Madison Square Park on Manhattan is an attractive public space. It has several statues on exhibit including Saint-Gaudens’s Admiral David Farragut and Republican Senator Roscoe Conkling. Near the Admiral is a statue of the 21st President of the United States Chester A. Arthur.
Although Arthur is most associated with New York, he was born in Vermont in 1829. His mother was from Vermont and his father was an Ulster Protestant. As a teenager, he became a Whig. He also supported the Fenian Brotherhood which struggled for freedom in Ireland. He went to Union College near Albany. When he graduated, he taught school. He next studied law in Ballston Spa located next to Saratoga. He was admitted to the Bar in 1854. He joined a firm headed by an Abolitionist and he engaged in legal support for Black people. Arthur desegregated the trolleys in New York City. In the late 1850s, the future president became involved in the newly formed Republican Party.
When the Civil War broke out, he became an assistant to New York Governor Edwin Morgan. He was soon promoted to Brigadier General of the militia. His role was to recruit, equip, and house the thousands of Union volunteers joining the New York regiments.
Arthur helped raise 120,000 New Yorkers for the Union Army, but he never saw battle.
Although Arthur was an opponent of slavery before, he fell under the influence of Thurlow Weed, the political boss of the New York Republican Party. Senator Roscoe Conkling promoted Arthur and helped him become the Chairman of the statewide party in 1868. Arthur and Conkling solidly backed General Ulysses S. Grant when he ran for president in 1868.
As Arthur rose through the ranks of the Republican Party he became commissioner of the New York Custom’s House which was the single largest source of revenue for the Federal government. He had control over 1,000 Federal workers which gave him power in the Republican Party. Rutherford B. Hayes believed that Arthur was engaged in corrupt practices and had him removed from the position.
Arthur was chosen to run for Vice President alongside James Garfield in 1880. The Republicans won this election, but Garfield was assassinated by Charles Guiteau in the first year of the new administration. Arthur became president.
Arthur is today known for eliminating the Spoils System in which the winning presidential candidate would replace most Federal government employees with his loyalists. Although Arthur rose through Conkling’s own version of the Spoils System, he pursued creating a professional civil service, one of the goals of James Garfield.
In the 1880 election both parties endorsed cutting back on Chinese immigration. While there were relatively few Chinese immigrating to any state other than California, and while both Irish and German immigrants greatly outnumbered the Chinese, there was a widespread concern that non-white people might destroy America. Of course, the Civil War was only fought a decade and a half before Arthur assumed office. This horrendously violent slaughter occurred without any sizable involvement of Chinese immigrants, but the myth of non-white violence frightened many whites into coming up with the Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act which would cut off immigration from China for twenty years. Arthur vetoed it. A shorter ten year ban was then passed and Arthur signed this racist restriction on immigration.
Contrary to a scene in the Netflix series Death By Lightning, Arthur never spent a night drinking with President Garfield’sĀ assassin Charles Guiteau. While it is likely that they met, they never developed a relationship.
The statue was dedicated on June 13, 1899, The sculpture was created by George Edwin Bissell, a well-known Hudson River sculptor.
In addition to Arthur and Conkling being represented at Madison Square, there is also a monument to William Seward who served as Secretary of State under Lincoln and Johnson.
Note that Madison Square Park is not near where the current home of Madison Square Garden is today. The sports arena and performance space had been at Madison Square but it was moved further uptown in the 1960s. The park is between 23rd and 26th Streets abutting Madison Avenue.
Note: All color photos in this post were taken by Patrick Young except as noted.
