It's January 30th, 1835, inside a paint shop in Washington, D.C. during the final years of Andrew Jackson's presidency.

The store's owner, Richard Lawrence, paces back and forth across the creaking floor.

Brushes hang on the wall, and the shop is stocked with wooden barrels full of paint,

but Lawrence hasn't worked in weeks.

Instead, he's preoccupied himself with a different task, developing a plan to kill the president.

Visibly agitated, Lawrence stops pacing.

He picks up a book and tries reading to calm his

mind, but it's no use. He's waited long enough. He slams the book shut, stands up, and

declares aloud, I'll be damned if I don't do it. He pockets two single-shot brass pistols

he loaded carefully days earlier and takes to the misty cobblestone streets of D.C.

Lawrence heads straight for the Capitol building, where he finds a large crowd filling into the

rotunda. South Carolina Congressman Warren R. Davis has recently died, and all of Washington

is attending the funeral service. Among the mourners,

Lawrence spots the person he's looking for. The nation's once formidable but now ailing

President Andrew Jackson, who walks with a cane and leans heavily on the arm of his Treasury

Secretary. Lawrence slips both hands in his pockets and grips the pistols, pulling the hammers back into firing

position. The moment is perfect. The president is totally exposed. But Lawrence hesitates and

allows Jackson to enter the rotunda, where the line of fire is obscured. Lawrence curses under

his breath. He then positions himself on the eastern portico,

where he leans against the column he knows the president will pass en route to his carriage.

Lawrence listens patiently to the sound of the service from within the hall.

There's a mass, the eulogy, and organ music.

...