Existing comment:
"Not An American Practice"
Lincoln's Life at Risk:
The idea of a President of the United States traveling anywhere without a security detail is unfathomable today. Attacks on elected officials were not unheard of in antebellum America, and yet there was no practice of providing a security detail for U.S. Presidents.
From the beginning of his Presidency, Abraham Lincoln was aware of enemy threats on his life. But, as Lincoln's secretary John Nicolay noted in 1861, he had "so sane a mind, and a heart so kindly, even to his enemies, that it was hard for him to believe in political hatred so deadly as to lead to murder." |