Be Careful What You Wish For

John McIntyre, a former editor for the Baltimore Sun, writes one of my favorite blogs, You Don't Say.

Mr. McIntyre is always educating me about things through his blog, which he wrote at a different web address when he was employed by the Sun. Since becoming a casualty of the economy, he has resumed the blog at a new address, but he still brings the same wit and wisdom to his writing that I found so appealing in his blog's earlier incarnation.

I hope I can return the favor in this post.

Yesterday, Mr. McIntyre noted a "correction ... from the Times Observer of Warren, Pa."

The correction stemmed from a classified advertisement that was placed in the newspaper. The advertisement said, "May Obama follow in the footsteps of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy!"

In case you aren't up on your presidential history, Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy were the four presidents who were assassinated. The person who took the ad apparently didn't know enough about presidential history to comprehend what was really being said, and the ad was published. It was removed after someone read between the lines and determined the actual meaning.

I am sure that a similar thought, even if it wasn't expressed and even if it wasn't particularly serious, crossed the minds of some Americans with the inauguration of each new president. But the desire to see a president meet an untimely end is always of interest to people in law enforcement — and, when the president happens to be the first black to hold that office, it is particularly noteworthy. Mr. McIntyre reports that the newspaper gave the identity of the person who placed the ad to the city police in keeping with its policy. The city police department, in keeping with its policy, provided that information to federal law enforcement authorities.

The timing of this incident could hardly be more ironic.

I say that because today is the 203rd anniversary of a fatal duel involving a man who, more than two decades later, became the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson.

On this date in 1806, Jackson (who was 39) killed a man named Charles Dickinson (who was in his mid–20s) in a duel. Dickinson had accused Jackson's wife, Rachel, of bigamy. Dickinson fired first and missed Jackson's heart by inches. The shot was deflected by Jackson's ribs and remained lodged in his body for the rest of his life.

When his shot misfired, Jackson asked to be reloaded and then fired, killing Dickinson.

Was Mrs. Jackson guilty of bigamy? Well, I suppose, to misquote another former president, that may depend on what your definition of is is.

When she was 18, Mrs. Jackson married a man who was given to fits of jealous rage. She eventually left him, and he told her, in December 1790, that he had filed for divorce and it was final. Believing that the marriage was over, she married Jackson the following year.

In fact, however, Mrs. Jackson's first husband had only asked the state legislature to give its approval to an enabling act that would allow him to sue for a divorce. Legally, the divorce was not final, making the Jacksons' marriage invalid. When the divorce became final, the Jacksons remarried — this time legally — in 1794.

The issue of adultery dogged the Jacksons for the rest of their marriage. Jackson participated in 13 duels — reportedly, many of which were to defend his wife's honor — but the duel with Dickinson was the only one that resulted in a death.

In 1828, when Jackson won the first of two presidential terms, the national press found out about Mrs. Jackson's previous marriage and wrote endlessly about it during the campaign.

Mrs. Jackson had been in poor health for a number of years. She was known to be a heavy smoker — a corncob pipe was her trademark — and she suffered a fatal heart attack a few days before Christmas shortly after her husband was elected but a couple of months before he was inaugurated.

For his part, Jackson always believed his wife's death was brought on by the strain from dealing with the media accounts of her marital history. "May God almighty forgive her murderers as I know she forgave them," Jackson said. "I never can."

I don't know if Jackson was the only American president who ever killed a man. Logic tells me he couldn't have been. Of the 43 men who have been president, 31 served in the military, and logic tells me that at least one must have killed someone in combat.

But to my knowledge, Jackson was the only future president who killed someone in a non–combat setting.

Incidentally, the timing of the classified ad that I mentioned earlier is doubly ironic, I suppose. Jackson is believed to have been the first sitting president who was targeted by a would–be assassin. During his second term, as Jackson was leaving the Capitol Building following a funeral service for a congressman, an unemployed painter tried to shoot at him but his pistol misfired. He pulled out another pistol, but it, too, misfired.

Thirty years later, Abraham Lincoln became the first president to be assassinated.