On April 14 , 1865 , Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford ’s Theater in Washington , D.C. He ’d become flat the next morning .
But also on April 14 , 1865 , Lincoln sign into law a slice of legislation which created the Secret Service – the police enforcement bureau level with defending the President from , among other thing , assassination attempts such as the one that befell Lincoln that eventide . Was Lincoln also a victim of bad timing ? Perhaps he had ESP ? Not really – rather , it ’s a unknown historical coincidence . While we currently guess of the Secret Service as primarily existing to protect the President , that was not its original purport .
During the early to mid-1800s , roughly a third of American money was imitative . The solution was something similar to today ’s approach to large musical scale problem – spring a commission .
On the goading of Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch , Lincoln did incisively that . The ratiocination was to mold a Union law enforcement air division ( at the time , there was no FBI ) , the " Secret Service Division of the Department of the Treasury . " That Division was born just hours before John Wilkes Booth fatally shoot the President .
The Secret Service carry out their Treasury duties , primarily , for the next 35 old age . While Lincoln ’s assassination sparkle a discussion about the pauperization for a permanent certificate contingent for the President , this motive went unrealised for decades . In the interim period , both James Garfield ( 1881 ) and William McKinley ( 1901 ) were assassinate . The latter make Congress to work toward a solution , and , informally , Presidential security became a duty of the Service starting with McKinley ’s replacement , Theodore Roosevelt .
The Service ’s military mission still include " investigations into crimes against the financial substructure of the United States . "
Bonus fact : During the American Revolution , then - General Washington had a security point that traveled with him , called the " commandant - in - Chief ’s Guard . " The Guard was disbanded in 1783 , after the War . But it was not barren of controversy . One of the Guardsmen , Thomas Hickey , was caught counterfeiting ( another coincidence ! ) and incarcerated . While incarcerated , he confessed to another yard bird that he was plotting to defect to the British . He was put to death in June of 1776 .
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