The Unexpected President - Bio

The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur by Scott Greenberger, 2017. I just finished reading this today and it really was a fascinating and somewhat inspiring book to read at this time of chaos and threats to our democracy but it was also a look at some nasty American history that continues to have negative effects today.

Chester Arthur was a one term president who took the office following the assassination of President James Garfield four months into his term. Arthur was his Vice President. History has looked askance at President Arthur and he has been historically ranked as a mediocre or average president and has been described as one of the least memorable presidents in US history.

I had recently read something interesting about the presidency of Chester Arthur and it made me want to learn more about the man and his time as president. I saw that this book was available and had received good reviews. What made me look at him differently was his signing into law the Civil Service Reform Act which was a very important change to the way politicians had traditionally appointed members of the government as rewards for party loyalty and not on any kind of merit. Arthur changed all that even though he was part of that machine politics patronage of the conservative New York Republican Party. Federal officeholders controlled the jobs of thousands of government employees based on party loyalty. He got rid of the spoils system even though Arthur himself was a very important part of that corrupt system.

President Garfield had been shot by a frustrated office seeker which led to the presidency of Chester Arthur.