Welcome to another message on presidents. We're going to study Chester Alan Arthur. He was the 21st President of the United States of America. And he did some things that healed this country that some of the former presidents did not know. He was a radical Republican to begin with and then he kind of milded, kind of mellowed out a little bit. Now, remember the Radical Republicans in the 1800s were the Radical Democrats. They were not the Republicans of the day. Now, in Romans, the 13th chapter, it said, Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for these are no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Now, it goes on down all the way to verse number 7. and delineates about governments. Well, in America, we have what we call an experiment of democracy, an experiment of a republic. And Chester Arthur was one man that was one brick in the wall of all of this, one segment a part of the building of America. Now, he means a lot to me because he actually saved my great-great-grandfather's life. And before he became president, actually, my grandfather was a U.S. Marshal. the first Indian U.S. Marshal in Indian Territory. Sam Paul had gone after a very, the Sudark gang. If you watch the movie, True Grit, or Rooster Cogburn, especially True Grit is the story of his life basically. You read the book, Shadow of an Indian Star, and you look at what happened in the movie, True Grit, you're going to see too many Coincidences. Too many coincidences. Well anyway, I'm going to hold some paperwork up to you. This is a paper here, literally the paper, a copy of the paper that is, that sent my grandfather to prison for ten years for killing an outlaw. because the outlaw was white and not an Indian, or not black, not a Mexican. Now, it says Monday morning, 9 o'clock, April the 30th, 1883, on a motion by William H. H. Clanton, Esquire Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, said defendant Sam Paul was brought to to the bar of the court in custody of the Marginal Assent District. And by the way, Sam Paul was a lawyer too. The man that he say applied the sentence of law upon the verdict of, it actually was murder, but now they've dropped it to manslaughter. And I want to tell you, Chester Arthur was in office during this time when all of this was going on. Now what had happened had happened before, but now my grandfather has been in the dungeon, hell on the border, down in that dungeon for over a year. My great-grandmother was born, his daughter, during this period of time. My great-great-grandmother, Sarah Jane Lambert Paul, was pregnant with her when he left. And now it tells here that he's going to be fined $500 and that he's going to be in 10 years in prison. But Judge Isaac Parker now tells about his name. Judge Isaac Parker here also tried to convict him of murder five times. He killed five white outlaws. He told the jury, he said, we just can't have this guy coming in and killing all these people. He's got to bring some of them in. If you listen to True Grit, you'll absolutely hear his very words on the witness stand, defending himself and what he was doing. And he killed 20 some odd men altogether, just like the one in True Grit. The judge talked to the jury and the head of the jury, the former of the jury, and he told him, he said, I want this man convicted of manslaughter at least. They said, if you convict him of manslaughter, we want you to commute to sentence. We don't want him in jail. We need him out there in Indian Territory. He's a great deterrent to crime, the greatest deterrent to crime in Indian Territory. And so the judge promised them that, but once they convicted him, then he changed his mind and went against the jury. Well, from that time on, the jury wrote letters to the President of the United States. And it was Chester A. Arthur. And so that's why Chester Arthur is very important to me, is because he spared Sam Paul's life. He would have died in prison. And he also contributed so much to the Indian nations because my grandfather went back and did a lot of good for the people in Indian Territory. I'm going to show this letter to you also, if you can see it. That's Chester A. Arthur, President of the United States. And this is what he wrote concerning my grandfather. President of the United States of America, to all of whom these presents shall come, whereas in the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Arkansas, Sam Paul, a Chickasaw Indian, having been convicted of manslaughter, was sentenced on the 13th day of April, 1883, to an imprisonment of 10 years in the House of Corrections of Detroit, Michigan, and to pay a fine of $500. And whereas the Chickasaw Council and a large number of the officers and citizens of Indian Territory have petitioned for the defendant's pardon and representing that he committed the offense while endeavoring as an officer of the United States and of the Territory to enforce the law and was excusable for killing this white outlaw, by the way. And whereas the Secretary of the Interior the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, are of the opinion that the conviction in this case tends to impair the efficiency of the Indian Police and that a pardon would be in the best interest of law and order, and earnestly recommend it, and the defendant being also recommended to clemency by Senator Garland, Vest, Cockrell, Walker, Jackson, Harris, Maxey, and the jury. that supposedly convicted him. Now, therefore, let it be known that I, Chester A. Arthur, President of the United States of America, in consideration of the form and diverse other good and sufficient reasons, me, therefore, moving to hereby grant to said St. Paul a full and unconditional pardon in testimony whereof I have hereunto signed my name and calls the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington this seventh day of March, 1884, of the independence of the United States, the 108th Chester A. Arthur, President of the United States. Now, that means a lot to my family. I have a lot of notes so I have to read from my notes here. Chester Alan Arthur was born October the 5th, 1829. He died November the 18th, 1886. He was a lawyer. and a politician, and the 21st President of the United States. He was born in Fairfield, Vermont. Arthur's mother, Malvina Stone, was born in Berkshire, Vermont, and a daughter of George Washington Stone and Judith Stevens. Her family was primarily English and Welsh descendants, and her paternal grandfather, Uriah Stone, had served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Arthur's father, William Arthur, was born in 1796 in Dreen-Culkabarry County, Atrium, Ireland, to a Presbyterian family of