January 30, 1835—Andrew Jackson’s attendance at a Congressman’s funeral almost ended in his own, the result of the first attempt on an American President’s life.
The shooting—actually, two shots at close range—also led to the first Presidential assassination conspiracy theory. It was peddled by none other than Old Hickory himself, who, though he may have been wrong about the ultimate agent behind his attempted assassination, correctly sensed the dark currents of disunion and madness that resulted in Abraham Lincoln’s murder 30 years later.
Along with John F. Kennedy, Jackson belongs on the short list of Presidents whose life spans exceeded their life expectancies. Though JFK was only 46 when he was assassinated, he had dodged death at least a few times before: in WWII, surviving an attack on his PT boat; two years after the war, enduring the onset of Addison’s disease and being given last rites by the Roman Catholic Church; in the mid-50s, suffering through two failed back operations.
Similarly, his predecessor—the first Democrat in the White House—had survived brushes with death. In the American Revolution, Jackson—the only President ever to be a POW—was slashed in the head and on the left hand by the British, then contracted smallpox; in middle age, he was left with bullets from a duel and a gunfight that left him in deep discomfort for the rest of his life; then, after the War of 1812, he endured malaria, dysentery and chronic abdominal pain. Oh, and did I mention rheumatism so bad that he complained it made it hard even to write?
By the time of his second inauguration in 1833, the President looked so frail that that diarist Philip Hone, observing the proceedings, was ready to lay “large odds” that Jackson wouldn’t survive the exertions of the day.
That thought might have entered the minds of more than a few Congressmen who were gathered, like Jackson, to pay their last respects to their colleague Warren Davis of South Carolina. Dampness in the Capitol that day would only have solidified the feeling. But danger came not from a virus, but from a virulently insane house painter who suddenly appeared as Jackson stepped out of the Capitol and started walking down the East Portico with two of his Cabinet members.
Let’s stop for a minute and consider this episode, from the standpoints of American culture, Presidential studies and Jacksonian historiography.
Most people consider John Wilkes Booth the first Presidential assassin, but Booth was only the first to succeed in killing a President. Richard Lawrence, the unemployed English emigrant now intent on doing in Jackson, was really the first. (Historians don’t count the fellow who punched Jackson in the face. HE dismissed it, I suppose the reasoning goes, so why shouldn’t they?)
Yet surprisingly, until recently, Lawrence’s attempt was seldom discussed by Jackson historians. Even Arthur Schlesinger Jr. left it out of The Age of Jackson, a history so filled with irony, brilliant characterization and bravura storytelling that it won its 28-year-old author the Pulitzer Prize. Likewise, a fine, in-depth Web site devoted to the Presidency, operated by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, does not mention it.
That neglect has encouraged non-historians not to consider it, either—including Stephen Sondheim. If a Presidential assassin who left his mark by ending the life of the President was what he aimed to portray, then what were Sara Jane Moore and Lynette (“Squeaky”) Fromme (Gerald Ford’s would-be killers) doing in his lineup of characters?
Back to Lawrence, then. He blamed Jackson for all his misfortunes, but it’s hard to find any substance in this:
The shooting—actually, two shots at close range—also led to the first Presidential assassination conspiracy theory. It was peddled by none other than Old Hickory himself, who, though he may have been wrong about the ultimate agent behind his attempted assassination, correctly sensed the dark currents of disunion and madness that resulted in Abraham Lincoln’s murder 30 years later.
Along with John F. Kennedy, Jackson belongs on the short list of Presidents whose life spans exceeded their life expectancies. Though JFK was only 46 when he was assassinated, he had dodged death at least a few times before: in WWII, surviving an attack on his PT boat; two years after the war, enduring the onset of Addison’s disease and being given last rites by the Roman Catholic Church; in the mid-50s, suffering through two failed back operations.
Similarly, his predecessor—the first Democrat in the White House—had survived brushes with death. In the American Revolution, Jackson—the only President ever to be a POW—was slashed in the head and on the left hand by the British, then contracted smallpox; in middle age, he was left with bullets from a duel and a gunfight that left him in deep discomfort for the rest of his life; then, after the War of 1812, he endured malaria, dysentery and chronic abdominal pain. Oh, and did I mention rheumatism so bad that he complained it made it hard even to write?
