|| Chapter 7 ||
No one tried harder to make others forget his presidency than Chester Arthur. On the day before he died, he burned his personal papers. So little documentation is left that there is no library or museum to honor his presidency. Except for William Henry Harrison and James Garfield, Arthur has the fewest papers of any president in the Library of Congress.
Arthur seemed destined for obscurity. He had held only one political office before he was nominated as James Garfield’s running mate in 1880—collector for the Port of New York. While almost 75 percent of the federal government’s revenue at the time came from New York’s Customs House, Arthur held this job primarily because he could be relied on to use his position to dispense patronage on behalf of his boss and benefactor, Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York. Arthur did not distinguish himself in the job: In 1878, President Hayes dismissed him after an official investigation of corruption in the New York Customs House.
Arthur’s dismissal had perhaps the most remarkable unintended consequence of any in American history: It endeared him to Conkling’s powerful wing of the Republica Party, which called themselves the Stalwarts because of their steadfast support of the party’s traditions, including patronage. They pushed Arthur as Garfield’s running mate, and he became the consensus choice because he was the least objectionable Stalwart, though Conkling urged him to reject the job.1
In his short six months as president, Garfield shut Arthur out of everything because Arthur had continued to do what he had always done before— Conkling’s bidding. In the single, most important constitutional event of Garfield’s presidency, Arthur sided with Conkling in a battle in which senatorial courtesy was pitted against the president’s power to exercise his nominating authority as he saw fit. The prize was the right to nominate someone to fill Arthur’s old job. Although Arthur broke a tie vote in the Senate to reject Garfield’s nominee for the post, Conkling’s victory was short-lived, as Garfield slyly withdrew all his nominations except the one Conkling was blocking, and Conkling’s overwhelming interest in aggrandizing himself at the expense of all other business of the government became painfully clear for all to see. Conkling foolishly resigned to protest the move, and the New York legislature refused to reappoint him to the Senate.2 Conkling appeared to be dead politically until a deranged man, Charles Guiteau, shot Garfield, who died because of his doctors’ incompetency. Conkling prepared to return to power with Arthur as his puppet, an amazing occurrence in itself since Conkling could have been—but was not—implicated in Garfield’s shooting: Guiteau had proclaimed upon shooting Garfield, “I am a Stalwart. Arthur is president now.” It is constitutionally significant that Guiteau is widely remembered for shooting Garfield because he wanted a Stalwart president. It points to the wisdom of the Twelfth Amendment in ensuring that the president and vice president are from the same party, as a way of decreasing the incentives for assassination, while at the same time it points to the fact that ticket balancing within a party can partly undo that salutary effect of the Twelfth Amendment.
Most importantly, Arthur’s presidency dramatically demonstrates how the office transforms its occupant. As president, Arthur repeatedly sacrificed his political support in order to fulfill his constitutional commitments. As the first president to sign significant civil service reform into law, he lost the Stalwarts’ support and forged, to most observers’ surprise, a record of competent, balanced administration.
I .
The three Republican presidents who immediately preceded Arthur did little to reform the civil service system. Ulysses Grant generally appointed people who were not the best qualified but were loyal to him. In response, Congress authorized Grant to set regulations for federal employment and to appoint an oversight body.3 By the end of Grant’s administration, the commission was defunct since Congress had not funded it. Even worse, Grant’s treasury secretary, Benjamin Bristow, discovered a cadre of federal officials who had defrauded the government of millions of dollars in internal-revenue taxes pertaining to whiskey sales and consumption. Grant refused to allow the perpetrators to be prosecuted and fired the prosecutor. Bristow resigned in protest. Grant’s successor, Rutherford B. Hayes, promised serious civil service reform and appointed a leading advocate for civil service reform, Carl Schurz, to his cabinet. Unable to get Congress to enact legislation to reform the civil service, Hayes conducted his own investigation of the New York Customs House and dismissed Arthur.4 With the exception of his battle to establish his authority over federal appointments in New York, Garfield was ambivalent about merit-based appointments.5Everyone believed the prospects of civil service reform died with him.
Everyone was wrong. President Arthur did the opposite of what the Stalwarts urged him to do. While Garfield was battling Conkling for the prerogative to name the collector of New York, a major bill to reform civil service—the Pendleton Civil Service Act—had languished in the Senate. Whereas Garfield had not shown any support for the bill and Conkling expected it would die in the finance committee, Arthur declared in his first major address that nothing would “deter me from giving the measure my earnest support.”6 His support never wavered.
