The Power and Duty of the Federal Government to Protect Its Agents [excerpt]

     Czolgosz killed Mr. McKinley, not because he was William McKinley, but because he was President of the United States; not because of his personality, but because he represented the idea of law and government. The violence was directed against the official, rather than against the private individual; against the office, not the man. All the surrounding circumstances, as well as the admission of the assassin, show that personal malice, ordinarily present in crime, was altogether absent, and that malice against the idea of government was present. The motive for the fatal shot was not to destroy McKinley, except as a step in the direction of destroying the idea of government and law, which, for the time being, he represented as the head of the executive branch of the government. Mr. McKinley was the representative of the people in respect to their idea of government; and the blow being directed against the idea, it follows that the real crime was against the people and their government, rather than against McKinley as an individual.