On this day in 1835, Richard Lawrence tried to gun down Andrew Jackson in the Capitol building, the first presidential assassination attempt in American history. And while this is clearly a job for my co-blogger, who cultivates his image as “Assassination Boy*,” I do have a few thoughts on the subject.
Lawrence, a painter, seems to have been driven mad by the fumes from his materials. Not that wanting to kill Andrew Jackson was evidence of madness. On the contrary. Anyway, by 1835, Lawrence had, for some time, believed that he was Richard III. Which is odd, because King Richard had died roughly four centuries earlier. Odder still? Lawrence suspected that Jackson was blocking his ascendance to the throne. When, in fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. Jackson was a huge Plantagenetophile. As everyone knows. So why would he have stood in the way of Lawrence’s restoration? Something doesn’t add up here.
Regardless, Lawrence decided to kill Jackson. And in the event, after both of Lawrence’s pistols misfired, a crowd of congressman, including Davy Crockett, pinned him to the ground. Jackson then beat Lawrence with a cane. After Davy Crockett had already whupped him. Nice.
So here’s the thing: given that Lawrence was obviously mentally ill**, it’s pretty clear that Andrew Jackson, in addition to having been an unrepentant slaveholder and a bloodthirsty killer of Indians, hated the disabled. Right? So now can we please stop treating him like a hero? Let the denigration begin.
* Did you know that Eric had an IMDB page? Neither did I. Withholding stands in the way of the therapeutic process, Eric.
** Why else would the King of England be working in the United States as a painter? Try and keep up, people. It’s simple.
23 comments
January 30, 2008 at 4:08 am
Ben Alpers
While we’re on the subject of presidential assassinations, and at the risk of thread-jacking, I have a historiographical question that’s long bothered me and for which you and/or Assassination Boy™ might have an interesting answer:
Why have actual historians written so little on the Kennedy assassination? Both the Oswald-did-it literature and (perhaps less surprisingly) the CT literature are dominated by books written by non-scholars (or at least people whose training and expertise are not in U.S. history).
January 30, 2008 at 5:59 am
eric
Lawrence was as insane as… well, to borrow from Richard IV, as insane as a very insane thing.
But he was also fixated on the Bank war — as many non-insane people were — and Jackson assumed his assailant was not mad, but rather, a tool of his political opponents. Strange how insanity — even unto the point of murder — seems to politicians to reflect the normal political culture. Does this make Jackson mad? Discuss.
Ben, I believe the answer to “Why have actual historians written so little on the Kennedy assassination?” is probably some version of Gresham’s Law.
As for my IMDB page, I also have an Erdős–Bacon number, if you allow an appearance “as himself” to provide the basis for a Bacon number.
January 30, 2008 at 6:12 am
eric
Oh, and you also have to allow non-mathematical publications for the Erdös number. But still.
January 30, 2008 at 6:28 am
ac
Maybe Jackson was more of a Bolingbroke Plantagenetophile.
January 30, 2008 at 6:41 am
eric
I can see a new interpretation of Whig/Jacksonian conflict emerging.
January 30, 2008 at 7:00 am
Galvinji
Did you know that Eric had an IMDB page? Neither did I. Withholding stands in the way of the therapeutic process, Eric.
Of course, you do too. Although I would have thought it would refer to this film.
And since the Plantagenets were gone nearly a century before Richard III (I think Richard II is generally considered the last Plantagenet), Jackson would have had to have been a Yorkist; if he were a Lancastrian, then Lawrence’s assassination attempt would have made sense in the context of 15th century politics.
This is the second time my education has been useful this year! I’m on target for a new record!
January 30, 2008 at 7:02 am
Galvinji
Rats, I screwed up the html tags for the film I was referring to in the previous post. Here it is. Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion of how awful Andrew Jackson was.
January 30, 2008 at 7:14 am
Matt Weiner
I would have a truly pwning Erdös-Bacon number if I were also this guy.
(Begins plotting to get an IMDb page.)
