What two assassination attempts in two violent elections in the 1870s warn about today

CNN —

On May 7, 1873, Louisiana Gov. William Pitt Kellogg made his way to his carriage following a meeting in New Orleans, when a man named Charles R. Railey confronted him.

“I wanted to tell you that you were a cowardly and usurping scoundrel and that if you have any courage you will stand like a man and I will treat you as the scoundrel you have shown yourself to be,” Railey told Kellogg, who replied somewhat huffily, “I am not acquainted with you, and I don’t know that I have done anything to offend you, sir.”

As Kellogg’s carriage rounded the corner one shot rang out. He raised his hand to his neck as his driver raced them away, and though early reports said Kellogg had been shot in his neck and gravely wounded, it turned out that the bullet had just missed him. He later explained, “I heard a shot and simultaneously felt the passage of a shot by my neck.”

It’s one of the many often forgotten events in US history that I learned about while working on an upcoming book “America’s Deadliest Election, A Cautionary Tale of the Most Violent Election in American History,” with my coauthor David Fisher.

BUTLER, PENNSYLVANIA - JULY 13: Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is shown covered by U.S. Secret Service agents after an incident during a rally on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

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Since the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, many have rightly pointed to the sad, bloody history of violence against American political leaders – the murders of Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy, and the attempted