Through his first year in office, Arthur understood that the political momentum for reform was overwhelming and that Congress merely had to approve the Senate bill that it already had pending before it. Again, he urged Congress to approve civil service reform, but Republican leaders were unmoved. They continued to oppose reform until the midterm elections of 1882, when the voters punished them for their opposition. In fact, the House experienced one of its largest reversals of control in history: Republicans went from a twelve-seat majority in the House to an almost eighty-seat deficit. While Republicans managed to gain control of the Senate by two seats, Senate leaders got the message. Knowing that Arthur was prepared to sign into law any reform that they approved, they quickly moved the bill onto the Senate floor, where just after Christmas, it passed 38–5, with thirty-three abstentions. Soon thereafter, the vote in the House was 155–47, with eighty-seven abstentions.7
The Constitution figured little in congressional debates. Opponents of the Pendleton Act largely focused on policy issues, expressing concerns that the act was merely a scheme to keep Republicans in power or that the exams it required would result in the appointments of bureaucrats who were mediocre or elites who had little in common with most Americans.8 While few Republicans expressed any enthusiasm for the bill, none voted against it. That Republicans were in no position to impede the momentum of a bill they had long opposed was reflected further in their allowing the bill to bear the name of its Democratic sponsor, George Pendleton of Ohio.
To most historians, the Pendleton Civil Service Act that Arthur signed into law was more important symbolically than substantively: It covered only about 11 percent of all federal employees, applied to big cities and not rural areas in which the Post Office operated, and had gaping holes that allowed for political assessments and payoffs to persist, two of the evils that civil service reformers had long opposed.
Yet there were constitutional ramifications to the Pendleton Act. As the first major reform of civil service ever enacted, its passage constituted a significant blow to the notion that the Constitution vested the president with complete removal power over all executive branch personnel. At the same time, the law was the first step toward the bureaucratic state, which purported to serve society, not political parties. Moreover, the creation of the Civil Service Commission, the board for drafting and administering civil service exams, and the standards for employment and removal of civil servants, were based on Congress’s exercise of its power to regulate interstate commerce. Today, such enactments seem commonplace, and their constitutionality is not open to serious debate.
Arthur had not just given lip service to the Pendleton act. He also understood his duty under Article II to “take care to enforce the laws faithfully”9as requiring just that: He strongly supported the new order that limited his powers and undermined the patronage system that he had long embodied and brought him to power. The three men whom he appointed to the Civil Service Commission were notable leaders in civil service reform; he issued thirteen executive orders to implement rules and regulations for the civil service that were based on commission recommendations;10 and the commission praised Arthur more than once for his “constant, firm, and friendly support.”11 The act was also the subject of five attorney general opinions, including one upholding his authority to make recess appointments to fill “all vacancies that may happen in a recess of the Senate, irrespective of the time when such vacancies first occur,”12 one that recognized the president’s inherent authority to make “interim appointments,”13 and another holding that the question of whether “there are already two or more members of a family in the public service” as provided by the act is a question for the president to decide.14Another opinion recognized that another officer could not perform the duties of the treasury secretary even though the incumbent had died.15 These orders and opinions remain significant executive-branch precedents on the scope and permissible limitations on a president’s appointment and removal authorities.
II .
Presidents do not believe the Constitution compels them to nominate particular kinds of people to confirmable offices or to consult with senators or meet their demands on whom to nominate. While Garfield had won an important victory for the president’s independence in nominating confirmable officials, most senators expected Arthur to respect senatorial courtesy. Moreover, at the time of Arthur’s presidency, the extent of a president’s removal power over executive officials whom the Senate confirmed was still unsettled. (Indeed, when Hayes dismissed Arthur, Arthur had objected on the ground that Hayes had not complied with the Tenure in Office Act; however, Senate Democrats allowed Hayes to circumvent the act in order to embarrass Conkling.) Arthur appreciated that he would not be able to make appointments unless there were vacancies, and there would be no vacancies unless he created some.
