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| USA Coinage: 1881 - 1884 | ||||||||
| under President: Chester Alan Arthur | ||||||||
| Chester Alan Arthur (October 05, 1829 – November 18, 1886) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 21st President of the United States (September 19, 1881 – March 04, 1885); he succeeded James Abram Garfield upon the latter's assassination. At the outset, Arthur struggled to overcome a slightly negative reputation, which stemmed from his early career in politics as part of New York's Republican political machine. He succeeded by embracing the cause of civil service reform. His advocacy for, and subsequent enforcement of, the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was the centerpiece of his administration. | ||||||||
| The United States presidential election of 1880 was the 24th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 1880. The voter turnout rate was one of the highest in the nation's history. Incumbent President Rutherford B. Hayes did not seek re-election, keeping a promise made during the 1876 campaign. After the longest convention in the party's history, the divided Republicans chose another Ohioan, Representative James A. Garfield, as their standard-bearer. The Democratic Party chose General Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania as their nominee. The dominance of the two major parties began to fray as an upstart left-wing party, the Greenback Party, nominated another Civil War general for president, Iowa Congressman James B. Weaver. In a campaign fought mainly over issues of Civil War loyalties, tariffs, and Chinese immigration, Garfield and Hancock each took just over 48 percent of the popular vote. Weaver and two other minor candidates, Neal Dow and John W. Phelps, together made up the remaining percentage. The election of 1880 was the sixth consecutive presidential election won by the Republicans, the second longest winning streak in American history after the Democratic-Republican Party during the period 1800–1824. In the end, the popular vote totals of the two main candidates were separated by 1,898 votes, the smallest victory in the popular vote ever recorded. In the electoral college, however, Garfield's victory was decisive; he won nearly all of the populous Northern states to achieve a majority of 48.27% (214 electoral votes from 19 states) to 48.25% (155 electoral votes from 19 states) for Hancock. Hancock's sweep of the Southern states was not enough for victory, but it cemented his party's dominance of the region for generations. | ||||||||
| A more contentious debate materialized over the status of Chinese immigrants; in January 1868, the Senate had ratified the Burlingame Treaty with China, allowing an unrestricted flow of Chinese into the country. As the economy soured after the Panic of 1873, Chinese immigrants were blamed for depressing workmen's wages; in reaction Congress in 1879 attempted to abrogate the 1868 treaty by passing the Chinese Exclusion Act, but President Hayes vetoed it. Three years later, after China had agreed to treaty revisions, Congress tried again to exclude Chinese immigrants; Senator John F. Miller of California introduced another Chinese Exclusion Act that denied Chinese immigrants United States citizenship and banned their immigration for a twenty-year period. The bill passed the Senate and House by overwhelming margins, but this as well was vetoed by Arthur, who concluded the 20-year ban to be a breach of the renegotiated treaty of 1880. That treaty allowed only a "reasonable" suspension of immigration. Eastern newspapers praised the veto, while it was condemned in the Western states. Congress was unable to override the veto, but passed a new bill reducing the immigration ban to ten years. Although he still objected to this denial of citizenship to Chinese immigrants, Arthur acceded to the compromise measure, signing the Chinese Exclusion Act into law on May 06, 1882. | ||||||||
| Arthur arrived in Washington, D.C. on September 21, 1881. On September 22 he re-took the oath of office, this time before Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite. Arthur took this step to ensure procedural compliance; there had been a lingering question about whether a state court judge (Brady) could administer a federal oath of office. He initially took up residence at the home of Senator John P. Jones, while White House remodeling he ordered was carried out, including the addition of an elaborate fifty-foot glass screen made by Louis Comfort Tiffany, which remained in a White House corridor until it was dismantled in 1902. Arthur's sister, Mary Arthur McElroy, served as White House hostess for her widowed brother; Arthur became Washington's most eligible bachelor and his social life became the subject of rumors, though romantically, he remained singularly devoted to the memory of his late wife.[133] His son, Chester Jr., was then a freshman at Princeton University and his daughter, Nell, stayed in New York with a governess until 1882; when she arrived, Arthur shielded her from the intrusive press as much as he could. | ||||||||
| As the 1884 presidential election approached, James G. Blaine was considered the favorite for the Republican nomination, but Arthur, too, contemplated a run for a full term as president. In the months leading up to the 1884 Republican National Convention, however, Arthur began to realize that neither faction of the Republican party was prepared to give him their full support. Blaine led on the first ballot, and by the fourth ballot he had a majority. Arthur telegraphed his congratulations to Blaine and accepted his defeat with equanimity. He played no role in the 1884 campaign, which Blaine would later blame for his loss that November to the Democratic nominee, Grover Cleveland. | ||||||||
| After spending the summer
of 1886 in New London, Connecticut, he returned home, and became seriously
ill and, on November 16, ordered nearly all of his papers, both personal and
official, burned. The next morning, Arthur suffered a cerebral hemorrhage
and never regained consciousness; he died the following day, November 18, at
the age of 57. On November 22, a private funeral was held at the Church of
the Heavenly Rest in New York City, attended by President Cleveland and
ex-President Hayes, among other notables. Arthur was buried with his family
members and ancestors in the Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands, New York. He
was laid beside his wife in a sarcophagus on a large corner of the plot. In
1889, a monument was placed on Arthur's burial plot by sculptor Ephraim
Keyser of New York, consisting of a giant bronze female angel figure placing
a bronze palm leaf on a granite sarcophagus. In 1898, the Arthur memorial statue - a fifteen-foot (4.6 m), bronze figure of Arthur standing on a Barre Granite pedestal was created by sculptor George Edwin Bissell and installed at Madison Square, in New York City. The statue was dedicated in 1899 and unveiled by Arthur's sister, Mary Arthur McElroy. At the dedication, Secretary of War Elihu Root described Arthur as, "...wise in statesmanship and firm and effective in administration," while acknowledging that Arthur was isolated in office and unloved by his own party. |
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| Currency: Dollar = 100 cents | ||||||||
| Monetary System: Penny = Cent, Trime = 3 Cents, Nickel = 5 Cents, Dime = 10 Cents, Quarter = 25 Cents, Half Dollar = 50, Cents, Dollar = 100 Cents, Quarter Eagle = $2.50 Gold, Stella = $4.00 Gold, Half Eagle = $5.00 Gold, Eagle = $10.00 Gold and Double Eagle = $20.00 Gold. | ||||||||
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Mint Marks: C – Charlotte, N.C., 1838-1861. CC – Carson City, NV, 1870-1893. D – Dahlonega, GA, 1838-1861. D – Denver, CO, 1906-present. O – New Orleans, LA, 1838-1909. P – Philadelphia, PA, 1793-present (coins without mintmark also belongs to Philadelphia). S – San Francisco, CA, 1854-present. W – West Point, NY, 1984-present. |
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| 1881 | ||||||||
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| 1882 | ||||||||
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| 1883 | ||||||||
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| 1884 | ||||||||
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coins issued during the Presidential rulers of United States:
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