In transport from Virginia to Texas, these slaves had been brought temporarily to New York by their master. In what became known as the Lemmon Case, Erastus D. Culver successfully argued for a writ of habeas corpus, freeing the slaves from incarceration in the city jail, where their owner had placed them for safekeeping, and thus bondage. This court ruling allegedly violated the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law and called into question the agreements made in the Compromise of Young Arthur spent much of his time as clerk in Culver's firm handling details of the appeal.
Arthur made numerous trips to the state capital, Albany, to assist in arguments before the New York Supreme Court. The final court decision in upheld the initial ruling, and Arthur's work put him in touch with the leading legal minds in the state and the most prominent state politicians. A second case was also instrumental in advancing Arthur's public profile.
The firm defended a black woman, Elizabeth Jennings, who had been forced out of the white section of a Brooklyn streetcar when she refused to leave the section reserved for whites.
Jennings's case predated Rosa Parks' case in the s by over years; Parks' defiant act involving racially segregated motor buses in Montgomery, Alabama, launched the historic civil rights movement led by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. The case forced all New York City railroad companies to seat black passengers without prejudice on their streetcars.
As was common in those days, young unmarried men frequently lived in boardinghouses, where they took meals in family-style settings, socialized with fellow boarders, and tried to establish the appearance of a home life.
Arthur lived in such a "family hotel" on Broadway. While there, he befriended a young medical student from Virginia, Dabney Herndon, who frequently visited with relatives living nearby. Arthur occasionally accompanied his friend on these family visits, and Herndon's cousin, the young Ellen "Nell" Lewis Herndon, soon caught Arthur's eye. The two—she was twenty-two and he was thirty—were married on October 25, When the Civil War broke out, Arthur stood primed for duty.
In , he joined the state militia principally out of a desire for companionship and political connections. In a rush to staff key positions, the Republican governor appointed Arthur to be engineer-in-chief with the rank of quartermaster general in the New York Volunteers. He served in that post with great efficiency, obtaining the rank of brigadier general. Responsible for provisioning and housing the several hundred thousand soldiers supplied by the state to the federal cause, as well as for the defenses of New York, Arthur dealt with hundreds of private contractors and military personnel.
The military service played to his advantage; he gained a reputation for efficiency, administrative genius, and reliability. Although eager to serve in a battlefield position, Arthur never pressed his case.
His wife, a Virginian with family members in the Confederacy, could not tolerate the thought of her husband taking up arms against them. Moreover, his sister had married an official of the Confederate government who was stationed in Petersburg, Virginia.
Upon his retirement from duty in , Arthur threw himself into his law practice, representing clients suing for war-related damages and reimbursements. Biographer Thomas C. Arthur made himself a year younger, no doubt, out of simple vanity, sometime between and Cited: Howe, George Frederick.
Chester A. New York: Ungar Publishing, Chester Arthur: A Birthplace Controversy, By struggling with the tariff issue especially being willing to question the protectionist doctrines of the Republican Party and supporting the modernization of the American Navy, Arthur stands as an important transitional figure in the reunification of the nation after the bitter turmoil of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
No party hack, Arthur demonstrated how the office of President could bring out the very best in its occupants. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes James A. Garfield Chester A. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Bush Bill Clinton George W.
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