By the time of his second inauguration in 1833, the President looked so frail that that diarist Philip Hone, observing the proceedings, was ready to lay “large odds” that Jackson wouldn’t survive the exertions of the day.
That thought might have entered the minds of more than a few Congressmen who were gathered, like Jackson, to pay their last respects to their colleague Warren Davis of South Carolina. Dampness in the Capitol that day would only have solidified the feeling. But danger came not from a virus, but from a virulently insane house painter who suddenly appeared as Jackson stepped out of the Capitol and started walking down the East Portico with two of his Cabinet members.
Let’s stop for a minute and consider this episode, from the standpoints of American culture, Presidential studies and Jacksonian historiography.
Most people consider John Wilkes Booth the first Presidential assassin, but Booth was only the first to succeed in killing a President. Richard Lawrence, the unemployed English emigrant now intent on doing in Jackson, was really the first. (Historians don’t count the fellow who punched Jackson in the face. HE dismissed it, I suppose the reasoning goes, so why shouldn’t they?)
Yet surprisingly, until recently, Lawrence’s attempt was seldom discussed by Jackson historians. Even Arthur Schlesinger Jr. left it out of The Age of Jackson, a history so filled with irony, brilliant characterization and bravura storytelling that it won its 28-year-old author the Pulitzer Prize. Likewise, a fine, in-depth Web site devoted to the Presidency, operated by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, does not mention it.
That neglect has encouraged non-historians not to consider it, either—including Stephen Sondheim. If a Presidential assassin who left his mark by ending the life of the President was what he aimed to portray, then what were Sara Jane Moore and Lynette (“Squeaky”) Fromme (Gerald Ford’s would-be killers) doing in his lineup of characters?
Back to Lawrence, then. He blamed Jackson for all his misfortunes, but it’s hard to find any substance in this:
* Jackson was responsible for his father’s death—a truly strange claim, given that Mr. Lawrence had died nine years before his son came to the U.S.
* Jackson was also responsible for him losing his job--again, it’s hard to see the logic for this, particularly since, unlike the state of affairs that would ensue in two years, the U.S. economy was not in a panic.
* Jackson’s death would make money more plentiful—perhaps his logic being that the demise of the President would clear the way for the continued existence of the Second Bank of the United States, which Jackson had sought to destroy. (See my prior post on the Second Bank and its unfairly talented but deeply corrupt head, Nicholas Biddle.)
* He, Richard, was , in reality, nothing less than royalty—Richard III—and Jackson was his clerk.
The rest of this post will consider three aspects of the case:
* What happened next;
* What Jackson thought had happened;
* What could have happened if Lawrence found his mark.
Worst Target for an Assassination Ever
Really, I don’t think this subhead is in the slightest way hype. Despite his manifold infirmities, Andrew Jackson might have provoked more violent feelings—and violence—than any other man in antebellum America. In his late 60s and ailing, he was still dangerous.
Why, after all, does someone survive not just so many ailments but so much heartache, following the death of his beloved wife Rachel just after his election in 1828? If you were Jackson supporters, you said it was because God Himself was looking out for him.
Maybe yes, maybe no, ultimately speaking. But there’s another reason, much closer at hand, for Jackson’s endurance: he wanted to smite his enemies for their injustice, then outlive them.
All that time in the service of his country and on the frontier also made Jackson a master at what might seem impossible to you and me: thinking fast—and lethally—in life-and-death situations. And so, as he caught side of Lawrence’s pistol, then looked at what he had at hand—a cane--some advice he once gave a young friend probably echoed in his mind: Don’t swing a cane at head level—it’ll only be deflected; instead, hold it like a spear and punch the assailant in the stomach.
Oh, I just wrote Lawrence’s "pistol," right? Better make that pistols, plural. He had taken the precaution of bringing along a second firearm for the occasion, in case the first misfired. Good thinking—except that the second misfired, too.
