Short And Long Term Effects Of Lincoln's Assassination

The assassination of Lincoln was a devastating event in American history; it was also the first presidential assassination in United States’ history. It led to a lot of change that affects us even today; this change includes how the president’s security is handled.. The event itself occurred in Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, around a week after Robert E. Lee Surrendered to the Union ending a long and bloody civil war. At this time there was a lot of animosity towards northerners and blacks coming from the South. Many Confederate sympathizers, including Lincoln’s assassin, were outraged after Lincoln gave a speech pertaining to Reconstruction a few days after the end of the Civil War because he wanted to increase the amount of rights that

He was present for Lincoln’s Reconstruction speech and enraged by it. Originally he had planned on kidnapping the president and using him as a bargaining tool. He would trade the Union president for every confederate prisoner in Union hands. This was possible because at the time, it was not uncommon for the president to walk around Washington D.C. alone. Today, this idea seems very foreign, our president is one of the most protected men on the planet and this is actually one of the effects of Lincoln’s assassination. However, John Wilkes Booth’s plans fell through and so he decided he would settle for assassinating the president, believing he would become a hero to the South and the country as a whole. Then, on April 14, 1865 Lincoln was viewing the British comedy Our American Cousin with his wife, Major Henry Rathbone, Rathbone’s fiancée, and Clara Harris, the prominent daughter of a senator, when Booth approached Lincoln from behind and shot him once in the back of the head and stabbed Rathbone. Next, he jumped onto the stage, breaking his leg and confusing the crowd until Mrs. Lincoln screamed. He then fled and this act created one of the largest manhunts in United States’ history. He was found approximately two weeks later and killed by Union soldiers at the

One of the biggest changes is that Reconstruction failed, today there is still racial animosity between blacks and whites. Issues such as Ferguson have made this perfectly clear. One of the reasons Reconstruction most likely failed is because the new president, Lincoln’s vice president, Andrew Johnson was a racist himself. This made Lincoln’s promise of making blacks equal difficult because Johnson would never follow through. Another result of Lincoln’s assassination that still applies today was the formation of the Secret Service, the government realized they needed a unique security service to help prevent similar assassinations from occurring. The Secret Service was formed in June of 1865 and endures to this day. However over time, the government has increased the amount of things that the Secret Service is responsible for. Lincoln’s death forever changed how the president’s life is guarded and these systems remain in place