Scots-Irish descent. William's mother was born Eliza Haggard and she married Alan Arthur. William graduated from college in Belfast and immigrated to the province of Lower Canada in 1819 and 1820. Malvina Stone met William Arthur when Arthur was teaching school in Dunham, Quebec. Many times people would migrate from Europe into Canada first. and then they would drop down into the States. They married in Dunham on April 12, 1821 and soon after meeting. Arthur moved to Vermont after the birth of their first child, Regina. They quickly moved from Birmingham to Jericho, finally to Waterville as William received a position teaching in different schools. in different towns. William Osler also spent a great time studying law. But while still in Waterville, he departed from both his legal studies and his Presbyterian upbringing and joined the Free Will Baptist Church. Now I could go and tell you a little bit about the Free Will Baptist Church. The Free Will Baptists aren't Baptists. Presbyterians and Free Will Baptists are about absolute opposite poles. Free Will Baptists, the only thing that they do, that might be naming them Baptists, is they dip people in baptism. They're Armenian in their theology, in other words, you can be saved today and lost tomorrow, that basically, that getting to heaven is a, you get baptized and wash away your original sins, but then only, it's up to you, Buster. From then on, it's up to you. And anyway, he went from one extreme Pole, Presbyterian, all the way to the other side of Armenian. He went from Calvinism to Armenian. Now he preached the rest of his life in the Free Will Baptist Church going from one to the other and also teaching school. In 1828 the family moved again to Fairfield where Chester Allen was born the following year. He was the fifth of nine children and he was named Chester after Chester Abel, the physician, family friend who assisted in his birth. Now there was a whole lot of problem about saying he was born in Canada and not Besides, his parents were American citizens anyway. And Allen for his paternal grandfather. The family remained in Fairfield until 1832 when William Arthur's profession took them to churches to several towns in Vermont and upstate New York. The family finally settled in Schenectady, New York area. Now, he had seven siblings. Regina, Jane, Almeda, Anne, Malvina, William, and Mary. Now, a lot of his family didn't live long lives. Because his family moved many times, When Arthur was running for vice president, by the way, he run with James Garfield. And of course, when old Garfield was killed. And saying that he was born in Ireland and then moved to America and some said he was born in Canada. They're still griping and grumbling and saying that he was born in Canada and not in America. Whatever, he made a pretty good president. A pretty good president. The presidency must be held by a natural born citizen. Now I might say this, that Barack Obama bragged when he was running for the Senate that he was not a natural born citizen of the United States. Then later on he said he was born in Hawaii. Whatever it was, there was another controversy also. But I can't understand why when he was running for Senator that he said he wasn't born in the United States and then when he was wanting to run for President that he said he was born in Hawaii. He was trying to get, he was lying one time or another. Arthur spent a lot of his childhood years living in different places. He had political, what we call, intuition. He was a radical Republican to begin with. After graduating in 1848, Arthur returned to Scotectica and became a full-time teacher and soon began pursuing education in law. While he was teaching, while he was studying law, he was teaching, moving closer to home by taking a job in north of Pall Mall, Vermont. James A. Garfield also taught penmanship at the same school three years later. But the two didn't cross paths. They would become president and vice president someday, but they didn't cross paths, even though they were close. Arthur moved again to Cohip Holes, New York, to become the principal of a school at which his sister, Maldina, was a teacher. In 1853, after studying at the State National Law School in Ballaston Spa, New York, he saved enough money to relocate, and he moved to New York City to read or study law at the office of Erastus D. Culver. abolitionist lawyer and family friend to his family. Of course his father now, A. Arthur's father was a free will Baptist preacher and he was preaching this abolitionist from the pulpit. Chester A. Arthur passed his bar in 1854 and he joined Culver's firm which was subsequently renamed Culver, Parker, and Arthur. When he had joined the New York firm, John Jay, the grandson of the founding father, John Jay, were pursuing a habeas corpus action against Jonathan Lemon, a Virginia slaveholder who was passing through New York with eight slaves. In Lemon versus New York, Culber argued that as New York law did not permit slavery, any slave arriving in New York City or New York was immediately freed. His argument was successful. Even after several appeals, it was upheld by the New York Court of Appeals in 1860. Arthur had a lot to do with that court case. He really believed that the slaves should be set free. In another civil rights case in 1854, Arthur was a lead attorney representing Elizabeth Jennings Graham after she was denied a seat in a streetcar because she was black. He won the case. And that ended the desegregation of the New York City streetcars and lines. In 1856, Chester Arthur began to court Ellen Herndon, the daughter of William Lewis Herndon, a Virginia naval officer. They were engaged to be married. And later that year he started a new partnership with a friend, Henry D. Gardiner, and traveled with him to Kansas to consider purchasing land and setting up a law office in Kansas. Remember that Kansas was a border state. Kansas was a border state. And in Kansas they had what they called Bleeding Kansas. They were fighting. Actually, the slave owners were just going their way, but the abolitionists were attacking them and killing them. The slave owners basically just wanted to be left alone, but the abolitionists wanted to start a war, basically. During that time, the state was having a brutal anti-slavery forces. Arthur lined up with the anti-slavery or abolitionists. During this time, his fiancee, Ellen Herndon, her father was lost at sea. And he comforted her. He was in the wreck of the SS Central America. In 1859 they were married at Calvary Episcopal Church in Manhattan and the couple had three children. As far as we know, Chester Arthur loved this woman. That was