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Chester Arthur Presidential $1 Coin — 21st President, 1881-1885
The son of an Irish-born Baptist minister who had immigrated to the U.S., Chester Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vermont, on October 5, 1829 and grew up in upstate New York. He graduated from Union College in 1848, taught school, was admitted to the bar and practiced law in New York City. He devoted much of his time to Republican politics and quickly rose in the political machine run by New York Senator Roscoe Conkling. Early in the Civil War he served as quartermaster general of New York State.
Appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant to the lucrative and politically powerful post of Collector of the Port of New York in 1871, Arthur was an important supporter of Conkling and the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party. In 1878 he was replaced by the new president, Rutherford B. Hayes, who was trying to reform the federal patronage system in New York.
When James Garfield won the Republican nomination for President in 1880, Arthur was nominated for Vice President to balance the ticket by adding an eastern Stalwart to it.
After just half a year as Vice President, Arthur found himself, unexpectedly, in the Executive Mansion. To the surprise of reformers, Arthur took up the reform cause that had once led to his expulsion from office. In 1883 Congress passed the Pendleton Act, which established a bipartisan Civil Service Commission; forbade levying political assessments against officeholders; and provided for a "classified system" that made certain government positions obtainable only through competitive written examinations. The system protected employees against removal for political reasons. He signed the Pendleton Act into law, and enforced its provisions vigorously. He won plaudits for his veto of a Rivers and Harbors Act that would have appropriated federal funds in a manner he thought excessive. He presided over the rebirth of the United States Navy but was criticized for failing to alleviate the federal budget surplus that had been accumulating since the end of the American Civil War. Suffering from poor health, Arthur made only a limited effort to secure re-nomination in 1884; he retired at the close of his term. As journalist Alexander McClure would later write, "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 his administration less active than a modern presidency, he earned praise among contemporaries for his solid performance in office. The New York World summed up Arthur's presidency at his death in 1886: "No duty was neglected in his administration, and no adventurous project alarmed the nation."
The Arthur administration also enacted the first general federal immigration law. Suffering from a fatal kidney disease, President Arthur nonetheless ran for the presidential nomination in 1884, but he was not successful and died (November 18, 1886) just two years later.
Coinage Legislation under President Chester Arthur
Act of May 26, 1882 — Authorized receipt of U.S. gold coins in exchange for gold bars
Act of August 7, 1882 — Sundry Civil Appropriation Law for the transportation of silver coins
United States Mint Directors appointed by President Chester Arthur
No United States Mint Directors were appointed by President Arthur.