Even before Arthur had announced his support for the Pendleton Civil Service Act, he had made one of his most significant constitutional decisions as president: Roughly a month after Garfield’s death, Arthur asked Conkling to visit him at the White House. The purpose of the meeting was no secret—to address the question of Conkling’s power over the new administration. While neither man ever spoke of what they discussed, it is not hard to figure out from subsequent developments: Conkling made known his desire to be appointed to one of the two or three most important cabinet posts and to have Stalwarts appointed to replace various Garfield appointees, but Arthur declined.16
Particularly over his first six months as president, Arthur took great care to create the impression that he was firmly committed to acting independently rather than remaining Conkling’s agent. First, he decided not to remove Garfield’s choice of Robertson as collector of New York. Conkling and other Stalwarts pushed Arthur to do this, but Arthur refused. His decision signaled his determination to rise above partisan politics in making appointments or removals. Throughout his presidency, he kept his promise not to remove anyone for personal or partisan reasons.17
Arthur’s most significant removals were postal officials involved in the Star Route scandal. The Star Routes were federal contracts stamped with asterisks or stars signifying “certainty, celebrity, and security”—terms meant to convey that the persons who received the contracts were supposed to be paid at special rates set by Congress to deliver mail in isolated western areas. The scandal arose from the practice of certain high-ranking postal department officials who fraudulently arranged for their confederates to receive the initial contracts at absurdly low rates but later got Congress to pay for improvements in the routes that were never made, with the funds instead pocketed by the officials involved. Although Garfield had ordered an investigation into the scandal, it was still going when Garfield died. Nine days after becoming president, Arthur ordered the removals of officials involved in the scandals and asked his attorney general to uncover the fraud “earnestly and thoroughly.”18 In the same message in which he had promised to support civil service reform, Arthur pledged to prosecute offenders “with the utmost vigor of the law.”19Thus, he reaffirmed the president’s power to prioritize and direct prosecutions of the law.
Second, Arthur acted unilaterally in making his cabinet appointments. He passed over many mediocre people urged upon him by Republican senators and instead made cabinet appointments based on merit. His choices inspired the confidence of Senate leaders that he could be trusted to use his appointment power judiciously and not in a partisan or vengeful manner. Consequently, the Senate easily confirmed all twelve of his cabinet appointments. By appointing two former senators to his cabinet, Arthur astutely used senatorial courtesy to his advantage and ensured that he would have men familiar with the Senate working closely with him. Moreover, Arthur directed his cabinet secretaries to make appointments and removal decisions based on “notions of fairness and not simply faction.”20 His appointments angered Stalwarts. Conkling groused that Hayes had been “respectable, if not heroic” in comparison.21The angrier Republicans got, the more evident Arthur’s willingness to do his duty at all cost became.
Third, Arthur made two excellent Supreme Court appointments. Indeed, he was one of a few presidents who came into office with pending Supreme Court vacancies. The first arose when Justice Nathan Clifford died shortly after Garfield had been shot and was thus unable to act upon the vacancy.
Two months after becoming president, Arthur nominated Horace Gray to replace Clifford. Gray had come strongly recommended by the influential senator George Hoar of Massachusetts22 and was an astute choice. Justice Samuel Miller, a highly regarded Lincoln appointee, also recommended Gray, who had stellar credentials—he had served as a state court judge for nearly two decades, including eight years as the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts; was widely regarded as an eminent legal scholar and historian; and had been the youngest person to date appointed to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts.23 His commitment to the Reconstruction amendments made him popular among Republicans. A day after formally receiving the nomination, the Senate confirmed Gray 51–5. He continues to hold the record for the justice who served the longest as a lower-court judge prior to his nomination to the Court.
The next vacancy arose barely two months after Gray’s appointment when Justice Ward Hunt resigned from the bench in ill health. Although most people expected Arthur to nominate George Edmunds, a widely respected Vermont senator, he did not. Instead, he offered the job to Conkling. In retrospect, it is unclear why Arthur did this. Perhaps he did it as payback or because Conkling was from the same state as Hunt, or he might have expected Conkling to decline. The press savaged Arthur for lapsing into his old ways. Surprisingly, Conkling said he would take the seat, and the Senate confirmed him in an ironic demonstration of the strength of senatorial courtesy. Five days after his confirmation, Conkling announced that he would not take the oath or seat.24This time, Arthur asked Edmunds, hoping to take further advantage of senatorial courtesy. Although quickly confirmed, Edmunds declined. Arthur then turned to Samuel Blatchford of New York. Like Gray’s, his credentials were stellar: He had been a widely respected lawyer before being appointed to the district court and had served for fifteen years on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, on which he had been renowned for his professionalism, legal acumen, and expertise in admiralty law. The Senate greeted the nomination with relief and acclimation. Less than ten days after receiving the nomination, the Senate unanimously approved it by voice vote. Blatchford remains distinctive as the first Supreme Court justice to serve beforehand as both a district and a circuit court judge and as the first person appointed by three different presidents to three different Article III courts, including the Supreme Court. (He is also known among New York lawyers as a founder of the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore.)