it. He loved this woman. William Louis Arthur, December 10, 1860 to July 7, 1863. He died of convulsions. Chester Alan Arthur II, July 25, 1864 – July 18, 1937. He married Myra Townsend, then Rowena Graves, and the father of Galvin Arthur. Ellen Hansborough Herndon, Nell. Married Arthur Pintenden. He was born November the 21st, 1871 and died September the 6th, 1950, 1915. After he got married, he devoted his effort to building his law practice. Lawyers have always made a lot of money, so to speak. They have made a lot of money. They call themselves Esquire, you know. That's the royal term. That's royalty. He began to engage in Republican Party politics after that. And then military interests also. He was an advocate of the General for the 2nd Brigade of the New York Militia. In 1861, Arthur was appointed at the military staff of Governor Edwin D. Morgan as an engineer chief. The office was a patronage appointment. And it was kind of a minor importance until the beginning of the Civil War in April 1861. Then he began raising the Army and how to supply it. He was commissioned as a Brigadier General and assigned to the State's Militia Quartermaster Department. He was so efficient at outfitting the troops that poured into New York City that he was promoted to Inspector General of the State Militia in 1862, then to Quartermaster General in July. He had an opportunity to serve on the front when the New York Volunteer Infantry The regiment elected him commander with the rank of colonel earlier in the war, but at Governor Morgan's request, he turned it down to remain his post in New York. He also turned down a command for four New York City regiments organized as a metropolitan brigade against Morgan's request again. The closest that he ever came to front line action is when he traveled to inspect the New York troops near Fredericksburg, Virginia in May 1862, shortly after the forces were under General Urban McDowell, and they seized the town during the Peninsula Campaign. That summer, other representatives and him met with northern governors and the Secretary of State, which William H. Seward, to raise additional troops for the Civil War. He spent the next few months enlisting New York's quota of 120,000 men. He received many congratulations for his work as a political appointment. He was relieved of his military duties in January 1863 when Governor Horatio Seymour, a Democrat, took office. Then Reuben Fenton won the 1864 election for governor and Arthur again requested reappointment. Arthur and Fenton were not from the same group, almost opposites. He did not get his appointment. And he did not return to military service. He returned to being a lawyer. With the help of a lot of additional contacts made in the military, he and the firm Arthur and Gardner flourished, of course. Their only child, William, at that time, died suddenly the year at the age of two. They took their son's death extremely hard. Chester Allen, Jr., was born in 1864 and they just lavished attention upon him because they had lost their other son. They also had a daughter, Ellen, in 1871. And both of these children survived until adulthood. He got involved with Tammany Hall. William Tweed, the boss of Tammany Hall, a Democratic organization. Murphy was also a hater who sold goods to the Union Army. and Arthur represented him in Washington. They became associates within the New York Republican Party circles. They finally raised to the ranks of a conservative branch of the party denominated by Terrell and Tweed. In the presidential election of 1864, Arthur and Murphy raised funds from Republicans in New York and they attended the second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. After the end of the Civil War, the Republican Party just took over. And it left wide open opportunities for Morgan's machine, Republican machine, including Arthur. Morgan was a little more conservative and he worked with him and the organization including Tweed and Seward to continue the office under President Andrew Johnson. Roscoe Conkling, an eloquent Utica, Congressman, and rising star of the party. This is Conklin now. This is the one finally that, this is the big problem child. This is the man that payola rolled. This is the man where they, he was called the stalwart Republicans. The stalwart Republicans were not the conservative Republicans, people. They were the ones that were, their lives were lined with graft and political favors. The stalwarts were. He was part of the machine, Arthur was. He was appointed, now Grant appointed Conklin over all of New York. And New York was the trade center of the world, so to speak. And if you were a collector in the New York harbors, you made more money than the president. and Arthur made more money than the President. Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, gave Conklin complete control. Now, Ulysses Grant's whole administration was absolutely, I mean, fuming and frothing with corruption. Grant did not pay attention to what he was doing at all. There was so much corruption involved in Grant's administration that it was just absolutely putrid. The Custom House at New York Port, New York. He became friendly with Murphy because of their shared love of horses, and Grant appointed him as a collector's position. Roehrig's reputation as a war profiteer and his association with Townie Hall made him unacceptable to many of his own party. He was a war profiteer. Conklin convinced the Senate to confirm him anyway. The collector was responsible for hiring hundreds of workers to collect the tariffs to the due to the United States' busiest port. And by the way, what was the Civil War over? Taxes and tariffs. Taxes and tariffs. And here we go, boy, the tariffs are high, and their graft is, I mean, it's deep in muck. And money. Employees, the ones that they put in place, had to make political contributions out of their wages. Payback. Finally, the pressure to replace Murphy became so great that Grant asked for his resignation in December 1871. Grant offered the position to John Augustus Griswold and William Orton, each of which declined and recommended Arthur. Arthur. Grant then named Arthur. And this would be a man that would make more money than the President. The New York Times said, his name very seldom rises to the surface of metropolitan life and yet moving like a mighty earned current, this man during the last ten years has done more to mold the course of the Republican Party than any man alive in the United States of America, and that's talking about Chester A. Arthur. His job controlled thousands of jobs and received compensations Arthur's salary was initially $6,500 a year, which