Wierdness - DEAD PRESIDENTS

The first US president to be assassinated was Abraham Lincoln in 1865. The last – so far – was John F Kennedy, fifty years ago today. A century separated the two men’s election – 1860 for Lincoln, Kennedy in 1960.

Most Americans still refuse to believe Kennedy’s killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, acted alone, insisting he was either framed or part of a conspiracy. Curiously, many believe a lone nut did murder Lincoln – whose assassination actually was part of a documented plot[*].

Kennedy’s death was quickly followed by the swearing in of Vice President Johnson; thus, he became the first southerner to hold the office of president since Lincoln was succeeded by his VP – Johnson[†].

Both Presidents Johnson, governing in difficult times, became increasingly unpopular and mistrusted. Bitter, facing opposition from within their own parties and almost certain defeat, neither sought a second term.

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[*]John Wilkes Booth was head of a small group of radicals and Confederate spies. They planned, initially, to kidnap Lincoln on the road to his summer residence and hold him to ransom for the South’s independence. When the President’s travel plans were cancelled, they settled on a synchronised round of executions to decapitate the Union Government.

While Booth was shooting Lincoln, Secretary of War Stanton was set upon in his bed – where he’d been recuperating from a carriage accident. Stanton escaped serious injury but his son was stabbed wrestling with the attacker, who fled.

Secretary of State Seward survived because his would-be assassin lost his nerve at the last moment.

[†]Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. Kennedy’s successor was, of course, Lyndon Baines Johnson of Texas. 

More Historical Weirdness - W and Q

The United States, thanks to the vagaries of its Electoral College, has had two presidents elected without winning the popular vote. Both were sons of two-term vice presidents, later single-term presidents, of the same name.

Both rejected the appellation “Junior”, instead distinguishing themselves from their fathers by their middle name or initial – John Quincy Adams, and George W Bush.

The fathers were both vice president to popular two-termers, succeeded to the presidency, and lost after one term to slippery characters who also shared a name – John Adams was vice president to George Washington, and lost to Thomas Jefferson; George Bush served Ronald Reagan before losing to William Jefferson Clinton.

Both fathers were hampered in re-election by a decidedly odd third-party candidate. In the case of Bush, snr, it was eccentric millionaire Ross Perot. For John Adams, it was Aaron Burr of New York – who later not only killed a Founding Father in a duel, but also tried to make himself Emperor of Mexico.

There, the comparison ends. John Quincy Adams served just one term. Like his father, he suffered from an inability to play populist or party politics. His presidency, however, was only a comma in a long, distinguished career.

Entering the Diplomatic Service in his teens, he played important roles in the Netherlands, Prussia, Russia and Britain. At home he served in Congress and cabinet. It was Adams who largely conceived and negotiated the modern boundaries of the continental United States. Returning to Congress after the presidency he was an early, lonely voice in the fight against slavery. He finally died, at an advanced age, on his feet on the floor of the House.

George W Bush, of course, won re-election to a second term. It was hardly important, though. He did all the damage in his first.

Short Flights of Historical Weirdness: DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT THE IRISH JAILBREAK?

File under, “Irish inventions that sound stupid till you find out they actually worked”:

On 3 February, 1919, Michael Collins[1] and Harry Boland[2] broke Eamon de Valera[3] out of Lincoln Gaol in England.

Exactly how did Harry and the Big Fellow manage it, to whisk the leader of Ireland’s rebel government away from His Majesty’s boarding-house? They used files and a duplicate key, of course.

Files and a duplicate key they had smuggled into the prison ahead of time . . . baked inside four cakes.

Not exactly a submarine with a screen-door, now, is it?

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[1]1890–1922: Legendary figure of the Irish War of Independence; signatory to the Anglo-Irish Treaty (6 December, 1921); head of the first Irish Free-State Government. Ambushed by anti-Treaty guerrillas and killed in the ensuing fire-fight, 22 August, 1922.

[2]Collins’ friend and collaborator; joint party-secretary, Sinn Fein, and president of Irish Republican Brotherhood (1918); minister in rebel Irish cabinet. Sided with de Valera against Collins, joining Republican MPs who walked out of the Dail (Irish Parliament) in protest against the Treaty. Killed fighting against government forces in the opening days of the Civil War, 31 July, 1922.

[3]1882–1975: Statesman and revolutionary. Born in New York of a Spanish artist father and Irish mother; raised in Ireland by his grandmother and an uncle.

Commanded a battalion of Irish National Volunteers in the doomed Easter Rising (Dublin, 1916); the only commander to escape execution, thanks to his American birth; rose to prominence in the rising’s aftermath.

President of Ireland during War of Independence; resigned in protest when the Dail approved the Anglo-Irish Treaty; fought against the provisional government in the Civil War (1922–3).

After defeat in the war formed Fianna Fail party (1926), taking most Sinn Fein supporters with him; head of Irish government, 1932–48, 1951–4, and 1957–9. In 1937 promulgated a new constitution establishing the Republic of Eire.

President of Eire, 1959–73.