Arthur had at least two objectives in choosing Gray and Blatchford. First, each man had outstanding professional qualifications. In keeping with his support of civil service reform and his commitment to being independent as president, Arthur—a lawyer himself—did not want to appoint partisan hacks to the Court. While the norm then was not to opt for sitting judges as nominees, Arthur opted to make appointments that the legal community viewed as meritbased. The appointments buttressed Arthur’s vow not to appoint partisans or hacks to important posts and clearly benefited the Court itself. Second, with Republicans only having a two-seat margin of control in the Senate, Arthur wanted swift rather than messy confirmations.25 He achieved this by working within, rather than challenging, existing norms for Supreme Court appointments. Thus, he took various factors into account, including senatorial courtesy and the strength of the nominees’ support in the Senate.
On another front, Arthur’s attorney general, Benjamin Brewster, wrote two of the earliest opinions on the meaning of the Constitution’s ineligibility clause, which provides that “[n]o Senator or Republican shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased, during such time.”26 In one, Brewster construed the plain language of the clause to mean that it would preclude the “nomination and confirmation” of someone who was ineligible to be appointed to the position for which he was ineligible since nomination and confirmation were “acts necessary and incipient to steps to an appointment.”27In the other, Brewster maintained in what he thought was the first opinion on point that Samuel Kirkwood, Arthur’s first interior secretary, was ineligible to be appointed to the U.S. Tariff Commission because he had been a member of the Senate at the time it was created. Brewster construed the clause’s rule to be “absolute, as expressed in the terms of the Constitution, and behind that I cannot go, but must accept it as it is presented regarding its application in this case.”28While Brewster was wrong that no prior president had faced the question,29 his opinion enabled Arthur, yet again, to follow the law rather than do whatever was politically expedient.
III .
Arthur’s biographers emphasize the importance of his deployment of his veto authority,30though he cast far fewer vetoes—six total, four of which were pocket vetoes31—than other presidents in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
Figure 7.1 Print shows President Chester A. Arthur sitting on a rock with a large white elephant that looks like Roscoe Conkling standing next to him; Arthur is wondering how to get rid of the elephant. Uncle Sam, holding papers labeled “Conkling Declines”, walks away from the “Supreme Court”. Roscoe Conkling turned down Arthur’s offer for a position on the Supreme Court. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print)
Nonetheless, his vetoes were important because they were unexpected. Just as with his support of civil service reform and his cabinet and Supreme Court appointments, he did not exercise this authority to make party leaders in Congress happy. Indeed, he challenged congressional leaders on a few discrete issues, and in doing so demonstrated a capacity of the presidency that we take for granted— the president’s using the veto authority to steer legislation in his preferred direction. Moreover, in grounding his vetoes on both constitutional and policy grounds, he followed the precedents established earlier by Jackson and Tyler. Also, it is telling that the Congress only overrode one of his six vetoes. The fact that an unelected, increasingly unpopular president had five out of his six vetoes upheld by Congress underscores an important dynamic within the structure of power at the federal level—namely, the fact that the Constitution requires such a high threshold to override vetoes enables every president to exercise significant influence over the policymaking process.
Arthur cast his three notable vetoes in his first full year in office. The first was the most momentous: On April 4, 1882, he vetoed the Chinese Exclusion Bill,32 which barred Chinese laborers from entering the country for twenty years and denied citizenship to Chinese residents.33Restricting Chinese immigration was popular among Republicans, but Arthur believed the policies were “a breach of our national faith”34 and “undemocratic and hostile to the spirit of our institutions.” Congress quickly passed another bill that included several of Arthur’s recommendations.35In recognition of the fact that the second bill had passed by margins large enough to exceed the two-thirds required in each chamber to override a presidential veto, Arthur signed the bill. Arthur’s veto reflected how it might be used to lead Congress, but his belated acceptance of an exclusion bill did not win back the support of Republicans who had pushed the bill. Nor did his veto stem the tide of discrimination against Chinese immigration, since his approval of the second bill effectively acquiesced in the extension of the discrimination underlying it. (Indeed, the law was not repealed until 1943.) Moreover, Arthur’s switch of positions on Chinese exclusion underscored the purely political calculations underlying his judgments.