was a lot of money. But as senior customs employees were compensated additionally by the moiety system, which awarded them percentage of the cargoes seized and fines levied, and importers who attempted to evade the tariff, a total of his income would be more than $50,000 a year, more than the president's salary. And he, from that time on in his life, he dressed impeccably. Class, class, class, class. Everything he did was high class. His clothes were high class. He had a lavish lifestyle. He was one of the the time of the era's most popular customs collectors. Arthur had a good reputation as a customs collector. Yet the reformers that tried to go in and clean the mess up were still criticizing Arthur. Arthur calls to rename the financial extractions of employees as voluntary contributions in 1872. The concept still remained. It was graft. It was mafia-type protection money. Okay? This is a Republican Party now. There were a lot of reform-minded Republicans that formed the Liberal Republican Party. Now, the Radical Republican Party were real radical anti-slavery and stalwarts, so to speak. And the Liberal Republican Party voted against Grant, but he was re-elected anyway in spite of their opposition because of his graft in his administration. The Customs House employees were found to have improperly assessed fines against the importing company as a way to increase their own incomes. And Congress reacted, repealing the moiety system and putting the staff, including Arthur, on regular salaries. As a result, his income dropped to $12,000 a year. His boss, the nominal, the Secretary of Treasury, and it was a whole lot less than what he had made before. His term as collector expired on December 10, 1875. Conklin, among the most powerful politicians in Washington, Arranged for his Porozeses appointment, reappointment, by President Grant. Conklin was beginning to think about running for president himself. He was powerful. The reformer, Rutherford B. Hayes, in the 1876 Republican National Committee, preempted the machine boss. Arthur and his political machine gathered campaign funds with their usual zeal, but Conklin limited his own campaign activities to a few speeches. That's all. Hayes' opponent, the new governor, Samuel J. Tilden, carried to New York and won the popular vote nationwide. But after a resolution of several months' disputes over the electoral election, now we know that Tilden won the election. But backroom deals were done, and Hayes entered office with a pledge to reform the patronage system in 1877, and the Treasurer's Secretary, John Sherman, machined the primary target. Sherman ordered a commission led by John Jay to investigate the New York Customs House. Here they're going to begin to clean house. Jay, with whom Arthur had collaborated with a lemon case two decades, 20 years earlier, suggested that the Custom House was overstaffed with political appointments and that 20% of the employees were expendable. They were just there lining their money with pockets and they were getting paybacks all the time. These are the stalwarts. The Stalwart Republicans. They were not the good guys. Stalwart, you would think, means good, extreme, solid. But Stalwart here was wrapped in corruption. Arthur appointed a committee of Customs House workers to determine whether the cuts were being made and after a written protest carried them out. Jay's commission issued a second report critical of Arthur and other Customs House employees and urging a complete reorganization of the Customs House. And they struck at the heart of the spoil system, the stalwart system. There was quite a controversy here. Arthur and his subordinates, Naval Officer Alonzo B. Cornell and Surveyor George H. Sharp, refused to obey the President's order. Sherman encouraged Arthur to resign, offering him an appointment by Hays to the Consulship of Paris in exchange for him resigning. He would be a foreign correspondent, foreign exchange. Arthur refused. Hayes demanded the three men's resignations, which they refused to give. Hayes then submitted an appointee of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. Theodore Roosevelt. Here comes the name Roosevelt. and L. Bradford Prince and Edwin Merritt, all supporters of Conklin's rival, William M. Everts. The Senate's committee, chaired by Conklin, unanimously rejected all the nominees. The full Senate rejected Roosevelt and Prince by a vote of 31 to 25. and confirmed Merritt only because Sharp's term had expired. Arthur's job was spared until July of 1878 when Hayes took advantage of the Congressional recess to fire him and kick him out, replacing them with the recess appointment of Merritt and Silas Burt. Now going back to Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. Theodore Roosevelt, the Roosevelt families were very, very wealthy. But Theodore Roosevelt was a man that believed that the working man was being abused in America, which they were. And he did everything he could. He wanted honesty in the nation. Honesty. And they didn't want him yet. But they were going to get his son sooner or later. whether they wanted him or not. Hayes offered to Arthur the position of consul in Paris as a face-saving constellation. Arthur again declined. Hayes probably knew he would. Arthur and the Machine had rebuked Hayes and their intra-party rivals, but Arthur had only a few days to enjoy his triumph when, in January 1880, his wife died. Suddenly. While he was in Albany organizing the political agenda for the coming year, Arthur felt devastated and he felt like he had deserted his wife in her time of need. He never got over it. Conklin and the fellow Stalwarts, now remember the Stalwarts are not what you think they are. The liberals in the Republican Party were the conservatives. These terms would change as we go. Arthur wanted to follow up their success in 1879. at the 1880 Republican National Convention securing the nomination for their ally of ex-President Grant and concentrated her efforts on James G. Blaine, a senator from Maine, who was an absolute corrupt man. James Blaine, Blaine, Blaine, the senator from Maine. Blaine, Blaine, Blaine. Well, the Republican Party began on some of them as half-breeds. And they concentrated their efforts on James G. Blaine, a senator from Maine who was more amiable civil service reform. Now remember this man had really helped in Arthur and at different times before. But he was corrupt. And he pulled strings. James A. Garfield, the Ohio Congressman and Civil War General, who was neither a stalwart nor a halfbreed, just a Republican. Garfield and his supporters knew that they would face a difficult election. And they next approached