced law in the city of New York. At the beginning of the civil war, he served as Quartermaster General of the State of New York. President Grant in 1871 he was appointed Director of the Port of New York. Arturo efficiently addressed the thousand employees of the Customs House under his supervision on behalf of the Republican Roscoe Conkling machine. Honorable in his personal life and his public career, Arthur nevertheless was a firm believer in the broken system when it was coming under vehement attack from reformers. He stressed the honest administration of the Customs House, but filled with more employees than necessary, keeping them on their merits as party workers rather than as government officials. In 1878, President Hayes, attempting to reform the Customs House, he ousted Arthur. Conkling and his followers tried to win compensation fighting for the renomination of Grant at the Republican Convention of 1880. Failing, reluctantly accepted the nomination of Arthur for the Vice Presidency.

During his short tenure as Vice President, Arthur was stood firmly beside Conkling in his patronage struggle against President Garfield. But when Arthur succeeded to the presidency, he was eager to prove on the machinery of politicians. Avoiding the old political friends, a man became fashionable among his associates, and was often seen with the elite of Washington, New York and Newport. To the indignation of the Stalwart Republicans, who once was catcher Port of New York he became, as President, a champion of the Civil Service Reform Civil. Public pressure, heightened by the assassination of Garfield, forced an unwieldy to choose a president congress. At the congress 1883, approved Act Pendleton, which established a Commission of bipartite Civil banned impose political charges against the directors of offices and provided for a "classified system" which made certain positions obtainable government only written through competitive examinations. The system protected employees against dismissal for political reasons.

Acting independently of party dogma, Arthur also tried to lower tariff rates so the government is not embarrassed by the excesses of income. Congress subia about as many rates as the many that reduced, but Arthur signed the Act of 1883. Fees and West Southerners looked offended the Democratic Party as compensation, and the rate began to emerge as a major political issue between two games. Arthur administration enacted the first general Federal immigration law. Arthur approved a measure in 1882, which excluded hustlers, 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 best kept he only knew a year after he came to the presidency, he was suffering from a fatal kidney disease secret. He kept himself in the race for the presidential nomination in 1884 in order not to appear that he feared defeat, but was not renominated, and died in 1886. The editor Alexander K. McClure recalled, "No man never the Presidency so deeply and widely, and no one retired ... more generally respected. "