Chester+ARTHUR+(1881-1885)


 * **Dates In office: ** || September 10, 1881 - March 4, 1885 ||
 * **Political Party: ** || Republican after 1856; Whig before 1856 ||
 * **Notes on Election(s): ** || He was not elected as president; he took over after President Garfield was assassinated. ||
 * **Vice President(s): ** || None ||
 * **Key Cabinet Officials: ** || Secretary of State
 * James G. Blaine 1881
 * Frederick T. Frelinghuysen 1881–1885

Secretary of Treasury
 * William Windom 1881
 * Charles J. Folger 1881–1884
 * Walter Q. Gresham 1884
 * Hugh McCulloch 1884–1885

Secretary of War
 * Robert T. Lincoln 1881–1885

Attorney General
 * Wayne MacVeagh 1881
 * Benjamin H. Brewster 1881–1885

Postmaster General
 * Thomas L. James 1881
 * Timothy O. Howe 1881–1883
 * Walter Q. Gresham 1883–1884
 * Frank Hatton 1884–1885

Secretary of the Navy
 * William H. Hunt 1881–1882
 * William E. Chandler 1882–1885

Secretary of the Interior
 * Samuel J. Kirkwood 1881–1882
 * Henry M. Teller 1882–1885 ||
 * **Key Domestic Issues: ** || __Civil Service:__
 * January 1883: Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act passed
 * June 1884: The Bureau of Labor is established within the Department of the Interior ||
 * **Key Foreign Policy/Diplomatic/Military Issues: ** || __Tariffs:__* Arthur favored a lower tariff, wanting a tariff that would drop the tariff rates of every item by 20-25%. Congress did not like this idea, and ended up passing the Mongrel Tariff of 1883, which lowered the tariff on only specific items by an average of 1.47%

__Immigration:__
 * April 1882: Arthur vetoes the Chinese Exclusion Act, thinking that the twenty-year ban on Chinese immigration was ridiculous and that the Chinese were a great help to the American economy.
 * May 1882: Arthur passes a revised version of the Chinese Exclusion Act because the ban on immigration was moved to ten years instead of twenty ||
 * **Key Constitutional/Legal Issues: ** || __Important Supreme Court Cases:__
 * //Civil Rights Cases//
 * Decision: the federal government does not have the power to regulate private acts of unequal protection by a state (the government had no way to stop private acts of racial discrimination)
 * //United States v.// Harris (the Ku Klux Klan case)
 * Decision: it is unconstitutional for the federal government to punish someone for crimes like murder and assault; it is only allowed for these crimes to be punished by the local governments
 * //Pace v. Alabama//
 * Decision: Alabama's law banning interracial relationships was not in violation of the 14th Amendment
 * // Springer v. United States //
 * Decision: the income tax is constitutional ||
 * **Territorial Expansion During this Period: ** || The Department of Alaska becomes the District of Alaska, and is no longer run by the military and federal government. It forms its own local government. ||
 * **Overall Assessment of Presidency: ** || Chester Arthur was not an important president, but his presidency was not a huge failure or a huge success. There were some important things that happened during his presidency, like the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. He was by no means a "great" president, but he wasn't awful. Overall, he was successful, I guess. ||
 * **Other important facts: ** || __President Arthur:__
 * Served as Collector of the Port of New York from 1871-1878
 * Served as President Garfield's vice president from March 4, 1881 - September 19, 1881

__Important Monuments__
 * The Brooklyn Bridge opens in May 1883
 * The Statue of Liberty is given to the United States by France on July 4, 1884
 * The Washington Monument is dedicated in February 1885 ||
 * **Other Media/interesting things you've found/created: ** || * http://player.history.com/pservice/embed-player/?siteId=hist&tPid=21115173
 * http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/cbsnews_player_embed.swf"
 * http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-57544828/the-original-birther-controversy/" ||