(This did not occur because firearms were more balky things in the 19th century than they are today, though they indubitably were. The air in and around the Capitol was actually responsible. It was cold and wet to begin with. Worsening matters for Lawrence, according to Jon Meacham’s biography of Jackson, American Lion, was that a large, unfilled space, originally intended to hold the remains of George Washington, existed in the Rotunda, increasing the mistiness in the Capitol on that day—and, unluckily for Lawrence, rendering both his pistols useless.
And a good thing, too: Washington police later tested the errant weapons and found they worked perfectly.)
So now the second pistol is no good, and Lawrence looks up to find no support from onlookers, who have been suddenly roused and alarmed by the small explosions from the pistols. (In fact, even Jackson opponents such as Congressman Davy Crockett of Tennessee are about to tackle him.)
And worst of all, here comes Old Hickory himself, raising (his) cane, just as he had previously advised his young friend to do, striking his would-be assailant several times.
It was about this time, Lawrence later told investigators, that he felt genuine concern for his own safety. Men who had crossed Jackson, in one sense or another, before could certainly relate.
Lawrence was quickly subdued and taken away. In comparison with today’s convoluted legal proceedings, he came pretty quickly to trial, too—a mere two and a half months later. Francis Scott Key—yes, the composer of The Star-Spangled Banner—prosecuted him, but all Lawrence’s talk about being Richard III persuaded jurors that he’d be better off in medical settings where he could be watched carefully, and that’s where he went.
Only the case didn’t end for Jackson.
Old Hickory Smells a Conspiracy
Jackson knew he had enemies, and had even survived physical assaults upon his person in the White House. (Two years before, he had refused to have prosecuted a former navy lieutenant, Robert B. Randolph, who struck him in the face.) But now, he was certain it had reached a whole other level: a conspiracy to murder him, concocted by fellow members of the federal government.
He even had a ringleader for the plot: Senator George Poindexter of Mississippi, a former supporter-turned-opponent. What led Jackson to think this?
* Poindexter had thrown his support behind Jackson’s vice-president, John C. Calhoun, in the nullification crisis that resulted when South Carolina protested against the “Tariff of Abominations.”
* He scorned Jackson’s small group of informal advisers so much that he had helped popularize the nickname for them, the “Kitchen Cabinet.”
* He had accepted two large personal loans from Biddle.
* Perhaps not so surprisingly, he had, against Jackson’s wishes, supported rechartering the Second Bank of the United States.
* Jackson credited—and further disseminated—scuttlebutt that Poindexter had persuaded his third wife to marry him by offering her $20,000.
* Poindexter had taken exception to this, noting that at least he hadn’t taken her from another man—an echo of the charge that had plagued Jackson about his relationship with his beloved deceased wife Rachel.
* Poindexter had become a rival of Martin Van Buren’s, Jackson’s Vice President and handpicked choice to succeed him.
Poindexter, loudly proclaiming his innocence, demanded and won an investigation by his peers. In support of his claim, Jackson offered two affidavits saying that Lawrence had visited Poindexter’s house. Both had major holes owing to the motivations of the witnesses, however, and the Senate dismissed the allegations against Poindexter.
That left Jackson’s supporters to say what supporters of assassinated figures have cried out ever since, but especially in the 1960s: that the atmosphere of the times had become so poisoned that it had inflamed the gunman.
What Might Have Been
Ever since Lincoln, the deaths of prominent politicians who have been assassinated have inspired speculation about what they might have done had they never met their fate.
So far as I’m aware, nobody has created this kind of alternative history for Jackson. It might be because, unlike Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and JFK, he was past not just his first term but even the beginning of his second term. The major fight of his administration—the destruction of the Second Bank of the U.S.—had already run its course.
It’s doubtful that Van Buren could have done anything to stave off the economic disaster that would make him a one-term President. The kind of deep Presidential involvement with the economy that became the norm after the New Deal was still more than a century away. For all intents and purposes, the legacy of Old Hickory, for better or worse, was complete.
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