Everyone believed the prospects of civil service reform died with him. Everyone was wrong.

"By the end of Grant’s administration, the commission was defunct since Congress had not funded it. Even worse, Grant’s treasury secretary, Benjamin Bristow, discovered a cadre of federal officials who had defrauded the government of millions of dollars in internal-revenue taxes pertaining to whiskey sales and consumption. Grant refused to allow the perpetrators to be prosecuted and fired the prosecutor. Bristow resigned in protest. Grant’s successor, Rutherford B. Hayes, promised serious civil service reform and appointed a leading advocate for civil service reform, Carl Schurz, to his cabinet. Unable to get Congress to enact legislation to reform the civil service, Hayes conducted his own investigation of the New York Customs House and dismissed Arthur.4 With the exception of his battle to establish his authority over federal appointments in New York, Garfield was ambivalent about merit-based appointments. Everyone believed the prospects of civil service reform died with him. Everyone was wrong.

President Arthur did the opposite of what the Stalwarts urged him to do. While Garfield was battling Conkling for the prerogative to name the collector of New York, a major bill to reform civil service — the Pendleton Civil Service Act — had languished in the Senate. Whereas Garfield had not shown any support for the bill and Conkling expected it would die in the finance committee, Arthur declared in his first major address that nothing would “deter me from giving the measure my earnest support.” His support never wavered. Through his first year in office, Arthur understood that the political momentum for reform was overwhelming and that Congress merely had to approve the Senate bill that it already had pending before it. Again, he urged Congress to approve civil service reform, but Republican leaders were unmoved. They continued to oppose reform until the midterm elections of 1882, when the voters punished them for their opposition. In fact, the House experienced one of its largest reversals of control in history: Republicans went from a twelve-seat majority in the House to an almost eighty-seat deficit. While Republicans managed to gain control of the Senate by two seats, Senate leaders got the message. Knowing that Arthur was prepared to sign into law any reform that they approved, they quickly moved the bill onto the Senate floor, where just after Christmas, it passed 38–5, with thirty-three abstentions. Soon thereafter, thevote in the House was 155–47, with eighty-seven abstentions.

 The Constitutional Legacy of Forgotten Presidents, M i c h a e l J. G e r h a r d t