During the evening of the same day President Lincoln established the Secret Service, he was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., by John Wilkes Booth. The country mourned as news spread that the President had been shot.
It was the first time in our nation's history that a president had been assassinated. As Americans cried out for justice for their president, Congress began to think about adding presidential protection to the list of duties performed by the Secret Service.
However, it would take another 36 years and the assassination of two more Presidents, James A. Garfield (March 4, 1881-September 10, 1881) and William McKinley (1897-1901), before the Congress added protection of the president to the list of duties performed by the Secret Service.
You should talk to Mina sometime about Lincoln's assassination. She did a paper on it earlier this year, and became convinced that Seward was in on the plot.
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