Presidents in Retirement: Chester Alan Arthur
When James Garfield died three months after being shot by crazed office seeker Charles Guiteau, many cringed at the thought that Chester Alan Arthur would now become President. A former bagman, who used his lucrative position as Collector of the Port of New York to fill Republican Party coffers, Arthur had never held elected office before being chosen as Garfield's running mate in a move intended to appease New York's Republican Stalwart faction. Arthur was a Manhattan dandy and many people expected that as President he would be the puppet of Stalwart leader Roscoe Conkling.
Arthur proved them wrong. As president, Arthur presided over a rebuilding of the US Navy at a time when naval power was of paramount importance to a nation's military strength. He signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 into law, which came as a surprise to reformers who held a negative reputation of Arthur as a Stalwart and product of Conkling's organization.
But the Presidency took its toll on Arthur's health. Shortly after becoming president, he was diagnosed with a kidney ailment then referred to as Bright's Disease (now called Nephritis). He kept quiet about his condition private, but word soon got out, as he began to look thinner and more aged in appearance. To try to rejuvenate his health Arthur and some political friends traveled to Florida in April 1883, but the trip only seemed to make things worse. Arthur suffered from intense pain before returning to Washington. Later that year, on the advice of Missouri Senator George Graham Vest, Arthur visited Yellowstone National Park and Arthur took reporters along and used the trip to publicize the National Park system. Arthur returned to Washington refreshed after two months of travel.
Arthur had some aspersions about running for re-election in 1884, but in the months leading up to the Republican Convention that year, he realized that neither faction of the Republican party was prepared to give him their full support. Thsis made Arthur decide against a serious campaign for the nomination. Instead the nomination went to James G. Blaine. Blaine would later blame Arthur for his loss in the election to the Democratic nominee, New York Governor Grover Cleveland.
Arthur left office in March of 1885 after attending Cleveland's inauguration. He returned to his New York City home. Two months before the end of his term, several New York Stalwarts approached him to request that he run for United States Senate, but Arthur turned down their offer. He decided to return to his old law practice at the firm of Arthur, Knevals & Ransom. By now however, his health limited his activity with the law firm, and Arthur served only as a "rainmaker" (someone who brings in clients to the firm) but did very little legal work himself. Often his health left him too ill to leave his house and he made very few public appearances.
Arthur spent the summer of 1886 in New London, Connecticut. When he returned home he became seriously ill, and it was apparent that his days were numbered. On November 16, ordered nearly all of his papers, both personal and official, burned, likely because he was concerned that they might disclose unethical and possibly illegal dealings from his days as a bag man. The next morning, Arthur suffered a cerebral hemorrhage from which he never regained consciousness. He died the following day, on November 18. Arthur was only 57 years old.
On November 22, a private funeral was held at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City. President Grover Cleveland and former President Rutherford Hayes (who had once fired Arthur as the Collector of the Port of New York) were in attendance. Arthur was buried with his family members and ancestors in the Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands, New York, laid to rest beside his late wife Ellen, in a sarcophagus on a large corner of the plot. In 1889, a monument was placed on Arthur's burial plot by sculptor Ephraim Keyser of New York. It consists of a giant bronze female angel figure placing a bronze palm leaf on a granite sarcophagus.
Arthur's post-presidency was the second-shortest of all presidents who lived past their presidencies. (James K. Polk had the shortest, Polk died just three months after leaving office.)