There have been many assassination attempts and plots on Presidents of the United States; there have been over 20 known attempts to kill sitting and former Presidents as well as Presidents-elect. Four attempts have resulted in sitting Presidents being killed: Abraham Lincoln (the 16th President), James A. Garfield (the 20th President), William McKinley (the 25th President) and John F. Kennedy (the 35th President). Two other Presidents were injured in attempted assassinations: former President Theodore Roosevelt (the 26th President), and then sitting President Ronald Reagan (the 40th President).
Although attempts have been made to prove that most American assassinations were politically motivated actions, carried out by rational men, not all such assassinations and attempts have been undertaken for truly political reasons. Some have been perpetrated by people of questionable mental stability, and a few were judged legally insane. Since the successor to the presidency, the Vice President of the United States, has usually been, and now always is of the same political party as the President, the assassination of the President is unlikely to result in major policy changes. This may explain why political groups typically do not make such attacks.
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—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
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“‘O opportunity! thy guilt is great,
‘Tis thou that execut’st the traitor’s treason;
Thou set’st the wolf where he the lamb may get;
Whoever plots the sin, thou point’st the season;
‘Tis thou that spurn’st at right, at law, at reason;
And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,
Sits Sin to seize the souls that wander by him.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)