Shortly before the Hammonds’ arrival the building’s East Portico had been the scene of an assassination attempt against President Andrew Jackson. The assailant was named Richard Lawrence, who believed himself to be England’s long-dead King Richard III and claimed that Jackson had interfered with the delivery of payments long owed to him by the colonies. The would-be assassin had two guns, both of which misfired—a good thing because Jackson already had one bullet in his body from an 1806 duel in Tennessee in which he killed his challenger and was himself shot in the chest. After the assassin’s
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