Chester Arthur, then a young lawyer, before his marriage to Ellen Herndon in 1859
A few years earlier, he successfully represented a black woman, Elizabeth Jennings Graham, who was denied a seat on a streetcar in New York City due to her race. This helped lead to the desegregation of all New York transit systems in 1865.
Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife on their wedding day, December 30, 1852
Later, he was nominated to run for Congress while he was still in the Army during the Civil War. He accepted, but would not campaign, saying: “An officer fit for duty who at this crisis would abandon his post to electioneer… ought to be scalped.”
