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Grandson of former President William Henry Harrison, Benjamin Harrison was born in 1833 on a farm by the Ohio River below Cincinnati. He attended Miami University in Ohio and studied law in Cincinnati, later moving to Indianapolis, where he practiced.
After the Civil War, during which Harrison served as colonel of the 70th Volunteer Infantry, he enhanced his reputation as a lawyer. In the 1880s, he served in the U.S. Senate, where he championed American Indians, homesteaders and Civil War veterans. In the presidential election of 1888, he received 100,000 fewer popular votes than President Cleveland but carried the Electoral College 233 to 168.
As President, Harrison was proud of his vigorous foreign policy. The first Pan American Congress met in Washington in 1889, establishing an information center which later became the Pan American Union. At the end of his administration, Harrison submitted a treaty to the Senate to annex Hawaii, but his successor withdrew it. He also signed important appropriation bills for internal improvements, naval expansion and subsidies for steamship lines and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act "to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies." This act was the first federal attempt to regulate trusts. He was re-nominated by his party in 1892 but lost to Grover Cleveland, who became the only President in U.S. history to serve two non-consecutive terms in office. A dignified elder statesman, he died in 1901.
The son of an Irish-born Baptist minister who had immigrated to the U.S., Chester Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vermont, in 1829. He graduated from Union College in 1848, taught school, was admitted to the bar and practiced law in New York City. Early in the Civil War he served as quartermaster general of New York state.
When Vice President Arthur became President on September 20, 1881, after the death of James Garfield, he was eager to prove that he was above machine politics. He became a man of fashion in both his clothing and his friends and was often seen with the elite of Washington, New York and Newport, Rhode Island. He became a champion of civil service reform; public pressure, heightened by the assassination of Garfield, forced Congress to cooperate.
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. 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 just two years later.
Statue of Liberty Design Reverse
Designer: Don Everhart
Sculptor: Don Everhart
Description: Features a striking rendition of the Statue of Liberty with the inscriptions "United States of America" and "$1."
Edge-Incused Lettering
Description: The new Presidential $1 coins will feature edge-incused inscriptions of the year of minting or issuance, "E Pluribus Unum," "In God We Trust" and the mint mark. Edge-incused inscription positions vary with each coin.