Republican · 1881–1885
Chester A. Arthur
A machine politician who signed the Pendleton Civil Service Act.
Chester A. Arthur was president 1881–1885. The party color on the chart is Republican. Early presidents are not forced into today’s party names. The placement note is: A machine politician who signed the Pendleton Civil Service Act.
The dot is economics +16 and authority +10. That is right of center on economics. The other axis sits near the middle. Color and place are allowed to disagree. Theodore Roosevelt sits left of Grover Cleveland on economics.
What was said, and what the administration did, are filed separately. Said: He had been a collector of the port, a machine man. Done: He signed the Pendleton Act anyway. Where those two sentences pull apart, the dot follows the governing record, not the slogan.
The nearest other presidents on these two numbers are Rutherford B. Hayes (1877–1881, +14 / +14) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961, +18 / +14). A small distance can join people who would have disliked each other. The chart is a compression, not a claim that they were alike.
Presidents are not placed with the Voteview roll-call score used for the current Congress. Two axes cannot carry a war, a court, a tariff, and a civil-rights record as separate facts.