Arthur in office

The Beginning of his Presidential Career

    Chester Arthur officially started political life working in the “corrupt” New York politics. By 1861, when the Civil War started, he set aside New York politics to help the Ney York militia when the nation was in trouble by housing soldiers, arming soldiers, and advising Governor Edwin Morgan. After his two years helping in the New York militia, he returned to politics by practicing law with Henry Gardiner hoping to earn a salary as high as he was getting helping the militia. Arthur practiced law until in 1871, he was selected by Ulysses Grant to be a tax collector for the New York Customhouse. He continued to collect custom duties until he was fired in 1788. Two Years later, he was selected by Republican candidate, James A. Garfield, to be his running mate in the presidential election for the Republican party.  The pair was running against Winfield Hancock and William English who were running for the Democrats. The two teams debated and put up campaign posters for the people until on November 2nd; the votes were finally casted.  Garfield and Arthur barely won the election; the votes were 4,454,416 to 4,444,852 and most of these votes had come from Indiana and New York.

The Peek of his Career

     James Garfield took office on March 4th 1881 and Arthur took control of the Senate as vice president. After doing minor things like Arguing with Roscoe Conkling and the people who supported him and not Garfield, a man by the name Charles Gateau shot James A. Garfield twice on July 2nd, 1881, thus ending his presidency. After the president’s death, Chester Arthur had to take over the presidency but some people didn’t like the idea, so someone named Julia Sand, relative of a banker Arthur knew, asked Garfield to change his ways of corrupt politics and be the next president. After Arthur took the oath into office on September 22, 1881, Arthur made some important decisions for the US, even though he learned he had inherited a fatal Kidney Disease known as Bright’s Disease had gotten worse.. In 1882, Arthur vetoed the Chinese Exclusion Act which was going to cut off Chinese immigration in the US, but he was overridden and had to sign it anyway. In 1883, Arthur passed the Pendleton Civil Service Act which reformed the spoils system of hiring federal workers. 

His Death

When 1884 came around, Arthur decided to stay out of the election; this may be because his condition of Bright’s disease he was diagnosed with in 1882 had gotten worse, and only he knew about it.  James Blain had taken his place as the Republican presidential candidate, and was running against Grover Cleveland. In 1885, Blain lost to Cleveland and Arthur attended the inauguration. In 1886, the people learned of Arthur’s poor health, until on November 18th 1886, Chester Arthur had died.