[laughter] chester alan arthur was actually a, is actually an underappreciated president, in my mind, and i think david would agree with that. as i mentioned, chester alan arthur was chosen to be vice president because he represented the rival group within the republican party opposed to james garfield. he was traditionally under the thumb really of a new york political boss named rosco conkling. guiteau, when he shot garfield, he said publicly in writing several times, he said i am a estalwart and arthur will be president. and the morning after the shooting when arthur and conkling showed up at the new york, at the fifth avenue hotel in the new york city, there were death threats against him. many people thought there was something to it. he might have been involved. he wasn't, but these people thought that. chester alan arthur did a lot of soul searching in the weeks between the shooting and when he became president. and giving credit where due k he really recognized the problem created by the very harsh partisanship that led up to the shooting. and when he became president, he refu

he was trying chester alan arthur and his circle of friends the president answer: the united states. it was a regime change and that is scary when you think about it. he was successful in doing it. >> host: i'm going to steal a question that was asked earlier this week. abraham lincoln is ranked the number one. james buchanan who preceded him and johnson came after him. >> he is hisnd historihere's hic kryptonite you don't want to be close to him. [laughter] he has the greatest challenges of any president i think you did such a wonderful job it is hard to look good thanks to that but both canon and johnson were cosmically unsuccessful bid and almost did nothing to stop it. the first half of the 20th century he was celebrated for having brought the south back to the union. then it finally around the 1950s, people started saying there was a part of the country that he didn't heal very well in that has to awareness as it has grown and caused him to decline. it is worth noting and i think it's not the sort of thing the survey canhe correct for, but it was a hard set of problems that they

mill arizona fill fillmore, an dry johnson, chester arthur, teddy involved, calvin cool usage, harry truman and lyndon johnson could have ascended to the role offing president instead of president. that's the story of the first accidental president and what happened. now, what i want to do is juxtapose what i think is the biggest catastrophe with what if think is the biggest success story of an accidental president. i'm almost tempted to say despite the fact that we more or less winged presidential succession, and despite the fact that the founding fathers gave us a guide but nothing close a blueprint, i'm tempted to save we navigated through pretty well and got pretty lucky. it's a remarkable story and i can almost say that except for the fact that when abraham lincoln died we got andrew johnson and were suppose to get lincoln's vision of reconstruction, instead the bullet of john wilkes booth gives us andrew johnson, man born a racistest died a racist, the last president tone orr enenslave, didn't emancipate his slaves until seven months later and a man as president resurrect almos