Assassination Book Writing Assignment

Assassination Book Writing Assignment

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Major Impacts of Abraham Lincoln Assassination on the Nation

All the way through American history, the heads of state and presidential candidates have gone through a number of assassination attempts and threats on their lives. The threats have not only been on sitting presidents but also the aspiring candidates. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by an individual known as John Booth. It was on an evening of April 24, 1865, at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC. He was murdered just five days after Confederate General Robert Lee surrendered his military at Appomattox Court House, bringing to an end the four melodramatically transformed the Reconstruction age.

As the news of his assassination spread, disbelief, grief, and even happiness spread in the minds of most Americans. Several people exclaimed their sentiments openly, whereas others silently articulated their sorrow or jubilation in their diaries and letters. The initial reaction to his assassination was disbelief (Feinman, 2018). President Lincoln’s execution was merely some part of a bigger plan to guillotine the centralized government of the United States after the Civil Warfare. His assassination was bad for the south because of his kindness.

Lincoln’s death was bad for the South because his compassion and sympathy might have protected them from the conductive handling of the Union. The Civil Combat had numerous undesirable impacts, but it united the Union that is currently the U.S. and brought the culmination of racial intolerance. Abraham Lincoln never lived to enact his policy. After his death, his successor presided over reconstruction. He granted amnesty to several preceding Confederates and permitted Southern states to elect new governments. Some of the effects of his assassination on the reconstruction are that the blacks could not rent or own land outside of an incorporated town. A lot of large plantations in the South were abandoned or confiscated.

Major Impacts of President James A. Garfield Assassination on the Nation

James Garfield’s death had an impact in a way that it changed the system of political patronage. President James A. Garfield was shot two times at the back and in the arm on July 2, 1881, as he entered the old Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. He had just been president for just four months; he was killed while heading to give an Independence Day speech (Feinman, 2018). His assassination turned out to be the impetus for the Pendleton Civil Service Act. After his assassination, his successor signed the 1883 act, which changed the civil service system and created the principle that federal jobs should be given depending on merit instead of political patronage.

Garfield had initially, before his assassination, called for civil service reform in his inaugural speech and gave support on it as he was the head of state in the confidence that it would make government more effectual. Assassinated within months of his inauguration, he served as the head of state too briefly for him to have left a lot of impacts. His change of Merritt demonstrates him as lacking judgment and acting as a spoils man himself. His personal assistant, James G. Blaine, did a foreign policy in, at best, an impromptu way, contributing to the problems of his successor, Chester A. Arthur.

Because James Garfield was fervently dedicated to a laissez-faire economy and hard money, it is uncertain whether he could have actually managed the recession that started in 1881. He could have advanced the basis of civil rights, but without once more positioning federal militias in the South, his possibilities were limited. Garfield’s assassination made President Arthur realize that the spoils system was corrupt, resulting in the Pendleton Act being passed.

Major Impacts of President Theodore Roosevelt Being Wounded in Assassination on the Nation

Soon after becoming the head of state, Theodore Roosevelt used his power to create 51 federal bird reserves, 150 national forests, five national parks, four national game preserves, and 18 national memorials on over 230 million acres of public land. After being shot, he refused medical attention. He went ahead to give a speech enquiring from people if they understood he had been shot. He continued by saying that it took more than that to kill a Bull Moose. Physicians later examined him and agreed that it was safer to leave the bullet in his chest.

Being the president, he felt empowered by the people to ensure economic opportunity and social justice is achieved through government regulation. He had a belief that big business was a natural part of a maturing economy, and as a result, he did not have any reason to abolish it. He did not propose basically changing the American economy or society to address several economic and social ills. Roosevelt usually asserted that there must be change to stave off socialism. According to him, if the government did not act, then the people would turn to extra extreme actions to look for options.

Being a skillful manipulator of the media, he changed the presidency. He conducted daily press briefings, giving insider tips and briefings to those reporters who responded with favorable stories. The white house welcomed prizefighters and intellectuals, sculptors and cowboys, and the public grew captivated with the presidency. His image and name were everywhere. He became a progressive movement leader whereby he promised average citizens equality, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs.

Major Impacts of President Robert F. Kennedy Assassination on the Nation

When Martin Luther King was assassinated, numerous individuals believed that senator and aspiring presidential candidate Robert Kennedy would carry on the reforming fight. However, he was also assassinated. His death had a profound impact on the direction of America. If he had not been assassinated in 1968 by gunshot, he almost definitely would have been the Democratic presidential candidate, and he likely would have been elected president. In the disturbing year of 1968, the United States suffered a nationwide nervous breakdown as a result of his assassination (Millard, 2018). He was assassinated just as he was attaining momentum in his attempt to follow his martyred brother, John Kennedy, into the White House.

His assassination, which happened two months after Martin Luther King was assassinated, deepened America’s self-doubt. A lot of individuals established that violence had turned out to be a permanent and toxic virus poisoning American society; that things had gone extremely in the wrong way in the nation (Ponterotto, 2020). Most people believed that evildoers, madmen, and fanatics had blocked the path to peaceful change.

If Robert Kennedy had lived, it is evident that he would have won the presidency. He would have seen an exit from Vietnam that happened in 1975, saving several lives and possibly decreasing American life acrimony. Kennedy’s assassination left the Democratic Party with no clear Presidential candidate resulting in confusion and disorder at the Democratic Convention. Richard Nixon could not have won the presidential election in 1968. Violence and chaos associated with Democratic Party convection made Americans elect him as the head of state. After his assassination, Lyndon Johnson won over the Congress that passing Kennedy’s political agenda of civil rights legislation would honor his death.

Reference

Feinman, R. L. (2015). Assassinations, Threats, and the American Presidency: From Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama. Rowman & Littlefield.

Millard, e. (2018). Political Assassinations and Attempts in US History: The Lasting Effects of Gun Violence against American Political Leaders.

Ponterotto, J. G. (2020). The Prince Who Could Have Been King? A Psychological Pro? le of John F. Kennedy, Jr. The Journal of Psychohistory, 48(1), 56-69.