from the Senate, was harshly and justly commented on. But when Garfield died, he acted with delicacy and discretion, and so acted to the end. His views proved to be broad and statesman-like, his bearing dignified, his policy enlightened. Nobody will say that he was not a good President. He went out of office with honors that, when he entered it, were not his. This is no light praise. And more; he removed to a degree the doubt and apprehension that have been associated with vice-presidential succession.

Arthur was the son of a Baptist clergyman from the North of Ireland, who had settled in eastern Canada, and had, with unconscious forecast, removed just across the border, to give his eldest boy a geographical chance to be President of the United States. He was born at the hamlet of Fairfield in a log cabin; was one of five children, whom his father, preaching for $350 a year in an old barn, could hardly afford to have. But families were not then regarded financially, nor were they the dispensable luxuries. that they are now, particularly in large and expensive cities. The poor clergyman was obliged to eke out his necessary expenses by manual labor in field or shop, and even when his circumstances improved was but an itinerant pulpiteer, continually perplexed with making both ends

meet.

Chester Arthur, who was a polished man of society, and noted as an elegant dinner-giver, must have contrasted sometimes the sumptuousness of these days with the Spartan plainness of the days of his boyhood, spent in the rude schoolhouse of the rural districts of the time. He was only eighteen when he was graduated at Union College,

Schenectady. After teaching a while in his native State, he was admitted to the bar at twenty-eight, and settled in New York city. His first case that made any noise was the Lemmon Slave case, in which he was attorney for the people, and Wm. M. Evarts leading counsel on the same side. They maintained that eight slaves, whom their master, Jonathan Lemmon of Virginia, had brought to New York, were made free by his voluntary act. Charles O'Conor and Henry L. Clinton appeared for Lemmon; but after various appeals, Arthur and Evarts' position was sustained. Arthur acted as counsel for a colored woman who had been expelled (1856) from the horse-cars on account of her color, and gained a verdict for damages for his client, which secured equal rights for negroes in all public vehicles. One of the first Republicans, he always acted with the party. He was appointed Engineer-in-Chief by Governor Morgan in 1861, and, the year following, quartermaster-general of the forces of the State (whence his title), and discharged his duties admirably. For seven years he was collector of the port of New York, and was removed by Hayes, who thought the office was too much used as a political power in the state. He then resumed the practice of law, but was always a very active,— perhaps too active,— politician.

At the death of Garfield, he became the twenty-first President of the republic. In a short address he declared his intention to continue the policy of his predecessor. The members of Garfield's cabinet who had sent in their resignations to the new President were requested to hold over until the meeting of Congress. The resignation of AttorneyGeneral McVeagh was accepted in November, and Benja

min H. Brewster was called to the place. Gradually all the members of Garfield's cabinet retired except Robert T. Lincoln, who continued Secretary of War to the close of Arthur's term.

The administration was uneventful but successful. It marked the establishment of the Civil Service commission, and the enactment of the tariff of 1883. At the Republican National convention in 1884, the satisfactory administration of Arthur made him a strong candidate, receiving on the first ballot 278 votes and 207 on the fourth and last, on which James G. Blaine secured 541. He retired to his home in New York in 1885, upon the inauguration of Cleveland, and died November 18, 1886.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

GROVER CLEVELAND, TWENTY-SECOND

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, BENJAMIN HARRISON, TWENTY-THIRD, AND GROVER CLEVELAND AGAIN.

Cleveland's Luck - Inconspicuous as a Lawyer - No National Reputation till 1882- A Phenomenal Majority - His Nomination for the Presidency -New York the Pivot -His Famous Tariff Message, the Mills Bill and Defeat - Harrison the Gallant General, Great Senator, and Successful President The McKinley Bill and Reciprocity - The Sherman ActA Campaign of Misrepresentation - Cleveland Again - Great Democratic Prospects and their Collapse.

TEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND, or, as he has

ST

always officially signed his name, simply Grover Cleveland, became a became a Democratic presidential candidate by virtue of some mistakes made by the Republicans in New York, and he became President by virtue of a plurality of 1,027 in the pivotal vote of New York, after an exciting contest. Until Cleveland was elected mayor of Buffalo in 1881, he was hardly known in New York. Until he was elected Governor of New York, he was hardly known anywhere else. In both cases he received greater aid from certain fortunate circumstances than from any record he had himself made.

He was born in Caldwell, Essex county, N. J., March 18, 1837. Three years later his father, a Presbyterian

minister, received a call to Fayetteville, N. Y., and the

young man received his common school education there, and then took an academic course in Clinton. At the age of sixteen he was thrown on his own resources by the death of his father, and he became a bookkeeper and assistant teacher in the New York Institution for the Blind. Two years later he started westward, intending to settle in Cleveland and study law. But his uncle in Buffalo, William F. Allen, enlisted him as a law student in a prominent firm there. He was admitted to practice in 1859, and soon, in a small way, began to take part in politics. He became assistant district attorney for Erie county in 1863, and was defeated as the Democratic candidate for district attorney in 1865. He made no noteworthy progress in his profession, but in 1870 was elected sheriff, a position of considerable political importance. At the conclusion of his term he returned to his practice of law, his firm becoming in 1881 Cleveland, Bissell & Sicard, and the same year his political influence made him the Democratic candidate for mayor.

The Republican administration at Buffalo had become unsatisfactory to many Republicans of an independent turn of mind, and Cleveland was elected. He made some reputation as a veto mayor, and secured the title of a reformer. He was never popular with the workers. In the contest for the Democratic nomination for governor of New York in 1882, he received the support of those opposed to the old Democratic methods, and as the Republican party in the State had become divided by factional strife, there was strong dissatisfaction with the Republican candidate, Charles J. Folger, then Secretary of the