Elected vice president on the Republican ticket of 1880, Arthur acceded to the presidency upon the assassination of President James A. Garfield. As president, he confounded his critics and dismayed many of his friends among the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party by supporting the Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883), which provided for the open appointment and promotion of federal employees based on merit rather than patronage. (For a discussion of the history and nature of the presidency, presidency of the United States of America.)
Arthur was the son of William Arthur, a Baptist minister, and Malvina Stone. After graduating in 1848 from Union College in Schenectady, New York, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Arthur studied law and simultaneously taught school; he was admitted to the New York bar in 1854 and joined a law firm in New York City. One year later, he successfully represented Lizzie Jennings, an African American, in her suit against a Brooklyn streetcar company for forcing her off a car reserved for whites. The landmark victory led to a New York law forbidding discrimination in public transportation. An ardent abolitionist, Arthur also pleaded successfully the case of a slave who sued for his freedom on the ground that his master had brought him temporarily to the free state of New York.
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