Abraham Lincoln Assassination Research Paper

Consequences of the Lincoln Assassination

Abraham Lincoln is one of the greatest men who ever lived, not only because of the incredible power he possessed but because of what he accomplished with that power. Lincoln was a president of firsts: he was the first Republican president, he was the first president to wear a beard and he even became the first president to hold a patent when he developed a device used to lift boats over shoals. (Lincoln’s Patent) However, Lincoln’s most important, “first”, was that he was the first president who was openly opposed to slavery. As Lincoln once famously wrote, “I am naturally anti-slavery”. (Abraham Lincoln Quotes about Slavery) His belief that slavery was evil ultimately led to the Civil War and the freeing

Booth was sympathetic towards the Confederacy and he was furious with Lincoln who, from his perspective, was the cause of all of the death and destruction. (The Life and Plot of John Wilkes Booth) He decided that he wanted to avenge the Confederacy by kidnaping Lincoln and trading him back to the United States for thousands of Confederate prisoners of war. He believed that this would give the Confederate army a second chance at winning the war. (The Life and Plot of John Wilkes Booth) However, when Booth realized that it was only a matter of time before the Confederacy surrendered, he decided to assassinate Lincoln instead. (The Life and Plot of John Wilkes

(Lincoln’s Assassination) Booth knew that Lincoln would be attending the play, “My American Cousin”, at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. (Lincoln’s Assassination) That morning, Booth went up to the presidential suite where Lincoln would be watching the play and he cut a peephole into the door of the suite so that he could spy on Lincoln. He then waited for the play to begin and went to his peephole. John Parker was supposed to be guarding the suite that night but he left his post to get a drink. Booth decided that he would enter Lincoln’s suite and shoot him during the funniest joke in the play so that the sound of the gun would be lost in the laughter. However, his gun was much louder than the laughter and when he fatally shot Lincoln in the head, everyone was immediately aware of what happened. Booth jumped off of the suite’s balcony onto the stage and he ran out the back door of theatre where he promptly escaped into the night via horseback. (Lincoln’s