On August 1, Arthur vetoed the 1882 Rivers and Harbors bill.36 The veto caused a stir in Congress because it was an attack against a pork-filled law, and it invited retribution from party leaders. Nevertheless, he found much of the bill entailed wasteful, illegitimate spending and that much of the bill benefited “particular localities” and thus did not advance the common defense, interstate commerce, or the general welfare.37Consequently, he believed the bill went “beyond the powers given by the Constitution to Congress and the President.”38 He argued that the bill established a bad precedent, which might lead Congress to approve even more “extravagant expenditure of public money.”39Although Congress overrode Arthur’s veto,40 he had evolved from being a political hack to an early opponent of wasteful spending.
In his last year in office, Arthur faced the difficult question of whether to veto a bill that he would have personally liked to sign. The bill involved Fitz John Porter, who had had been a major in the Union Army but had been court-martialed for refusing to execute an order given to him by a superior officer and formally dismissed from the army after President Lincoln upheld the conviction upon review. In 1878, President Hayes assembled a review board to reconsider whether Porter should be reinstated to the army. Though it concluded that Porter should be, both Hayes and Arthur concluded that they did not have the unilateral authority to reinstate him. Indeed, Arthur’s attorney general suggested that Arthur had the authority to use his pardon and commutation power to erase the portion of his sentence that had disqualified him “forever” “from any office” in the federal government.41 On May 4, 1882, Arthur used his pardon and commutation powers to remit his sentence, and Congress subsequently passed a bill authorizing Porter’s reinstatement. Arthur asked his attorney general for an opinion on its constitutionality. On June 23, 1884, he advised Arthur that he believed the bill was unconstitutional because a statute directing the appointment of a specific individual “clearly invades the constitutional rights of the President” and the Senate to exercise their respective nominating and confirmation authorities as each sees fit.42 Arthur vetoed the bill.43
Although historians overlook this veto, it is significant. First, Congress failed to override it. Hence, it is another excellent example of the power of a veto in the hands of a lame-duck president. Second, it is another example of the Constitution’s constraining power. President Arthur agreed that the proper thing would have been to reinstate Porter, but he was unable to do it because he could not find a legal way to do it. He felt bound by the Constitution.
Arthur also took seriously his responsibility to propose legislation to Congress. In all four of his messages, he urged Congress to enact a national bankruptcy law and to protect “by suitable legislation the forests situated upon the public domain.” He repeatedly asked Congress to enact a federal statute to direct what should happen if a president were to die or become incapacitated without a vice president in office. He reminded Congress of the need to determine the meaning of the constitutional phrase referring to a president’s “inability to discharge the powers and duties of said office.” Moreover, in each of his annual messages, Arthur urged Congress not to forget the District of Columbia. He declared, “The denial to its residents of the great right of suffrage in all its relations to national, state, and municipal action imposes upon the Congress the duty of affording them the best administration which its wisdom can devise. The report of the District Commissioners indicates certain measures whose adoption would seem to be very desirable.” In all four of Arthur’s annual messages, he pressed Congress to enact appropriate legislation to forgo the turmoil and confusion that had arisen in the aftermath of the 1876 presidential election. Indeed, in the opening of his fourth and final message, he reminded Congress, “Eight years have passed since a controversy concerning the result of a national debate sharply called the attention of Congress to the necessity of providing more precise and definite regulations for counting the [presidential] electoral vote. It is of the gravest importance that this question be solved before conflicting claims to the Presidency shall again distract the country, and I am persuaded that by the people at large any of the measures of relief thus far proposed would be preferred to continued inaction.” The failure of Congress to enact any of Arthur’s proposals demonstrated the limits of Arthur’s leadership. Yet his persistence in reiterating his proposals underscored the capacity of the presidency to be forward-looking. Issues arising from the fact that the District of Columbia is not a state persist, and Congress is still considering today whether genuine representation in Congress for the District may be provided by means of a statute or a constitutional amendment. In 1887, the Congress enacted the Electoral Count Act, but it failed to achieve Arthur’s purpose, as reflected in its becoming the center of controversy in the immediate aftermath of the 2000 presidential election. The Twenty-fourth Amendment, which grants to the citizens in the District of Columbia the right to vote in presidential elections, was ratified in 1964. The Twenty-fifth Amendment, which governs presidential incapacity, was not ratified until 1967; and scholars and members of Congress still debate the proper line of presidential succession.
IV .
