Chester A. Arthur

Chester Alan Arthur, born October 5, 1829, in Fairfield, Vermont, and died November 18, 1886, served as the twenty-first President of the United States from 1881 to 1885, succeeding to office on the assassination of James A. Garfield. Despite having built his earlier career within the patronage-based spoils system of New York politics, as president he signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, which established competitive examinations for many federal jobs and began the transition to a merit-based civil service. He did not seek a full term of his own in 1884, in part because of declining health from a kidney disease that was largely kept from the public at the time.