In 1878, President Rutherford B. Hayes fired Arthur as part of a plan to reform the federal patronage system in New York. Garfield won the Republican nomination for president in 1880, and Arthur was nominated for vice president to balance the ticket as an Eastern Stalwart. He presided over the rebirth of the US Navy, but he was criticized for failing to alleviate the federal budget surplus which had been accumulating since the end of the Civil War. Arthur reluctantly signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred the entry of Chinese laborers. The 1875 Page Act barred Chinese women from entering the country and was the first total ban on a nation or ethnic group from immigrating to the country.
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