More on Assassinations (Because Randall Got Me Started)
Heather Cox Richardson Cartoon of Charles Guiteau by Miriam Leslie, 1881. Today is a curious anniversary. On November 14, 1851, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick went into print. Thirty years later, November 14, 1881, was the first day of the trial of Charles Guiteau, the man who shot President James Garfield. Although at first these two events seem entirely unrelated, in fact they explored the same profound American theme: How can a society succeed when its people act according to the dictates of divine inspiration? Melville’s Ahab cannot stop hunting the white whale, even as the quest takes the lives of his crew, his own sanity, and eventually the entire ship. Guiteau insisted that he was on a divine mission when he shot Garfield, because God wanted Garfield replaced. The question of the relationship between God and society was central in American intellectual life in the early republic. America’s Puritan divines insisted that their followers must have a personal relationship with Go...