By Patrick J. Buchanan – November 30, 2001

When Leon Czolgosz shot President William McKinley in 1901, he was tried before a civilian court, as was Giuseppe Zangara, the would-be assassin of President-elect Franklin Roosevelt in 1933.

When John Hinckley Jr. shot President Reagan in 1981, he, too, was tried before a civilian court. But those who plotted the murder of Lincoln were tried by a military commission at Ft. McNair – with U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt presiding – and hanged.