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The escape led to embarrassing headlines in the news, and more grumbling inside the Lincoln administration about the continued threat of counterfeit dollars weakening the U.S. financial system. President Lincoln soon called for a commission to address the problem.

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Treasury Secretary Hugh McCulloch had an idea for a permanent fix: creating a "regular permanent force whose job it [would] be to put these counterfeiters out of business." He suggested forming a special unit within the Treasury Department to track down, arrest, and prosecute them.

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But Lincoln would not live to put McCulloch's idea into action. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went with his wife, Mary, to see the play "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theatre in downtown Washington. The president had received numerous death threats, and his aides had succeeded, after years of prodding, to get him to accept that he needed a bodyguard. A team of four police officers borrowed from the local department took turns accompanying him on his travels out in public. But his police officer the night of the play was the weakest of the group, well known for drinking and falling asleep on the job. He left the passageway of the president's box so he could watch the play, then strolled across the street to the Star Saloon to have a drink. John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer who had heard of the president's upcoming visit to the theater, stepped behind Lincoln in his box to the left of the stage and shot him in the head. The president died after sunrise the next morning.

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Carol Leonnig "Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service" (2021)