Arthur. And Galton advised him to reject the nomination, believing that the Republicans would lose if he ran because of his so-called dark history being born in Ireland and in Canada, so to speak. They tried to, they put out a bunch of campaign against him because of that, but he was born in America. Arthur took the appointment anyway. He said, the office of the bride president is greater honor than I have ever dreamed of attaining before in my life, and I'm going to tell you. Conklin didn't like it, but he finally began to campaign for him. They ran against General Winfield Scott Hancock because he had avoided taking any definite positions on any position. Arthur and Garfield initially focused on the campaign of the Bloody Shirt, the idea that returning to a Democrat office would undo the victory of the war and reward the secessionists as a President of America. The Civil War was 15 years ago, but the wounds were not healed at all. In the past, the Union generals at the head of all of the tickets. This tactic was not very successful. Arthur played his part in campaigning in his usual fashion, overseeing the efforts of the New York, raising money. He could do that. The funds were crucial to the close election that was coming up. After the election, Arthur worked basically in vain to persuade Garfield to fill certain positions with his fellow New York stalwarts. Garfield was a man of honor, remember. He was a man of honor. Despite that as Secretary Treasurer, the stalwart machine received a further rebuke when Garfield appointed Blaine, Coughlin's archenemy, as Secretary of State. But he would give him a lot of advice. Blaine watched over Garfield intensely and closely and guided him all the way. They appointed a lot of, Garfield appointed people from both sides to try to balance the politics. Arthur didn't have any duties in Washington so he returned to New York City. He traveled with Gonklin again. And something bad happened. Garfield was shot. Now here we have a man that was part of the political machine of the Stalwarts. And here, the man that is against the Stalwarts trying to clean house, James A. Garfield, has been shot. Now, James Gutenow, was a deranged office seeker. He was a screwball. He believed if he could kill Garfield, the successor would be a stalwart, Chester A. Arthur. And when he killed or shot Garfield, he said, I am a stalwart and Arthur will be president and it will go back to the power of the sword. This guy, Charles Guiteau wanted a job because he had helped in the election. And Blade had shoved him off because he wasn't qualified. And Garfield knew who he was, but he wasn't qualified. The man wasn't qualified. The man wanted to go to France, but he couldn't speak French. He wanted to be a representative of America and France, but he couldn't speak French. Guiteau was found to be mentally unstable. And Guiteau said, I did not kill the President. Bad doctors killed the President, which was 100% true. If they had left the bullet in him, if they had left him alone, just put good bandages on him and left him be, Garfield would live. But they kept probing for the bullet with their dirty hands and dirty instruments, and he got infected and died of infection. Yes, Gatot did not kill him, but it led to his death, and they hung him. He hoped that Arthur would pardon him, because he killed Garfield. He hoped that Arthur would pardon him for the assassination. Chester Arthur was slow to get into front lines and to get into what we might call under the press because many people believed that that he would just turn Garfield's, all his propositions backwards. And we'd go back to the stalwart position, but he didn't do that. He didn't do it. When John Kennedy was assassinated, the political coup that we had in America basically, what it was, when he was assassinated, Lyndon Johnson turned around all of his plans away. Kennedy was getting out of Vietnam. He pushed into Vietnam. He pushed into Vietnam. The political war machine in America was behind Lyndon Johnson and making plenty of money and making war at the cost of American lives and other lives. Yes, they were fighting communism. When Nixon went in, he almost won the war and the sentiment on the American streets turned him around and he lost the war, finally conceded it because of all of the protesting in America. Garfield lingered near death and no one was sure what to do. if anyone could even exercise presidential authority. Remember when Lincoln was killed. We had another man, Lincoln was a Republican and his vice president was a Democrat. And the Democrat party had no part. And he took the oath as president and they The Senate and the House of Representatives followed him all the way through, even tried to impeach him, and almost did it except for one vote. Arthur was very reluctant to be seen acting as president, while Garfield still lived. For the next two months it was kind of a void of authority in America as he was dying, as they were killing him basically with bad medicine. Garfield was too weak to carry out his duties, but Arthur was very reluctant to assume them because of his political position in the past. But Chester A. Arthur was a man of his word and a man of honor, like Garfield was. All through the summer, Arthur refused to travel to Washington as home in Lexington Avenue, New York City when the night of September 19, he learned of Garfield's death in Long Brass, New Jersey. Judge John R. Brady of the New York Supreme Court administered the oath of office in Arthur's own home at 2.15 a.m. of that day, the first time a president was ever assumed office in his own home. On September 20th, later that day, Arthur took a train to Long Branch to pray his respects to Garfield's widow. He returned to New York on September 21st and he returned to Long Branch to take part at Garfield's funeral and then joined the funeral train to Washington, D.C. Before leaving New York, Arthur ensured the presidential line of succession by preparing and mailing to the White House a proclamation calling for a Senate special session. It ensured that the Senate had legal authority to convene immediately and choose a Senate president, Pro Tempore, who would be able to assume the presidency if Arthur died. Once he got there, he destroyed the envelope and the confirmation. He took the office of president again on September 22nd, this time before Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite. Arthur's sister, Mary, Arthur McElrey served as a White House hostess for her widow brother. She would not marry. He became Washington's most eligible bachelor, and his social life became the subject of rumors. He remained singularly