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21st President · Republican
Chester A. Arthur
Chester Alan Arthur
Served: September 19, 1881 — March 4, 1885
- Lived
- October 5, 1829 – November 18, 1886
- Home State
- New York
- Party
- Republican
- Vice President
- None
Chester A. Arthur was a New York machine politician and Collector of the Port of New York who surprised the country by championing civil service reform after becoming President upon Garfield's death. He signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, creating merit-based federal hiring, and modernized the Navy with steel warships. He also signed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first federal law to bar immigration by nationality. Arthur concealed a fatal kidney disease and did not seek renomination. New York lawyer (argued against segregation in Elizabeth Jennings Graham's streetcar case), Collector of the Port of New York (a plum patronage post from which he was fired for corruption).
Union College, 1848.
Signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, creating merit-based federal hiring. Modernized the Navy with the first steel warships. Signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act (1883) and the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882).
Signed the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), the first federal law to bar immigration by nationality. Concealed a fatal kidney disease from voters and did not seek renomination.
Arthur was the reform he had spent his career opposing. He also signed the country's first race-based immigration ban.