If “Eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary and no more.”  President Arthur’s inaugural address is one of its best examples.  He was placed in a position of the gravest difficulty.  He had been nominated for Vice-President as a representative of the “Stalwart” Republicans when that element of the party had been defeated in National convention by the element then described as “Half-Breeds.”  After the assassination of President Garfield by the “paranoiac” Guiteau, the country waited with breathless interest to hear what the Vice-President would say in taking the Presidency.  With a tact which amounted to genius, which never failed him during his administration, which in its results showed itself equivalent to the highest statesmanship, Mr. Arthur, a man to whom his opponents had been unwilling to concede more than mediocre abilities, rose to the occasion, disarmed factional oppositions, mitigated the animosity of partisanship, and during his administration did more than had been done before him to re-unite the sections divided by Civil War.

He was born in Fairfield, Vermont, October 5th, 1830.  His father, Rev. William Arthur, a Baptist clergyman, born in Ireland, gave him a good education, sending him to Union College where he graduated in 1848.  After teaching school in Vermont, he studied law and began practice in New York city.  Entering politics as a Henry Clay Whig, and casting his first vote in 1852 for Winfield Scott, he was active as a Republican in the Fremont campaign of 1856 and from that time until elected to the Vice-Presidency took that strong interest in public affairs which led his opponents to class him as a “professional politician.”  During the Civil War he was inspector-general and quarter-master general of New York troops.  In 1871 President Grant appointed him collector of the port of New York and he held the office until July 1878. when he was suspended by President Hayes.  Taking an active part in the movement to nominate General Grant for the Presidency to succeed Mr. Hayes. he attended the Republican convention of 1880, and after the defeat of the Grant forces, he was nominated as their representative for the Vice-Presidency.  He died suddenly in New York city, November 18th, 1886, having won for himself during his administration as President the good-will of so many of his political opponents that the future historian will probably study his administration as that during which the most notable changes of the decade were made from the politics of the Civil War period.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS (Delivered September 22d, 1881)

For the fourth time in the history of the Republic its chief magistrate has been removed by death.  All hearts are filled with grief and horror at the hideous crime which has darkened our land, and the memory of the murdered President, his protracted sufferings, his unyielding fortitude, the example and achievements of his life and the pathos of his death will forever illumine the pages of our history.