devoted to his wife's memory. His son, Chester Jr., was then a freshman at Princeton University, and his daughter, Nell, stayed in New York as governess until 1882. When she arrived, Arthur shielded her from intrusive press as much as he could. He quickly came in conflict with Garfield's cabinet. most of whom represented the opposition within the party. He selected Charles J. Folger, his friend and fellow New Yorker, Stalwart's at Winton's replacement. And General Wayne McVeigh was next to resign, believing that as a reformer he had no place in Arthur's. He was a reformer. He was against the Stalwarts. He was a liberal, so to speak. Arthur begged him to stay on, but he resigned anyway in 1881. Arthur replaced him with Benjamin Brewster, a Philadelphia lawyer, and a benzene politician repeated to have reformist leanings. He was going to go do exactly what James Garfield wanted to do. He was going to carry out Garfield's administration. Now I want you to know that Chester A. Arthur was not a well man. He had kidney failure. And he would be very ill much of his presidency. Now Blaine was a a nemesis of the Stalwart faction, and remained Secretary of State until the Congress reconvened and then he departed immediately. Conklin, a Stalwart, expected Arthur to appoint him to Blaine's place, but the President chose Frederick T. Freelingson, a New Jersey, a Stalwart, recommended by ex-President Grant. Frelinghuysen advised Arthur not to fill any future vacancies with fall stalwarts. Don't put any more stalwarts in here. Then the Postmaster General, James, resigned in 1882 and Arthur selected Timothy O'Hile, a Wisconsin stalwart. The Navy Secretary William A. Schantz was next to the revine in 1892 and Arthur attempted to be more balanced approach by the half-breed William Chandler to the post. On Blaine's recommendation. Blaine led Garfield. Now Blaine is leading Chester Arthur also. Of the cabinet matters that Arthur had inherited from Garfield, only Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's son, would be remained for the entire Arthur's term. In the 1870s, a scandal was exposed in which the contractor for the Star Postal Rouse was greatly overpaid for their services at the convenience of government officials, including Second Assistant Postmaster General Thomas J. Brady. and a former Senator, Stephen Wallace Dorsey. The reformers feared that Arthur, a former stalwart, would support the spoiled system like he lived in, like he grew up in, like he storaged in. They worried that he would not have an investigation into this scandal. But Arthur's Attorney General Brewster did in fact continue the investigations begun by McVeigh and hired notable Democratic lawyers William M. Kerr and Richard T. Merrick to strengthen the prosecution against the Stalwarts. He had worked as a Stalwart. He had become very wealthy as a Stalwart. But now he's gone to clean house. After a jury, a juror, came forward with allegations that the defendants attempted to bribe him, the judge set aside the guilty verdict and granted a new trial. Before the second trial began, Arthur removed five federal officeholders who were sympathetic with the defense, including a former senator. A second trial began in December 1882 and lasted until July 1883. and did not result in a guilty verdict. Failure to obtain a conviction tarnished Arthur's image, but it put a stop to fraud. Absolutely. The Democrats at this time were the conservatives, of course. The legislation greatly expanded similar civil service reforms attempted under President Franklin Pierce 30 years earlier. In his first annual presidential address to Congress, Arthur requested civil service reform legislation. This was opposite of how he was raised. And the Pendleton again introduced his bill Republicans lost seats in the 1882 Congressional election in which Democrats campaigned on the reform issue. As a result, in the lame-duck session of Congress, it was more amenable to civil rights reform, and the Senate approved the Pendleton's Bill 38-5. Arthur signed the Pendleton's Civil Service Reform Act into law on January 16, 1882. just two years time, an unrepentant stalwart had become the president and ushered in a long-awaited civil service reform because he honored James Garfield. And he thought it was the right thing to do. The only thing about it is it only applied to 10% of the federal jobs. Only 10%, but it was 10% reform. Half of all the postal officials and three-quarters of the customs service jobs were awarded by merit. Arthur expressed satisfaction with the new system, praising its effectiveness in securing competent and faithful public servants in protecting the appointed officers of the government from the pressure of personal importunity and from the labor of examining the claims and pretensions of rival candidate for public employment. There was a lot of, America's bank was overflowing with money. After the Civil War, the North was absolutely just overflowing with money. Taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes. And of course, tariffs. It had collected more than it spent from 1866 to 1882. We could use a little bit of that today, couldn't we? Arthur didn't want to turn loose the money. The surplus reached $145 million. That's peanuts today, isn't it? Opinions varied on how to balance the budget. Democrats wish to lower tariffs, like what the Civil War was over with, in order to reduce revenues and the cost of imported goods. While Republicans believe that higher tariffs ensured high wages in manufacturing and mining. This is what you call corporate welfare. Corporate welfare. In 1882, he called for the abolition of excise taxes on everything except liquor, as well as simplification of the complex tariff structure. In May of that year, there was an established tariff commission. And the protectionists in the committee The Republicans were pleased with the committee's makeup, but were so surprised in December 1882 when they submitted a report to Congress calling for the tariff cuts averaged from 20 to 25 percent. Remember, the Civil War was started over taxes and tariffs. Now he's going to cut the tariffs and the taxes 20 to 25 percent. They went up to 50 and 60 percent. That's how they had all this surplus money. After a conference with the Senate, the bill that emerged only reduced tariffs an average of 1.4 percent. And the bill still passed both houses narrowly on March 3, 1883. Authors signed the measure into law with no effect on the surplus at all. Congress wanted to increase spending on Rivers and Harbors Act in the unprecedented amount of $19 million. Arthur was not opposed to internal improvements, but the scale of it