How Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan Responded To Their Assassination Attempts

Yesterday, I wrote about how George Washington and Donald Trump reacted to bullets missing them.

I thought to check on two other Presidents who survived assassination attempts.

On October 14, 1912, shortly before the presidential election, Theodore Roosevelt was shot at a campaign rally. The bullet was impeded by a copy of Roosevelt's speech and his glasses case. Roosevelt famously chose to continue delivering the speech. He began:

Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet - there is where the bullet went through - and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.

Here is a photograph of the manuscript and eyeglass case

Here is a statement from Theodore Roosevelt after his assassination in October 1912:

It is of course perfectly true that in voting for or against me consideration must be paid to what I have done in the past and to what I propose to do. But it seems to me far more important that consideration should be paid to what the Progressive Party proposes to do. I cannot too strongly emphasize the fact upon which we Progressives insist that the welfare of any one man in fight is wholly immaterial compared to the great and fundamental issues involved in the triumph of the principles for which our cause stands. If I had been killed, the fight would have gone on exactly the same.

Judge Ben Lindsey and the hundreds of other men now on the stump are preaching the doctrines that I have been preaching and stand for and represent just the same cause. They would have continued the fight in exactly the same way if I had been killed, and they are continuing it in just the same way now that I am for the moment laid up.

On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan survived an assassination attempt. The following day, Reagan closed his diary entry with this sentence:

Whatever happens now I owe my life to God and will try to serve him in every way I can.

Comments

[JoeFromtheBronx]

OTD in 2010, Citizens United v. FEC was handed down by the Supreme Court.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

[ducksalad]

It was one of the most important free speech decisions in the history of the court, and I believe it will eventually be recognized as such even by the progressive left.

It's important to remember what the government was proposing: to subject real people - again, real people, not corporations - to five years in federal prison for the "crime" of making a video that criticized Hillary Clinton. The arguments about money were always disingenuous and consciously so: the criminality hinged on the advocacy. Don't criticize Hillary, spend as much money as you like; criticize her, go to prison for single dollar. No one really cared about whether Citizens United was just a group of people or filed a piece of paper creating a corporation, that was just a legal hook. It was always and only about targeting the political content.

It's also important to remember that during oral arguments the government's attorneys made the extraordinary claim that the government could, if it chose, also ban political pamphlets. The exact British abuse that led the framers to add the free speech clause to the Constitution.

The ACLU, to its credit, sided with Citizens United against the US. It was one of the last major cases in which they clearly prioritized principles over partisanship. Unfortunately, many other people still active in politics today took the anti-speech side in this case.

[Jokibif0]

Don't forget National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo, a 2024 case where the ACLU was on the right side of free speech, even as they represented the NRA.

[emilyhere]

Google paid $195 a hour on the internet..my close relative has been without labor for nine months and the earlier month her compensation check was $23660 by working at home for 10 hours a day..

Here→→ https://da.gd/income666

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The crime did not just hinge on advocacy. It depended on the funding. Just making the video is not a crime. Just spending money to make the video is not a crime. A narrow thing is being regulated.

Check out the opening of the opinion:

Federal law prohibits corporations and unions from using their general treasury funds to make independent expenditures for speech defined as an “electioneering communication” or for speech expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate.

Corporations and unions could use other funds for this purpose. As Stevens noted:

Citizens United is a wealthy nonprofit corporation that runs a political action committee (PAC) with millions of dollars in assets. Under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), it could have used those assets to televise and promote Hillary: The Movie wherever and whenever it wanted to.

A narrow issue was involved:

All that the parties dispute is whether Citizens United had a right to use the funds in its general treasury to pay for broadcasts during the 30-day period.

The "ban pamphlets" argument was specifically in this context, putting aside Kagan later granted it would not be done. The PAMPHLET wouldn't be banned. For instance, a political book might be a copyright violation. It could be "banned" in that sense. The political ideas themselves are not being banned.

ACLU also repeatedly since 2010 "clearly prioritized principles over partisanship." It supports certain principles, no matter who is involved.

The dissenting justices were open to a narrow judgment in support of the challengers. The central problem with the opinion is the open-ended approach that led to troubling consequences in later cases. Plus the overblown criticism by both sides, including how "corporations are persons" is supposed to be horrible.

[Noscitur a sociis]

A narrow issue was involved:

All that the parties dispute is whether Citizens United had a right to use the funds in its general treasury to pay for broadcasts during the 30-day period.

I’m not sure how this is not criminalizing advocacy. It’s true that it didn’t criminalize all advocacy. But it certainly was proposing to put people in jail if they presented their criticism of Hillary Clinton in a way the government didn’t like.

ACLU also repeatedly since 2010 "clearly prioritized principles over partisanship." It supports certain principles, no matter who is involved.

