The United States of Paranoia (2013)
“—William and Dorothy Thomas1 On January 30, 1835, as Andrew Jackson exited a congressman’s funeral, an assassin drew a weapon and pointed it at the president. The pistol misfired. The gunman pulled a second weapon from his cloak. Though loaded, it too failed to fire. The cane-wielding Jackson and several bystanders subdued the would-be killer, an unemployed housepainter named Richard Lawrence. Lawrence later informed interrogators that he was King Richard III, that Jackson had killed his father..., and that with Jackson dead “money would be more plenty.”2 He was judged insane and committed to an asylum, where he died three decades later. Lawrence was a lone nut.
Or at least that was the official story. It wasn’t long before two witnesses filed affidavits claiming to have seen Lawrence at the home of the Mississippi senator George Poindexter shortly before the attack. Poindexter was a noisy opponent of the Jackson administration, and pro-Jackson newspapers accused the senator of plotting the president’s murder.MoreLess
Or at least that was the official story. It wasn’t long before two witnesses filed affidavits claiming to have seen Lawrence at the home of the Mississippi senator George Poindexter shortly before the attack. Poindexter was a noisy opponent of the Jackson administration, and pro-Jackson newspapers accused the senator of plotting the president’s murder.MoreLess
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