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Title: U.S. Mint Halts Presidential Commemorative Coins…No Chester A. Arthur
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URL Source: http://www.allgov.com/Unusual_News/ ... ns__No_Chester_A_Arthur_111216
Published: Dec 18, 2011
Author: -Noel Brinkerhoff
Post Date: 2011-12-18 15:29:58 by A K A Stone
Keywords: None
Views: 1809
Comments: 1
Saying there’s no point wasting money to make money, the Obama administration has decided to cancel production of commemorative presidential one dollar coins as part of its efforts to reduce government spending. The U.S Mint is expected to save about $50 million a year by not making the special coins. Since a 2005 law went into effect mandating the production of four new commemorative presidential coins a year, a total of 20 presidents have been honored, including Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes and James A. Garfield from the 19th century. But many of the coins are sitting in government warehouses due to lack of demand, said Vice President Joe Biden. “It will shock you all: the call for Chester A. Arthur coins is not there,” he told a group of reporters. Coin enthusiasts criticized the move, saying if the government really wanted to save money, it would stop printing $1 bills and replace them with coins. They point to a Government Accountability Office report that said going this route would save $184 million annually and $5.5 billion over 30 years. Pro-coin advocates are joined by those groups that profit from coinmaking, such as the mining, brass and copper industries and the United Steelworkers union. It is unclear what will become of the First Spouse Gold Coin Series. The most recent release, on December 1, was the coin honoring Lucretia Garfield, who was First Lady for six months.
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From wikipedia Early life [edit] Birth and family Chester Alan Arthur was born October 5, 1829, in Fairfield, Vermont.[note 1] His father, William Arthur, was born in County Antrim, Ireland, and emigrated to Dunham, Lower Canada (in present-day Quebec) in 1818 or 1819 after graduating from Belfast College.[5] Arthur's mother, Malvina Stone, was born in Vermont, the daughter of George Washington Stone and Judith Stevens. Malvina's family was primarily of English descent, and her grandfather, Uriah Stone, fought in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.[5] Arthur's mother met his father while he was teaching at a school in Dunham, just over the border from her native Vermont, and the two soon married.[5] After their first child, Regina, was born in Dunham, the Arthurs moved around Vermont in quick succession to Burlington, Jericho, and Waterville, as William moved to jobs with different schools.[5] In Waterville, William Arthur departed from his Presbyterian upbringing and joined the Free Will Baptists, spending the rest of his life as a minister in that sect.[5] He also became an outspoken abolitionist, which at times made him unpopular with parts of his congregations and contributed to the family's frequent moves.[6] In 1828, the family moved again, to Fairfield, where Chester Alan Arthur was born the following year.[4] He was named "Chester" after Chester Abell, the physician and family friend who assisted in his birth, and "Alan" after his paternal grandfather.[note 2] After Arthur's birth, the family remained in Fairfield until 1832, when the elder Arthur's profession took them on the road again to several towns in Vermont and upstate New York, finally settling in the Schenectady area.[7] William Arthur's frequent moves would later form the basis for accusations that Chester Arthur was not a native-born citizen of the United States. After Arthur was nominated for Vice President in 1880, his political opponents suggested that he might be constitutionally ineligible to hold that office.[8] A New York attorney, Arthur P. Hinman, apparently hired by his opponents, explored rumors of Arthur's foreign birth.[9] Hinman initially alleged that Arthur was born in Ireland and did not come to the United States until he was fourteen years old, which would make him ineligible for the Vice Presidency under the United States Constitution's natural-born citizen clause.[9][note 3] When that story did not take root, Hinman spread a new rumor that Arthur was born in Canada, but this claim also failed to gain credence.[9] [edit] Education Arthur spent some of his childhood years living in Perry and Greenwich, New York. During his time at school, his first political inclinations were to support the Whig Party, and he joined other young Whigs in support of Henry Clay, even participating in a brawl against those students supporting James K. Polk.[7] He also showed his support for the Fenian Brotherhood by wearing a green coat.[10] Arthur enrolled in Union College in 1845 where he studied the traditional classical curriculum.[7] As a senior there in 1848, at age 18, he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was president of the debate society.[10] During his winter breaks, Arthur taught school in Schaghticoke.[10] After graduating, Arthur returned to Schaghticoke and taught school full-time, but soon began to pursue an education in the law.[11] While studying law, he continued teaching, moving closer to home by taking a job teaching in North Pownal, Vermont.