Four different matters challenged Arthur to confront questions about the Constitution, federal power, discrimination, and minority rights. Three of these arose in the West. The first was the Chinese Exclusion Act, discussed earlier. The second involved the federal government’s efforts to stamp out polygamy in the Utah territory. The practice of polygamy among Mormons, who comprised a majority of the population in Utah, had kept the territory from becoming a state. By the time Arthur came into office, the Supreme Court had upheld a federal law prohibiting polygamy there.44Because Mormons controlled the local courts, prosecuting polygamists was practically impossible. Although Garfield had denounced polygamy in his inaugural address,45 only Arthur was able to do something: In 1882, he signed into law the Edmunds Act,46which recodified the prohibitions in other statutes, criminalized polygamy, disqualified polygamists from jury duty, and barred polygamists from holding public office.47Through the establishment of a five-person commission to supervise voting in Utah, the act sought to effectively take control of the government from the Mormon majority. Mormons charged discrimination, though neither the president nor Congress recognized any part of the federal Constitution as a basis for their claim. They further protested that Arthur—and Congress—lacked the power to enact a law forbidding their particular religious practice, though President Arthur agreed with his attorney general48—and the Supreme Court—that Articles I and IV vested Congress with this authority.
What followed was a remarkable struggle between the federal government in Washington and the Mormons over the control of local governmental operations in Utah. Most Mormons resisted complying with the federal law restricting polygamists from voting and overwhelmingly voted to return Mormons to power in the first election held under the Edmunds Act.49 The new local legislature refused to outlaw polygamy, and Arthur was forced to call for direct congressional control of Utah as a further exercise of its plenary power to regulate federal territories.50Although Congress failed to act before Arthur left office, his actions reinforced the Court’s rulings that the First Amendment did not protect polygamy and was not a bar to the federal government’s broad authority over federal territories and statehood.
On a third matter, Arthur extended the efforts that President Hayes had begun to improve the conditions for Native Americans.51 Arthur and his secretary of the interior, former senator Henry Teller, acknowledged the need to find peaceful ways to incorporate Native Americans “into the mass of our citizens.”52 At Arthur’s insistence, Congress created the office of superintendent of Indian schools,53increased funding for Indian schools nearly twofold,54and established a system of courts with Native American judges who would be responsible for punishing various offenses.55
Arthur also took an equally progressive, albeit less successful, stance on the federal government’s authority to protect African-Americans from private violence. In 1883, the Supreme Court in US v. Harris56 had held that the federal government did not have the power to make the beatings of several AfricanAmericans a federal offense because they were private action to which the Constitution did not apply. In response, Arthur said nothing. Later that year, he reacted differently to the Court’s decision in The Civil Rights Cases57 overturning the Civil Rights Act of 1875.58 The law barred racial discrimination in public accommodations. Arthur, like many of the Republicans of his generation, believed the Civil War was fought in large part to eliminate slavery and guarantee equal rights to African-Americans. Accordingly, he asked his attorney general to urge the Supreme Court to uphold the law. But in November 1883 the Court reiterated that the Fourteenth Amendment only applied to state action and determined the law exceeded the constitutional boundaries of Congress’s powers under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.59 In his Third Annual Message to Congress,60 Arthur reminded Congress that “the special purpose” of the Fourteenth Amendment was “to insure to members of the colored race the full enjoyment of civil and political rights,” referenced the Court’s “recent[]” decision, and declared, “Any legislation whereby Congress may lawfully supplement the guarantees which the Constitution affords for the equal enjoyment by all the citizens of the United States of every right, privilege, and immunity of citizenship will receive my unhesitating support.”61Interestingly, Arthur’s rebuke of the Court was the first time since Lincoln that a president had done so. The House did not act on his proposal, and Arthur never had the chance to make good on his promise. It was not until 1964 that a president signed into law a civil rights bill nearly identical to the one struck down in 1883.62
In 1972, Richard Nixon made history as the first American president to visit China. The trip was historic because it was an important first step toward normalizing relations with China and because Nixon did it. As a man with a long-standing reputation as a strident anticommunist, Nixon was immune to criticism that he was pandering to the Communist government led by Mao Zedong. His visit inspired the phrase, “Only Nixon could go to China,” used to refer to a leader’s immunity from criticism for doing something he once stridently opposed. The shift is considered to result from a desire to place principle over self-interest.
The same could be said of Arthur: He embodied the patronage system and had long opposed civil service reform. Yet one could say that “only Arthur could have signed serious civil service reform into law,” because, as president, he was immune to charges that he switched because of expedience rather than principle. It is a measure of the neglect of Arthur’s presidency that no such phrase ever was voiced, much less took hold.