The first assassination of a president in U.S. history
In 1835, Andrew Jackson nearly became the first U.S. president to be killed during his tenure. At the time, there was no Secret Service and no one really paying attention to the threats facing the president, which made Jackson's survival even more incredible. If it weren't for the two dud guns and Jackson's love of close combat, history could have turned out very differently.
Richard Lawrence, who wanted to assassinate Jackson, was not a pawn of the Whigs, or even a politician. After moving from England to the United States at the age of 12, he spent most of his life as a house painter and never got into any trouble until he contracted a mysterious mental illness. Historians believe that the toxic chemicals in the pigments Lawrence used completely changed his character in his thirties, and the once mild-mannered young man began to dress flamboyantly, provoking fights and ordering people to call him Richard III.
Shortly before he attempted to assassinate President Jackson, Lawrence quit his job and announced he was going back to Britain, but then made vague remarks that it was not safe to travel in Britain. Over the next few weeks, he became increasingly paranoid and emotionally unstable, tracking Jackson's movements while complaining loudly that Jackson had prevented him from getting a large sum of money. On the day he decided to do something, a witness saw him laughing with a book in the paint shop, and suddenly he stood up and said, "If I don't do it, I'm going to die."
On January 30, 1835, Jackson attended the funeral of South Carolina Rep. Warren Davis at the U.S. Capitol. Armed with two pistols, Lawrence followed the president to the Capitol and tried to shoot and kill the president before the ceremony, but he could not take a vantage point close enough. The funeral went on peacefully, but by the time Jackson left, Lawrence was ready.
As Jackson passed by, Lawrence jumped out from behind the pillars of the east porch and fired the first shot at Jackson in the back, but nothing happened. It turned out that the gun had gone off, but Lawrence didn't have time for this technical troubleshooting. He shot with a second pistol. The same thing happened. About 100 years later, researchers at the Smithsonian Institution tested Lawrence's weapon and found no problems. The chance of both pistols being dud is about one in 125,000. It is now thought that the unusually damp day might have dampened gunpowder in Lawrence's pistol, which is the only reason the president survived to Jan. 31.
Despite the spectacle, Jackson noticed that someone was trying to kill him, so he beat Lawrence on the head with a cane until his own assistant rescued the attempted killer from him. In 1835, although Jackson was 67 years old and in poor health, he was really not the one you wanted to mess with: he was orphaned from an early age and a prisoner of war at the age of 13. Basically, it can be said that he is experienced and well-informed. He remains one of the toughest presidents in U.S. history. As a result of recent clashes with rivals over the Whig Party's dissolution of Bank of America, he and many of his aides believe that opposition parties will do whatever it takes, even murder, to get what they want. Vice President Martin Van Buren was very wary of the Whig Party, carrying double guns with him every time he visited the Senate, so Jackson was more intolerant of the farce than usual.
Lawrence's fate
At first, Jackson thought Lawrence was complicit with his Whig enemies because of his recent feud with the Whigs over the dissolution of Bank of America, but at his trial, it became clear that Lawrence was simply an out-of-touch man. Dressed in a hunting suit and tie, he continued to insist on being called Richard III, explaining that he would have to kill Jackson (he claimed jackson killed his father) in order to reclaim the large fortune Jackson had been hiding from him and gain his legal status on the British throne. #美国总统 #
It took the jury five minutes to acquit Lawrence on the grounds of insanity. Before sentencing him, Lawrence declared, "Gentlemen, it should have been announced to you, not to me," and then he spent the rest of his life in the major psychiatric hospitals. In 1855, he was placed in a government psychiatric hospital in Washington, D.C., where he lived until his death on June 13, 1861. #遇刺 #
