“Whatever is, is right”

Abstract Fears About Possible Attempts To Harm Or Kidnap Abraham Lincoln Increased Throughout 1864. In March, the New York Tribune first reported on an alleged Rebel conspiracy to abduct the president. The same month, Willard Cutter noted that a man went “crazy” inside the White House, ranting about how “he would be the next President” before guards managed to arrest him. By May, Senator James Lane of Kansas made a special trip to the White House to warn John Hay that the president “must now chiefly guard against assassination.” The aide “poohpoohed” the concerns, in his words, arguing calmly that “every prominent man was more or less exposed to the attacks of maniacs.” A reported incident near the Soldiers’. Home in mid-August 1864 added to the sense of rising anxiety. About eleven o ‘clock one night, Private John W. Nichols of Company K was on guard duty at the large gate on the edge of the institution’s grounds when he heard a rifle shot and then witnessed the “bareheaded” president riding quickly on horseback toward his cottage. Private Nichols asked the president about his missing hat and was told that “somebody had fired a gun off at the foot of the hill” which frightened Lincoln’s horse and then led to a struggle to regain control that had “jerked his hat off.”