[11] Coincidentally, future President James A. Garfield would teach penmanship at the same school three years later, but the two did not cross paths.[12] In 1852, Arthur moved again, to Cohoes, New York, to become the principal of a school at which his sister Malvina was a teacher.[12] After saving enough money, and studying at State and National Law School in Ballston Spa, he moved to New York City the following year to read law at the law office of Erastus D. Culver, an abolitionist lawyer and family friend.[13] When Arthur was admitted to the bar in 1854, he joined the firm, which was renamed Culver, Parker, and Arthur.[14] [edit] Early career Black-and-white photograph of a young man with a mustache Arthur as a young lawyer [edit] New York lawyer When Arthur joined the firm, Culver and New York attorney John Jay (the grandson of the Founding Father of the same name) were pursuing a habeas corpus action against Jonathan Lemmon, a Virginia slaveholder who was passing through New York with his eight slaves.[15] In Lemmon v. New York, Culver argued that, as New York law did not permit slavery, any slave arriving in New York was automatically freed.[15] The argument was successful, and after several appeals was upheld by the New York Court of Appeals in 1860.[15] Campaign biographers would later give Arthur much of the credit for the victory; in fact his role was minor, although he was certainly an active participant in the case.[16] In another civil rights case in 1854, Arthur was the lead attorney representing Elizabeth Jennings Graham after she was denied a seat on a streetcar because she was black.[16] He won the case, and the verdict led to the desegregation of the New York City streetcar lines.[16] In 1856, Arthur courted Ellen Herndon, the daughter of William Lewis Herndon, a Virginia naval officer.[17] The two were soon engaged to be married.[18] Later that year, he started a new law partnership with a friend, Henry D. Gardiner, and traveled with him to Kansas to consider purchasing land and setting up a law practice there.[16] At that time, the state was the scene of a brutal struggle between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces, and Arthur lined up firmly with the latter.[19] The rough frontier life did not agree with the genteel New Yorkers; after three or four months the two young lawyers returned to New York City, where Arthur comforted his fiancée after her father was lost at sea in the wreck of the SS Central America.[19] In 1859, they were married at Calvary Episcopal Church in Manhattan.[20] After his marriage, Arthur devoted his efforts to building his law practice, but also found time to engage in Republican party politics.[21] [edit] Civil War Black-and-white photograph of a woman with dark hair Arthur married Ellen Herndon in 1859. In 1860, Arthur was appointed to the military staff of Governor Edwin D. Morgan.[21] The office was a patronage appointment of minor importance until the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861, when New York and the other northern states were faced with raising and equipping armies of a size never before seen in American history.[22] Arthur was given the rank of brigadier general and assigned to the quartermaster department.[22] He was so efficient at housing and outfitting the troops that poured into New York City that he was promoted within the state militia to inspector general in February 1862, and then to quartermaster general that July.[23] He had an opportunity to serve at the front when the 9th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment elected him colonel early in the war, but at Governor Morgan's request, he turned it down to remain at his post in New York.[24] The closest Arthur came to the front was when he traveled south to inspect New York troops near Fredericksburg, Virginia, in May 1862, shortly after forces under Major General Irwin McDowell seized the town during the Peninsula Campaign.[25] That summer, he and other representatives of northern governors met with Secretary of State William H. Seward in New York to coordinate the raising of additional troops, and spent the next few months enlisting New York's quota of 120,000 men.[25] Arthur received plaudits for his work, but his post was a political one, and he was relieved of his office in January 1863 when Governor Horatio Seymour, a Democrat, took office.[26] Arthur returned to his law practice in 1863 and the firm of Arthur & Gardiner flourished.[27] Even as his professional life improved, however, Arthur and his wife experienced a personal tragedy as their only child, William, died suddenly that year at the age of three.[28] The couple took their son's death hard, and when they had another son, Chester Alan Jr., in 1864, they lavished attention on him.[29] They would also have a daughter, Ellen, in 1871. Both children survived to adulthood.[30] Arthur's political prospects improved along with his law practice when his patron, ex-Governor Morgan, was elected to the United States Senate.[31] He was hired by Thomas Murphy, a hatter who sold goods to the Union Army, to represent him in Washington. The two became associates within New York Republican party circles, eventually rising in the ranks of the conservative branch of the party dominated by Thurlow Weed.[31] In the presidential election of 1864, Arthur and Murphy raised funds from Republicans in New York and attended Abraham Lincoln's inauguration in 1865.[32]
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