Dr Dafydd Townley
University of Portsmouth UK
Presidential Assassinations and their impact in the United States Assassinations of political leaders have had a profound political impact in the United States, particularly the targeted killings of presidents. The deaths of the four presidents in office – Abraham Lincoln (1865), James Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901) and John F Kennedy (1963) – had long-term political consequences for the nation. Surviving an attempted assassination can lead to increased public support and the opportunity to make substantive changes to political life, some for the common good, others for the benefit of the successor. The death of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865 slowed the pace of Reconstruction, the post-civil war rebuilding of the defeated South. Lincoln’s successor was Andrew Johnson, who took control of Reconstruction and allowed Southern states to re-join the Union under lenient circumstances. Many Confederate leaders were pardoned and many of the newly elected Southern states legislated black codes that re-established the pre-war racial hierarchy. James A Garfield died as a result of an infection from gunshot wounds sustained from an attempt on his life. Charles Guiteau, a lawyer who had acted as a some-time speechwriter for Garfield, believed that Garfield owed him an ambassadorship for his work. When no such reward was forthcoming, Guiteau shot Garfield twice in July, 1881. After Garfield died two months later, Chester A. Arthur, his successor, signed into law the 1883 Pendleton Civil Service Act, which reformed the civil service system. It abolished the system of political patronage that had been in place and created a system where appointments to federal jobs were done on merit. When William McKinley was shot and killed by anarchist Leon Czolgosz in September 1901, he was succeeded in office by Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt not only revamped the Secret Service so that its main duty was to protect the President, but laid the foundations of transforming the Executive branch, the office of the presidency, into the powerful branch of government. He passed a number of laws that dealt with political and corporate corruption and increased American involvement in international affairs. After Kennedy’s assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas in November 1963, Americans united behind Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson publicly appealed to his colleagues in the federal government to finish the job that Kennedy had started. There is no doubt that the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress was as much a result of the national feeling towards Kennedy’s death, as it was the political desire of the members of Congress. Ronald Reagan is the only president to have been injured by a would-be assassin. After John Hinkley Jr shot him in 1981, Reagan spent almost two weeks in hospital. His recovery and reported high spirits as he waited to be operated on gave him an aura of invincibility. Americans were extremely sympathetic and his popularity grew significantly. When he emerged from hospital, he was greeted as a hero and managed to push through legislation that reduced high taxation rates and transformed American entrepreneurship for the decade.
