Imagine a president with no training for the job. No political experience. Never held a government job. Could he succeed?
In 1881, Chester Arthur was quaking in his boots at the thought of becoming the president, as President James Garfield valiantly struggled to recover from an assassin’s bullet in his chest. Even Alexander Graham Bell, using his prototype for the first metal detector, could not find the bullet embedded in Garfield’s chest (the metal bedsprings interfered with his signal) and after fewer than six months in office, Garfield died at his Long Branch, N.J. retreat.
Arthur’s sudden rise to an office he desperately feared is an interesting anecdote from American presidential history, yet we are not suggesting we can predict the future of President-elect Donald J. Trump. Some of the parallels are not apt.
Our Constitution Contest has been extended to Sunday night, Nov. 27th. Only 7 questions and you may be the winner of a gift certificate to the History Dr. Makes a great Christmas or Hanukkah gift, or use it as kindling for your fireplace. I promise you will learn something, in any case. And nobody will know but you and Google.
The story of Chester Arthur (as well as the polling from the 2016 election) shows that the conventional wisdom can mislead. In history, the best predictor of the future is the past, but it is no guarantee.
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