“I am here in despair. And why; For doing what Brutus was honored for. What made Tell a Hero. And yet I for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew. Am looked upon as a common cutthroat. My action was purer than either of theirs. One, hoped to be great himself. The other had not only his country’s but his own wrongs to avenge. I hoped for no gains, I knew no private wrong. I struck for my country and that alone… I have too great a soul to die like a criminal. O may he, may he spare me that, and let me die bravely. I bless the entire world. Have never hated or wronged anyone. This last was not a wrong. Unless God deems it so. And it’s with him, to damn or bless me.”
These words were written on April 14, 1865, only hours after the shooting of Abraham Lincoln and by the same hand that pulled the trigger. John Wilkes Booth was a famous actor of his time and patriot and supporter of the Southern cause. As with most actors, I presume, Booth was obsessed with his reviews and grew frustrated over his press as he read every paper he could find during his 12-day escape.
Booth completely believed he would be hailed as a hero, and rightfully so. But instead with one pull of the trigger all of Lincoln’s sins were forgiven and he would die the nation’s greatest martyr. So, it is with many presidential assassinations, in an attempt to stop a president, their death or injury only strengthened the man, the message or their reputation.
There are two strong examples of a president’s cause being helped by their deaths. The word most associated with the Gilded Age is corruption. The spoils system of rewarding political supporters with jobs had begun under the Andrew Jackson presidency but the “bearded presidents” of the Gilded Age had perfected it.
Corruption was so bad that it fractured the Republican Party into three groups fighting for control. There were the old school Stalwarts who wanted to keep the spoils system, the Half Breeds who preached reform but really secretly like the old way, and finally the Mugwumps who really did want reform.
Four months after Half-Breed James Garfield won the presidency in 1880, he was shot by a man who believed he should be ambassador to France. The death of the president by an office seeker finally allowed real reform and led to the 1883 Pendleton Act which created a civil service exam to gain government jobs.
The second example is the 1964 Civil Rights Act. By 1963 President John F. Kennedy had come into his own, more on this later. With newfound strength and convincing by his brother Robert Kennedy, Kennedy decided to try to help with civil rights, something he had been hesitant on in the past. In June of that year Kennedy introduced the Civil Rights Act but knew it would be a difficult sell especially with the Democratic Party in control of the South. For that reason, Kennedy decided to travel south to push his bill. His first stop was Texas where he was assassinated. There is no way to prove this, but I believe that the Civil Rights Bill would never have passed the Democratic Congress, but after the death of such a popular president, Lyndon Johnson was able to push it through as the dying wish of their fallen leader.
Going back to John Wilkes Booth, we can see that the assassination of a president can have the opposite effect. Lincoln had never been the most popular president. In his first election he only won 40% of the popular vote, meaning that 60% had not supported him. Then during his presidency, he continued to earn detractors as the body count rose during the Civil War, he started a draft, locked up detractors without trial and issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and that was just in the North.
Lincoln’s approval ratings were so bad that the Republican Party seriously looked at replacing him in the 1864 Election. The party did replace the VP with Andrew Johnson, a southern Democrat to try to get more votes. In the end the Army started winning the war giving Lincoln the votes he needed to win reelection and his popularity grew after Appomattox. But he still faced a battle with Radical Republicans who disagreed with Lincoln over how to reconstruct the South.
Booth was right thinking he would be cheered for killing Lincoln, but his timing was off. With the end of the war just a week before, his death suddenly catapulted Lincoln into a messianic figure who gave his life for this nation to live. Lincoln went from being unpopular to a saint.
The other death that solidified the president’s place in history is again Kennedy. Kennedy had always been a popular president with his youthful good looks and charm, but he had not reached the status of Camelot until after his death.
While Kennedy was liked early on, he did face difficulties. Coming off the Eisenhower years, Russians used Kennedy’s youth and inexperience against him. At both the Vienna Summit and later with the Berlin Wall, Kennedy was bullied. With the Bay of Pigs, it looked like he was out of his league.
It was not until the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis where Kennedy stood up to the Russians that he really came into his own. It was only then that he had the power to jump into arenas like the civil rights. When Kennedy was slain at the height of his popularity, it created the myth of Camelot and solidified his place among the more popular presidents.
Part of this I cannot prove but believe it. Had Kennedy lived, there is a good chance that at least one of his skeletons would be found out like the affairs or addiction to pain pills, but even worse, it was Kennedy that got America involved in a little conflict over in a place called Vietnam. Had he had lived and served a second term it might be Kennedy we think of when discussing Vietnam instead of Johnson. By dying at the height of his fame and before any scandal broke, Kennedy is often considered one of the most popular presidents in history.
Finally, there is the idea that a failed assassination only strengthens the president which is best seen with Ronald Reagan. In 1981, after leaving a meeting with union leaders, shots rang out leaving four men hit including Reagan who was shot in the side puncturing his lung. Reagan was rushed to the hospital where he would recover from his wounds in typical Reagan fashion, with humor and strength.
When he called his wife, he told her he forgot to duck. When he walked into the hospital – yes, he made sure he walked – he told the doctors that he hoped they were all Republicans. While the shooter, John Hinckley Jr., did not have political reasons for the assassination attempt, his actions – and Reagan’s strength – only made the popular president that much more popular.
Political commentator George F. Will said after the shooting, “The way Reagan handled the assassination attempt spoke volumes about his character. His composed demeanor, quick wit and rapid recovery did more to unify the nation and bolster his standing than any political speech could have.”
In each of these cases, whether the president lived or died, it either helped their message or made them even more popular than they were before. I hope we have seen the last of any political violence, but I suspect we have not. But any would-be assassin should know that hit or miss an attempt on a president normally backfires.
James Finck is a professor of American history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He can be reached at HistoricallySpeak-ing1776@ gmail.com.