bothered him. He believed that they needed to focus on particular localities, not just everything. What's the most important harbors and railroads and roads to improve? That benefited the larger part of the United States. On August 1st, 1882, Arthur vetoed the bill to widespread popular acclaim. In his veto, his principal objection was to appropriate funds for purposes not for the common defense or general welfare of the nation. It did not promote commerce among the states. The Republicans had considered the law a success at the time, but later concluded that it contributed to their loss of seats in the elections in 1882. Foreign affairs. What did he do in the foreign affairs? Well, he slowed down on immigration. Immigration always brings in lower wages for the citizens of America. Immigration always drops decisions because we got competition. Who wants immigration? Big business wants immigration because they can keep the wages down. The Secretary of State, James G. Blaine, attempted to invigorate United States diplomacy in Latin America, urging reciprocal trade agreements and offering immediate disputes among Latin American nations. He wanted to be involved to a greater extent in the south of the Rio Grande and proposed a Pan-American Conference in 1882 to discuss the trade and the end of the war in the Pacific. by Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. Blaine did not remain in office long enough to see the effort to and when Frederick T. Frelinghuysen replaced him at the end of 1881, the conference efforts completely collapsed. What Teddy Roosevelt would do later, Blaine wanted to do then. He, Frelinghuysen, discontinued Blaine's peace efforts in the War of the Pacific, fearing the United States might be drawn into another war and conflict. They did encourage trade among the nations of the Western Hemisphere. A treaty with Mexico providing the reciprocal tariff reduction was signed in 1882 and approved by the Senate in 1884. This legislation required to bring a treaty into force failed in the House, however, rendering a dead letter. Bill. Similar efforts to reciprocal trade treaties with San Domingo and Spain's American colonies were defeated by February 1885. An existing reciprocal treaty with the Kingdom of Hawaii was allowed to lapse. All of these things were very important for America's future. The 47th Congress spent a long time on immigration. And what was the greatest problem with immigration during this time? Who were the people immigrating in America? Chinese. They had anti-Chinese leagues. They did not want these Chinese coming over here and taking pennies for jobs that they were working for. They were taking their jobs in the mines and the railroads, etc., etc., etc. They wanted to regulate stem ships that carried immigrants into the United States. The Immigration Act of 1882, which levied a 50 cent tax on immigrants to the United States and excluded from entry the mentally ill and non-productive people. They would not let mentally ill people come to America. Why would you want to do that? The intellectually disabled and criminals. And what do we have now? Open border. Criminals. They wanted to, excuse my voice, they wanted to exclude from entry the mentally ill, the intellectually disabled, criminals, and any other person that potentially might become dependent upon public assistance. And yet now look at this mess we're in. What a mess. Chinese labor laws. What actually happened Congress was unable to override a veto but passed a new bill reducing the immigration ban to 10 years. There would be an immigration ban for 10 years. Why in the world would we want to import people into America that were mentally ill, that were what we might call autistic, and criminals, and people that would just go from there, wherever they were, into a state of public wards of the state. Why would we want to do this? And yet we're doing this in great force by the millions right now. In the years after the Civil War, American naval power had declined tremendously. Garfield and Arthur's election had been on the Indian Wars in the West rather than on the high seas. Many people in Congress and the Senate were worried about America's poor naval defense. Garfield's Secretary of the Navy, William H. Hunt, advocated the reform of the Navy and his successor, William E. Chandler, appointed an advisory board to prepare a modern report on modernization of the Navy. And Congress appropriated funds for the construction of three steel-protected cruisers, the Atlanta, the Boston, and the Chicago, and an armed dispatch steamer, the Dolphin. collective known as the ABCD ships, and the Squadron of Evolution. Congress also approved funds for the builder of four monitors, the Puritan, the Amphitrite, the Modok, and the Terror, which had been uncompleted since 1877. The contracts of the Bill Lowley shift were all awarded to the low bidder John Roche and Sons of Chester, Pennsylvania. Even though Roche was once employed as a Secretary Chandler as a lobbyist. I think all lobbyists ought to be deported. That's it. The 48th Congress refused to appropriate funds for seven more steel warships. Civil rights. Arthur struggled with the question of how his party would challenge the Democrats in the South and how, if at all, to protect the civil rights of the black Southerners. We had caused the Ku Klux Klan. We had caused all of the dissension in the South. The Reconstruction, with all of its corruption, had caused tremendous hate toward Ford in America. With all of the high taxes on the South that led to all of the surplus funds, the Republican Party began to dwindle rapidly. Blacks were, in many places, defranced, in other words, not allowed to vote. But you have to remember that the Southern Confederates were not allowed to vote, nor hold office. They had a lot of readjusting to do. The Southern Democrats and Independents were more liberal and racial policies than the Democrats. In Virginia, by 1885, the readjuster movement began to collapse with the election of a Democratic president. The Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and the Civil Rights Cases in 1883. Mormon problems. Mormon problems. We have Brigham Young in the state of Utah moving into Nevada and Arizona and all the surrounding states bringing in polygamy and a militia headed by him, by himself. Remember that Chester A. Arthur was the son of a three-wheeled Baptist preacher. And they did not believe in polygamy. And Brigham Young had 75 wives. Joseph Smith had a mess of them. And they were importing wives from all over Europe. And the wives basically were servants. And they lived in these beehive houses, so to speak. They