James Hawthorne was sworn in at Washington House in a private ceremony mere hours after Robert Lee passed, with only a handful of people present: Chief Justice Arnold Kemp, Secretary of State Colin Potts, his wife Christina, and their two eldest children, Michael and Laura. Hawthorne’s son would later write in his memoirs that “the pall of death had descended over the president’s mansion, and my father seethed with righteous anger at the slaying of Lee, whom he regarded as a close friend.” Indeed, that anger would be on full display the following day when the new president addressed Congress and told the assembled legislators that “for too long, we have allowed the rabble-rousing radicals to stir up unrest, and we must put a stop to it before they tear this nation into pieces.” Republicans gave him a standing ovation while Democrats and Federalists looked on with concern.

Two weeks later, President Hawthorne announced that he was selecting Senator Josiah Blankenship of Mississippi as his Vice President. Some in the cabinet had suggested selecting a northern or western Republican to bring about a better sense of national unity in the new administration. The president, however, argued that he had a good working relationship with Blankenship and needed someone he could trust as his "right-hand man." There was minimal pushback in the Senate, and Senator Blankenship was confirmed on January 24th, becoming the 13th person to hold that office. 

By early February, the president had ordered Attorney General Camden to arrest prominent New Sons members and sympathizers. Then, on March 1st, the president proposed to Congress the Anti-Radical Act, which would allow the government to arrest publishers and orators who “foment radicalism and rebellion against the United States." There is immediate Republican support. The Federalists vow to ensure the law never makes it back to the president for his signature. Predictably, by this point, it was the Democrats who were divided along regional lines, with those representatives closest to the South leaning in support. But there were also Northern Democrats who supported the law, believing that the radicalism being encouraged by the Federalists had gone too far, resulting in Lee’s assassination. On March 30th, 1856, the Anti-Radical Act became law. There are immediate protests in Boston, New York, and even Philadelphia. Hawthorne ordered the Attorney General to use the law immediately, and within a week, the Justice Department began a crackdown on the so-called “radical press.” Multiple New England newspapers saw their editors arrested under the new law, mainly for the way their papers had covered the assassination of Lee and also their stances on abolition.

In April, the State of Massachusetts filed a suit against the government over the Anti-Radical Act, claiming that it violated the First Amendment and was a gross overreach of federal power. In the meantime, New Englanders played a game of cat-and-mouse with the Federal Marshals, who had been tasked with cracking down on the so-called radicals. Local politicians and political organizers continued to speak out against the new act, slavery, and the general tone that President Hawthorne was taking; all the while, the marshals tried to track them down and arrest them.

The Justice Department caused its biggest stir when they arrested Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Joseph Wallace on June 12, 1856, days after his speech to the state’s Federalist Party Convention, where he called Hawthorne a tyrant and called on the party to fight hard for abolition and the end to the Republican Party’s attacks on freedom. Major protests gripped Boston, and many people expected violence to ensue. For reasons lost to history - though most speculate there was pressure from within Hawthorne’s cabinet, most of whom were still Lee appointees, to try and calm things down and avoid real violence - the Justice Department released Wallace after about a week, diffusing the situation somewhat.