Chester Alan Arthur was one of the few presidents that were never elected, since he took office after James Garfield's assassination, after which he served for the better part of a full term. Arthur was originally an American attorney and his early involvement with politics was with the New York branch of the Republican Party.
Arthur's politics didn't particularly please other Republicans, and this led him to be one of the few Presidents to fail to win his party nomination for re-election. Some historians suspect that this maneuver was planned and that Arthur purposely didn't campaign very aggressively because he knew about his fatal kidney disease - a condition that he kept secret from all. In the end, his kidney disease led to his death less than two years after the end of his mandate as president.