Not only has the ACLU’s behavior given some good reasons to question that: they’ve explicitly said that they don’t operate that way: see, e.g., https://reason.com/volokh/2018/06/25/wendy-kaminer-responds-on-the-aclu-and-f/

[JoeFromtheBronx]

People could criticize Hillary Clinton with impunity except if the corporation in question used certain types of funds to do so.

The "way they like" was regulating corporate funds not based on viewpoint, which was historically quite acceptable. If the video on demand was about George Bush, the rules also would apply.

Someone already cited a recent case where the ACLU relied on principle not partisanship. Wendy Kaminer's criticism does not erase that Citizens United was not some rare egg on that front. They defended quite a few conservatives in promotion of their values.

[ducksalad]

Stevens packed a lot of red herring into one sentence:

"wealthy...millions of dollars in assets": The law did not exempt less wealthy corporations, and not all corporations. What is Stevens' point here? That the law is OK because it will be selectively enforced against the wealthy? Or that he's OK with silencing the less wealthy as collateral damage?

general treasury: How is the distinction between general treasury funds and other types of funds relevant? Keep in mind that the entire purpose of the Citizens United corporation was to engage in this type of activity; there is no plausible argument that some stockholders were being protected.

30 day period: This is the most rotten of the red herrings. Rather than mitigating the effect of the law, the 30 day limit demonstrates the real motivation behind it. It's a severe abuse of the "time and place" exception to use it to intentionally move speech to times when it is less effective and less relevant.

----
Jokibif0, thanks for the reminder on the NRA case, and Joe, I fully acknowledge that the ACLU will go after state and local governments that engage in obvious violations of established 1st Amendment law. What I had in mind when I said "major" is cases where there's a national debate and precedents will be set.

I'm open to being reminded of other cases. The ACLU certainly isn't going to: My decades-long ACLU auto-renewal membership lapsed when I changed credit cards. The reminder letters they've sent since then have not convinced me to re-enroll, they seem almost entirely about progressive/Democrat policy and IMO not at all focused civil liberties. I'm quite willing to tolerate some woke if it's incidental to a core mission of defending traditional BoR liberties, but not the other way around.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The NRA case is alone far from trivial.

It was decided by the Supreme Court, involving a national organization, setting forth a significant precedent. The ACLU also doesn't just do 1A law. Just handwaving a bunch of stuff they did as not important enough to truly matter is dubious.

All those words don't erase that "making a video" etc. wasn't the problem. It was a specific usage of funds. Precedent limited the reach of the regulation to certain types of corporate funds. Various types of corporations were not covered by the rule. Citizen United, as noted, could have funded it in various ways.

Stevens's partial dissent was 90 pages long. So, no a bare paragraph is not self-explanatory. The concern for shareholders is one reason for the rule.

And, precedents did limit the types of corporations involved. This goes to the breadth of the reasoning -- even if as applied to Citizens United the opinion was justified, its reach was much broader. But, even there, CU received outside funding, which itself was a reason for concern. Thus, the citation of the ability to use "its" assets without problem if done in a specific way.

The same applies to the concern for the 30-day rule. Again, for the sake of argument, that might have been a problem.

It still doesn't make a limited regulation of funds censorship.

[tylertusta]

It's also important to remember that during oral arguments the government's attorneys made the extraordinary claim that the government could, if it chose, also ban political pamphlets

I believe the specific example that ruffled the most feathers across the Court was that the government could prohibit the publication of books. In addition to the focus on books, they also discussed pamphlets, movies, and other media.

The Court ordered reargument, and Solicitor General Elena Kagan tried to walk back the previous government position. She said that the government pinky promised that it would never abuse its authority to enforce BCRA notwithstanding the overbreadth of the government's position.

[ducksalad]

Since she joined the court she doesn't seem like an extremist who would take a position like that.

I wonder to what extent Kagan really believed her own position, as opposed to just doing her job of being the government's advocate.

Assuming it was the second, she kind of botched it. My respect for her would go up quite a bit if it turned out the botch was intentional.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks, Joe. I was wondering where I could fit these in!

Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n, 558 U.S. 310 (decided January 21, 2010): Court disallows on First Amendment grounds any restrictions on use of general corporate or union funds to advocate or denigrate political candidates, explicitly overruling McConnell v. FEC, 2003, and Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 1990, except for requiring identification of who is putting out the ads and disclaiming that it represents the views of the broadcaster (in effect, eviscerating the McCain-Feingold Act)

Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563 (decided January 21, 1974): failure to provide English language instruction to first-generation Chinese students violates Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it in effect excludes them from participation in program receiving government assistance (overruled to the extent that nonintentional discrimination is no longer actionable under that statute, see discussion in Alexander v. Sandoval, 2001)

Department of Homeland Security v. MacLean, 574 U.S. 383 (decided January 21, 2015): air marshal was protected by whistleblower statute (5 U.S.C. §2302(b)(8)(A)) from termination because his disclosure to reporter of what he believed to be a dangerous cancellation of air marshal assignments during terrorist alert (supposedly to save money) was not within the statute’s exception for “disclosures specifically prohibited by law”

Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (decided January 21, 2009): no warrant needed for police entry into home because defendant had already agreed to let in the informant to whom he then sold drugs (of course he didn’t know it was an informant); this is called the “consent-once-removed” doctrine, already accepted (does this sound right to you?), and therefore entry not in violation of “clearly established law”; therefore, police officers entitled to qualified immunity (unanimous decision)

United States v. Jimenez Recio, 537 U.S. 270 (decided January 21, 2003): can be charged with conspiracy even if joined conspiracy after it had been defeated (agreed to come pick up truck even though police had already seized drugs from it and set up sting with presumably coerced help of original truck driver)

[David Nieporent]

Court disallows on First Amendment grounds any restrictions on use of general corporate or union funds to advocate or denigrate political candidates

The Court allowed independent expenditures. Not "any use."

[Noscitur a sociis]

Thanks, Joe. I was wondering where I could fit these in!

Seems like this would have been then the conventional choice:

https://reason.com/volokh/2025/01/21/today-in-supreme-court-history-january-21-2010-6/

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The other link provided more information.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

also, that wasn't up before

[Mr. Bumble]

Capt. Dan's not too swift.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (decided January 21, 2009):

Your summary is at best misleading, in that it suggests that the court found that the entry was legal. It didn’t: it held that it wasn’t clearly established as illegal, and therefore that the officers could assert qualified immunity. And in fact, that’s the important part: the case concluded that courts could consider the question of whether a right was clearly established without deciding whether the constitution was violated.

[David Nieporent]

Yes, overturning Saucier v. Katz, which held that a court must first decide whether there was a violation, and if so, whether it was clearly established. From a pure "easier for judges" standpoint, Pearson makes sense; why force judges to spend a lot of time deciding what the constitution means if it doesn't really matter? If nothing has clearly established that the constitution means that, then the plaintiff loses even if the constitution does mean that.

But from the perspective of the public, it's a terrible decision; courts can just decide to never rule on whether something is unconstitutional, ducking that step entirely. At which point it doesn't get established (one way or the other) and so plaintiffs always lose.

[Noscitur a sociis]

It’s tough. On the one hand, it certainly seems like it would be helpful to know whether this search was actually illegal or not. (Ditto, mutatis mutandis, the various uses of force, conditions of confinement and so on that form the basis of civil rights claims.)

On the other hand, if whether or not there was an actual violation wouldn’t change the outcome of the case, isn’t that sliding awfully close to an advisory opinion?

[David Nieporent]

On the other hand, if whether or not there was an actual violation wouldn’t change the outcome of the case, isn’t that sliding awfully close to an advisory opinion?

No. If a party loses a case — any case — for two reasons, then by definition neither one standing alone could change the outcome of the case. That doesn't mean that ruling on both of those issues makes one of those rulings an advisory opinion.

[ducksalad]

I understand there are good reasons why courts want to make the minimum holding necessary to resolve a case. But it's frustrating when they refuse to say whether the constitution was violated, when that allegation is the basis of the case. Decisions in civil lawsuits are one of the primary means by which the finer points of our rights get nailed down. That's especially true, and valuable, when the victim of a violation isn't a criminal suspect trying to get evidence excluded.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I mean, here it was a criminal suspect who successfully got all the evidence excluded, and then tried to get a payday too.

[ducksalad]

I'm OK with a criminal making a few thousand bucks if that's what it takes to effectively enforce the constitution.

The optimum result would be for the officers involved to fork over several months pay, and then the payment gets seized to pay off the (original) criminal's fines or restitution.

[Roger S]

We need another Mt. Rushmore, with heads of Reagan and Trump.

[Stephen Lathrop]

There is still plenty of room on Stone Mountain. Don't hesitate. Get those two up there NOW.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"Here is a statement from Theodore Roosevelt after his assassination in October 1912:"

In your rush to share your breathless stupidity, you forgot to include a rather important word in that sentence.

[SRG2]

Yes, I spotted that. I was impressed by Roosevelt's fortitude.

[Krayt]

Who said god is on either side? Clearly he couldn't be in support of someone functionally against the concept of Help Thy Neighbor, to say nothing of mundane stuff like coveting thy neighbor's wife.

But I don't think he brooks with people more akin to the money changers outside the temple, causing inflation deliberately and predictably, for their own power benefits.

He sees into Trump. But he also sees into Nancy and a thousand others, and knows where every dime comes from.

We poor humans.

Of course, there is no god.

[ThePublius]

"how George Washington and Donald Trump reacted to bullets missing them."

Josh, news for you: the bullet fired at Trump didn't miss, it pierced his ear.

[David Nieporent]

It nicked him by less than I've nicked myself shaving. But, yes, Josh was wrong in his haste to post.