On the night of 12 April 1865, famed actor John Wilkes Booth entered President Lincoln’s box at Ford’s Theater in Washington D.C. and shot him in the back of the head. After stabbing Major Henry Rathbone who was accompanying the President, Booth jumped down to the stage, injuring his leg. Here, according to some witnesses, he shouted ‘Sic semper tyrannis!’ (Latin for ‘Thus always to tyrants,’ the state motto of Virginia) before leaving through a side door and riding away on a waiting horse.
Booth fled across the Navy Yard Bridge to his home state of Maryland, accompanied by co-conspirator David Herold. After visiting Dr. Samuel Mudd who treated Booth’s injured leg, the two fugitives hid in woodland before crossing the Potomac River into Virginia on 23 April. The next day 25 Union soldiers, led by Lieutenant Edward P. Doherty and accompanied by intelligence officer Everton Conger, were sent to find and capture Booth.
After landing in Virginia, Conger interrogated William S. Jett, a former private in the 9th Virginia Cavalry, who had helped Booth and Herold find shelter at Richard H. Garrett’s farm on the other side of the Rappahannock River. The soldiers arrived at the farm on the morning of 26 April, where they found the fugitives hiding in a tobacco barn.
Conger threatened to set fire to the barn unless the men gave themselves up. Herold surrendered, but Booth refused. As the barn burned, Sergeant Boston Corbett shot Booth on his own initiative, inflicting a fatal neck wound. He was dragged out of the barn and died three hours later, muttering ‘Useless,’ as he gazed at his hands.
President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, that came into force in 1863, ended slavery in the Confederate States that were at war with the Union. However, other states that remained loyal yet still operated slavery were not affected. Nevertheless, the Emancipation Proclamation encouraged abolitionists to find a way to end slavery in every state through a constitutional amendment.
Three separate proposals for an amendment banning slavery were introduced by Representatives James Ashley of Ohio and James Wilson of Iowa, and Senator John Henderson of Missouri. The Senate Judiciary Committee subsequently presented an amendment proposal to the Senate in early 1864. Despite finding support in the Senate, it nevertheless twice failed to secure the necessary two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives.
At the end of the year Lincoln won re-election, having announced that he intended to abolish slavery by constitutional amendment. The Republican Party also made gains in both the House and the Senate, which they claimed was a mandate for abolition. Nevertheless it was still necessary to secure votes from Democrats, and various legislators including Secretary of State William H. Seward lobbied and sometimes promised government jobs to outgoing politicians in return for votes.
Finally, on 31 January 1865, the amendment was passed by the House of Representatives with a vote of 119-56. It was sent to the states for ratification the next day, a process that was concluded on 6 December after the necessary three-quarters of states approved it.
In 1832, voting rights were given to the property-owning middle classes in Britain, but many wanted further political reform.
Chartism emerged in 1836 as a working class movement, aimed at securing political rights and influence. It was most active between 1838 and 1848. The aim of the Chartists was to
Chartism was named for the People’s Charter, which listed the six main aims of the movement. These were:
a vote for all men (over 21)
the secret ballot
no property qualification to become an MP
payment for MPs
electoral districts of equal size
annual elections for Parliament
In 1839, 1842 and 1848, Chartists presented three petitions to Parliament. Each was rejected. It was claimed that the last great Chartist petition in 1848, garnered six million signatures. The 1848 plan included a peaceful mass meeting on Kennington Common in London, followed by delivery to parliament. The demonstration was deemed a failure when, on a cold rainy day, the government sent 8,000 soldiers, yet only 20,000 Chartists attended the mass meeting. The rejection of this petition marked the end of Chartism.
Some opponents of the movement feared that Chartists were not just interested in changing the way Parliament was elected, but really wanted to turn society upside down by starting a revolution. They also thought that the Chartists (who said they disapproved of violent protest) were stirring up a wave of riots around the country. On 4 November 1839, 5,000 men marched into Newport, in Monmouthshire, and attempted to take control of the town. Led by three well-known Chartists (John Frost, William Jones and Zephaniah Williams), they gathered outside the Westgate Hotel, where the local authorities were temporarily holding a number of potential troublemakers. Troops protecting the hotel opened fire, killing at least 22 people, and brought the uprising to an abrupt end. Preston in Lancashire was the scene of rioting in 1842.
Support for Chartism peaked at times of economic depression and hunger. There was rioting in Stockport, due to unemployment and near-starvation, and Manchester, where workers protested against wage cuts, wanting "a fair day's pay for a fair day's labour". The "Plug Plots" were a series of strikes in Lancashire, Yorkshire, the Midlands and parts of Scotland that took place in the summer of 1842. Workers removed the plugs from the boilers in order to bring factory machinery to a halt. Wage cuts were the main issue, but support for Chartism was also strong at this time.
Although the Chartist movement ended without achieving its aims, the fear of civil unrest remained. Later in the century, many Chartist ideas were included in the Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884.
Andrew Jackson survives the first assassination attempt of a sitting US President: Andrew Jackson had been censured in 1834 in the aftermath of his decision to veto a bill that would have reauthorized the charter of the Second Bank of the United States. The confrontational nature of his dealings with government saw him make many enemies, but it was an unemployed house painter from England who attempted to kill him on 30 January 1835.
Jackson was leaving the funeral of South Carolina Representative Warren Davis at the Capitol Building when Richard Lawrence attacked him. The would-be assassin was equipped with two single-shot Derringer pistols, and he had aimed the first at Jackson as he passed through the East Portico of the Capitol. Although the sound of the percussion cap exploding echoed around the Capitol the gun misfired, possibly due to damp weather, and the President reportedly prepared to strike Lawrence with his cane as the shocked painter raised the second gun that also misfired.
Lawrence was set upon by the crowd, and the President himself, before he was taken away by police to stand trial for attempted murder. Francis Scott Key, the writer of the poem that became “The Star-Spangled Banner”, was the prosecutor in the case but it soon became clear that Lawrence was mentally unstable and delusional. He maintained that he was the 15th-century English king Richard III, and refused to recognize the legitimacy of the court.
After just five minutes’ deliberation the jury found Lawrence ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’ and he was committed to an asylum. Nevertheless some people, including the President himself, believed the assassination attempt was a conspiracy by his political enemies.
... Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American soldier and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the United States Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. An expansionist president, Jackson sought to advance the rights of the "common man" against a "corrupt aristocracy" and to preserve the Union.
Many of his actions proved divisive, garnering both fervent support and strong opposition from many in the country. His reputation has suffered since the 1970s, largely due to his role in Native American removal; however, surveys of historians and scholars have ranked Jackson favorably among U.S. presidents.