were going to stop the practice of polygamy in Utah territory. Garfield believed that the act of polygamy was a criminal behavior and was morally detrimental to family values. In 1882 he signed in the Edmonds Act into law. The legislation made polygamy a federal crime and barring polygamous from both public and office and right to vote. And yet we have it right again in America again today, don't we? There are places in these Mormon strongholds where a man will have five, six, seven, eight, ten wives. He'll buy five or ten acres and put a mobile home out there and have five or ten wives. And he's married to one, but all the rest of them are on welfare and on food stamps and Medi-Cal. And he's collecting all the checks. And we have the same thing with the Muslim world in America. Same thing. He brought in the Dawes Act, which was a great mistake. The Dawes Act destroyed the American Indian people. They would take the Native American lands that were tribal lands and turn them into private ownership, which turned out to be a total mess. I could just bring book after book after book. I could tell you from my own family. Sam Paul, the one we talked about earlier, told the Chickasaw nations, the Cherokees, the Osage, all the nations, he could speak their language like they were, like he was one of them. He spoke 17 languages. He would go and speak to each tribe in their own language and tell them, you've got to break up your own land yourself. If the United States government gets involved with it, he said, you'll lose everything. and we'll lose complete control of our land and our people." Well, he was killed in December the 19th, 1891 by his own son over a political assassination. If Sam Paul had lived and they had listened, the Dawes Act would never have been put into effect. The Dawes Act caused the death of thousands of Indians. The white people came in there, they appointed lawyers over Indian lands because Indians were too dumb, you know, take care of their own affairs whether they're educated or not. By the way, the most educated people in America at one time were American Indians. They had seminaries and colleges. And women could go to them, and women had the right to vote before they ever did, ever, in America. The first women had the right to vote in America were the American Indian people. And then finally in Wyoming they said the women could vote if they came up there because they didn't have very many women. He was, Chester Arthur was dying of kidney disease all during his presidency. He was having a hard time. He couldn't travel very much and he did all he did for America in pain and in sickness. He hated Washington D.C. because Washington D.C. was a malarial swamp. James Garfield had to get out of there. That's when he got shot, leaving. And they kept him there. They invented an air conditioning system that could make him more comfortable. But he wanted to leave. In 1884, the presidential election approached, and James E. Blaine was considered a favorite for the Republican nomination. But Arthur, too, contemplated a run for a full term as president, but he couldn't. He was too ill. He did run, and he lost. He didn't campaign. He just was too sick to do it. He only died a few. He did not live very much longer. He played no role in the 1884 campaign, which Blaine would later blame him for his loss in November 2, the Democratic nominee, Grover Cleveland. He appointed judicial judges, Horace Gray, Roscoe Conklin, his former boss. He declined it. Samuel Blackford. And Blackford, by the way, served on the court until his death in 1893. His legacy? Several Grand Army of the Republican Post were named after Arthur, including Gulf, Kansas. The military ordered the lower region of the United States as a third-class companion insignia and the honorary membership of a category for militia officers and civilians who made significant contributions in the war effort. The Union College awarded Arthur the honorary degree of LLD in 1883. The Arthur Memorial statue, a 15-foot bronze figure of Arthur standing on a bare granite pedestal, was created by sculptor George Edward Bissell and installed in Madison Square in New York City. The statue was dedicated in 1899 and unveiled by Arthur's sister, Mary Arthur Ellroy. He was a wise statesman, a firm and effective in administration, while acknowledging that Arthur was isolated in office and unloved by his own party. I want to read something to you as a final assessment of this great man. He made mistakes. He made especially mistakes with the Dawes Act. that totally destroyed the Indian nations and the Indian people of America in dividing their land. And the Black Hills are still fighting it. He suffered from poor health. He retired at the end of his term. And one man said, Alexander McClure, wrote of him, No man ever entered the presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted as Chester Alan Arthur. No man ever entered the presidency as widely distrusted as Chester Alan Arthur. And no one ever retired more graciously and generally expected a life by political third and fold. His failing health, made his administration less active than any modern presidency, basically, except the present one. The New York world summed up Arthur's presidency as his death. No duty was neglected in his administration. No adventurous project alarmed the nation during his administration. Wow. Boy, wouldn't our present administration could learn from this. No duty was neglected in his administration and no adventurous project alarmed the nations. Internally or externally. Mark Twain wrote of him also. It would be hard to indeed to better President Arthur's administration. It would be hard to better it. Despite his modern historical generally rank him as a mediocre president. Chester A. Arthur was a great president. He did the best for the whole of the nation. He did the best. And as we read in Romans the 13th chapter, evidently God used him in many ways. An imperfect man, not perfect in all of his judgments, but he did what he thought was best for his nation. try to assimilate the American people and make the American Indian people white. He would not allow them to be Indians. The Indian schools were Indian reform schools. Kill the Indian, but save the man. Kill the Indian, but save the man. I know my people want to do all of that. And I am educated, but I know both sides of the story. Our Father, please use this message for your honor and glory, that people might learn from it and learn the history of our nation that's so important in the world. What these men did to build up the world, how they affected the whole world, as this humble man did in many ways.