Chester A. Arthur

Chester A. Arthur was the 21st President of the United States, serving from 1881-1885 following the assassination of James A. Garfield.

Sourced

• There are very many characteristics which go into making a model civil servant. Prominent among them are probity, industry, good sense, good habits, good temper, patience, order, courtesy, tact, self-reliance, many deference to superior officers, and many consideration for inferiors.
  • First annual message (1881).

• Indiana was really, I suppose, a Democratic State. It has always been put down in the book as a state that might be carried by a close and careful and perfect organization and a great deal of— [from audience: “soap,” in reference to purchased votes, the word being followed by laughter]. I see reporters here, and therefore I will simply say that everybody showed a great deal of interest in the occasion, and distributed tracts and political documents all through the country.
  • The remarks concerned the presidential election of 1880.
  • New York Times (February 12, 1881)

• The extravagant expenditure of public money is an evil not to be measured by the value of that money to the people who are taxed for it.
  • Veto message of Rivers and Harbor Bill (1882)

• I trust the time is nigh when, with the universal assent of civilized people, all international differences shall be determined without resort to arms by the benignant processes of civilization.
  • Second annual message (1882)

• Experience has shown that the trade of the East is the key to national wealth and influence.
  • Veto message of Chinese Exclusion Act (1882).

• Men may die, but the fabric of our free institutions remains unshaken.
  • Said upon the death of President Garfield.
  • Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 8 (1897).

• What a pleasant lot of fellows they are. What a pity they have so little sense about politics. If they lived North the last one of them would be Republicans.
  • Quoted in Recollections of Thirteen Presidents, John S. Wise (1906).

• The office of the Vice-President is a greater honor than I ever dreamed of attaining.
  • Quoted in Random Recollections of an Old Political Reporter, William C. Hudson (1911).

• Honors to me now are not what they once were.
  • Written on the death of his wife, Ellen.
  • Quoted in Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester Alan Arthur, ch. 8, Thomas C. Reeves (1975).

• Madam, I may be President of the United States, but my private life is nobody’s damn business.
  • To a temperance reformer.
  • Quoted in Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester Alan Arthur, ch. 8, Thomas C. Reeves (1975).

Unsourced

• I don't think we had better go into the minute secrets of the campaign, so far as I know them, because I see the reporters are present, who are taking it all down.

• Since I came here I have learned that Chester A. Arthur is one man and the President of the United States is another.