The unexpected president
Subtitle: the life and times of Chester A. Arthur
By: Scott S. Greenberger
Edition: First edition.
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 304
ISBN-13: 9780306823893
Subjects: Politics and government; Presidents; Biography; Political and social views
Description: "When President James Garfield was shot, no one in the United States was more dismayed than his Vice President, Chester Arthur. For years Arthur had been perceived as unfit to govern, not only by critics and his fellow citizens but by his own conscience. From his promising start, Arthur had become a political hack, a shill for Roscoe Conkling, and Arthur knew better even than his detractors that he failed to meet the high standard a president must uphold. And yet, from the moment President Arthur took office, he proved to be not just honest but courageous, going up against the very forces that had controlled him for decades. Arthur surprised everyone--and gained many enemies--when he swept house and courageously took on corruption, civil rights for blacks, and issues of land for Native Americans. His short presidency proved to be a turning point of American history, in many ways a preview of our own times, and is a sterling example of how someone can 'rise to the occasion.' This beautifully written biography tells the dramatic, untold story of a virtually forgotten American president, a machine politician and man-about-town in Gilded Age New York who stumbled into the highest office in the land only to rediscover his better self, right when his nation needed him"--Provided by publisher.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-290) and index.
Table of contents: title: Prologue; title: Elder Arthur; title: "This Is the Place"; title: Bleeding Kansas; title: Playing the Game; title: Barracks and Blankets; title: The Shoddy Aristocracy; title: The Lordly Roscoe; title: The Collector; title: From Grant to Hayes; title: His Fraudulency, the President; title: "The One I Loved Dearest"; title: Dark Horse; title: "A Great Deal of Soap"; title: "An Ugly Wound"; title: A Mysterious Correspondent; title: "He Is Our President"; title: "A Splendid Henry V"; title: A Surprise Visit; title: An Attack in Savannah; title: "Between Two Stools"; title: "Fame is a Bubble"; title: Epilogue.