On January 30, 1835, Richard Lawrence became the first man to attempt a kill a president of the United States, Andrew Jackson. Lawrence attacked Jackson on the rotunda of the Capitol as the president was returning, with others, from a funeral. Lawrence had patiently waited behind a pillar on the east portico for Jackson to appear, and when the president did so, he pulled out a pistol and pulled the trigger with Jackson no more than eight feet away. The pistol misfired, but the cap exploded noisily. Startled for a moment but feeling no pain, Jackson rushed at his assailant, cane upraised. Lawrence produced a second pistol and once more pulled the trigger. Incredibly, it misfired as well. Apparently in both cases the powder and lead balls with which the pistols had been loaded had fallen out in Lawrence's pockets. Clearly, the would-be assassin's practical experience with his weapon of choice was limited. President Jackson, never one to shug off an assault, was enraged and might have beaten Lawrence seriously had he not been held back by a number of on lookers.  As others wrestled the assailant to the ground, Jackson flailed his cane shouting, "Let me alone! Let me alone! I know where this came from."

To his dying day Jackson, who had many political enemies, would remain convinced Lawrence was but a small cog in an intricate Whig conspiracy to assassinate him.  The Whig position, on the other hand, was that it had all been a staged event, managed by Jackson himself to gain public sympathy. Almost certainly neither theory was accurate, but the claims and counterclaims set a precedent early in American history that presidential assassination, successful or otherwise, could not have taken place without some kind of grand conspiracy.

The prosecutor in Lawrence's case was Francis Scott Key, author of the "Star Spangled Banner." Rather than demanding his execution, Key looked at the precedent set 35 years ago in England, when the attempted assassin of King George III was acquitted on the grounds of insanity.  He instructed Lawrence to be examined by independent authorities, who soon readily accepted the opinion that the assassin was mentally afflicted, in a way that would today be diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia. Born in England in 1800 or 1801, Lawrence came to the United States with his family when he was 12 years old. He was described later by relatives and acquaintances as "a remarkable fine boy" and one "reserved in his manner, but industrious and of good moral habits." He became a landscape painter, and later, when this failed to generate the needed income, took to painting houses.  By his thirties he did exhibit some strange behaviors.   He was subject to fits of rage and wild laughter, threatening those around him, including his landlady, whom he threatened to kill when she came to collect his rent.  He had for some time been making claims that the United States owed him money for confiscating his property in 1802--when he was a babe in England.  He particularly saw Jackson as an enemy, because he was conspiring with the Duke of Wellington to dispute his claim to being the rightful heir to the English throne.  He was certain that the Vice President, Van Buren, would pay hs claim if the president was out of the way.

At his trial for the attempted assassination, Lawrence looked down his nose at the jury, declaring, "It is for me, gentlemen, to pass upon you, and not you upon me."

The evidence of his bizarre past and present behavior was so overwhelming that the jury readily concluded  that Lawrence was not criminally responsible for his act. On his acquittal, Lawrence was confined for the rest of his life to mental hospitals, where he died in June 1861.

Taken from: "Encyclopedia of Assassination"; Hastings, Donald W.  "The Psychiatry of Presidential Assassination."  The Journal-Lancet  85 (1965).