January 30, 2008 at 7:15 am
Matt Weiner
Ahem, this guy.
It counts as a link if the page is open in another tab when you post, right?
January 30, 2008 at 7:21 am
Ben Alpers
If I were this guy, I’d have an IMDB page…just not a very good one. But I’m not. And if I were, I still wouldn’t have an Erdös-Bacon number.
January 30, 2008 at 7:24 am
ac
Plantagenets were gone
It’s all the same family, though. The first Duke of Lancaster was a younger son of Edward III (grandfather of Richard II.)
January 30, 2008 at 7:30 am
Steve Balboni
The fact that the Democratic Party continues to revere Jefferson and Jackson as somehow the patriarch’s of the modern day Party has always puzzled me. Jefferson was a small government man through and through. Indeed if any of the Founders had a progressive view of the Federal government it was the much reviled Alexander Hamilton. You have already stated the reasons why honoring Jackson is a but misguided, what with the unrepentant slave owning and Indian massacring.
January 30, 2008 at 9:26 am
ari
the Plantagenets were gone nearly a century before Richard III
Galvinji, did we even do British history in Mrs. S***’s class? Or at any other time? So how am I supposed to know this? (Honestly, I stole it from Wiki, which may very well be a threat to the special relationship if these sorts of errors continue.) That said, you’re banned. And ac is elevated to a cabinet post. Or something.
January 30, 2008 at 9:29 am
ari
Wilentz on Lawrence:
When asked, under medical examination, whom he preferred as president, Lawrence replied, “Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, Mr. Calhoun…
Indeed. Though “Calhoun” does suggest that Lawrence wasn’t quite right.
January 30, 2008 at 9:34 am
ari
Also: most of my IMDB credits are under another name.
January 30, 2008 at 9:42 am
chris y
The senior Plantagenet line ended with Richard II in 1399. The House of Lancaster was decended from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and the House of York (including Richard III) from Edmund of Langley, Duke of York. Both these grandees were uncles of Richard II, and surnamed Plantagenet.
{/pedantry}
January 30, 2008 at 9:51 am
ari
Chris, I feel like your comment should be read aloud by a herald only after the sounding of trumpets. But I think it means that I wasn’t wrong, right? In which case: a cabinet post for Chris as well. All of a sudden I’m like Jackson, dispensing spoils.
January 30, 2008 at 10:00 am
ac
I was supporting my own use of the name, which is why I was only talking about the house of Lancaster, but hey, I’ll respond to “Madam Secretary” in future.
January 30, 2008 at 10:08 am
eric
All of a sudden I’m like Jackson, dispensing spoils
Careful, that’s what got Garfield shot.
January 30, 2008 at 10:54 am
Galvinji
Galvinji, did we even do British history in Mrs. S***’s class? Or at any other time? So how am I supposed to know this? (Honestly, I stole it from Wiki, which may very well be a threat to the special relationship if these sorts of errors continue.) That said, you’re banned. And ac is elevated to a cabinet post. Or something.
Banned, am I? And for taking the (rare) opportunity to make use of my education? Oh well, back to reading David Horowitz for me.
Careful, that’s what got Garfield shot.
I thought that not dispensing spoils was what got Garfield — the greatest President from northern Ohio* — shot. I’ve always seen Charles Guiteau referred to as a “disgruntled office-seeker.”
* It’s not hard to beat Warren Harding.
January 30, 2008 at 11:23 am
chris y
Nah, who you need in your cabinet is one Pericles Plantagent James Casati Wyatt (no kidding), 2nd Baron Weeford, who is, I believe, the current Plantagenet pretender. As his marriage only lasted a year, when he dies that dubious honour will probably pass to this piece of work.
Sorry, what were we talking about?
January 30, 2008 at 11:25 am
ari
“Petsy”
Not powerful enough to control her own nickname? The aristocracy really is slipping.
January 30, 2008 at 2:27 pm
SEK
Bet you didn’t know I was in Strippers.