Posted on 04/14/2010 5:54:59 AM PDT by central_va
On this day in 1865, John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally shoots President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War.
Booth, a Maryland native born in 1838, who remained in the North during the war despite his Confederate sympathies, initially plotted to capture President Lincoln and take him to Richmond, the Confederate capital. However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned kidnapping, the president failed to appear at the spot where Booth and his six fellow conspirators lay in wait. Two weeks later, Richmond fell to Union forces.
In April, with Confederate armies near collapse across the South, Booth hatched a desperate plan to save the Confederacy. Learning that Lincoln was to attend a performance of "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater on April 14, Booth masterminded the simultaneous assassination of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. By murdering the president and two of his possible successors, Booth and his conspirators hoped to throw the U.S. government into disarray.
On the evening of April 14, conspirator Lewis T. Powell burst into Secretary of State Seward's home, seriously wounding him and three others, while George A. Atzerodt, assigned to Vice President Johnson, lost his nerve and fled. Meanwhile, just after 10 p.m., Booth entered Lincoln's private theater box unnoticed and shot the president with a single bullet in the back of his head. Slashing an army officer who rushed at him, Booth leapt to the stage and shouted "Sic semper tyrannis! [Thus always to tyrants]–the South is avenged!" Although Booth broke his leg jumping from Lincoln's box, he managed to escape Washington on horseback.
The president, mortally wounded, was carried to a lodging house opposite Ford's Theater. About 7:22 a.m. the next morning, Lincoln, age 56, died–the first U.S. president to be assassinated. Booth, pursued by the army and other secret forces, was finally cornered in a barn near Bowling Green, Virginia, and died from a possibly self-inflicted bullet wound as the barn was burned to the ground. Of the eight other people eventually charged with the conspiracy, four were hanged and four were jailed. Lincoln, the 16th U.S. president, was buried on May 4, 1865, in Springfield, Illinois.
Best thing that could have happened to ol' disHonest Abe, and the country, actually. Can you imagine what his legacy would have been if the Racist in Chief had lived through another term?
He would have exported blacks by the thousands, accelerated the centralization of government, continued to alienate the South with his extreme prejudicial governance, continued to ignore the Constitution and on and on.
If he hadn't been decently shot I can guarantee that there wouldn't have been that gawdy Lincoln Memorial. Hell, he probably would have ended up being tried and hanged for the war criminal that he was.
Yap! Yap! Yapyapyapyapyapyapyap!!
Hey CV and Idabilly, I've got this kid, rockrr figured out: He's about 26, lives at home with his single mom whom he yells at and refuses to help around the house, hasn't had a steady job since he dropped out of community college in the first semester because the remedial courses were "too hard", was fired from his last job as a pizza delivery boy for mouthing off at the customers and now he just sits around all day posting on FR but mostly DU because he has a lot of 'friends' over there, he smokes, drinks up his moms beer, has a Facebook page full of pictures that he steals from the internet, hasn't had a girlfriend since 8th grade, his most recent date was with his old stand-by Palmela Handerson, has a poster of Rick Astley on his bedroom wall in the basement, brags about how people on the internet are scared of him and faithfully watches American Idol because of its artistic and intellectual qualities.
What do you think?
Ah the inadvertant disclosures revealed when one indulges in Liberal Projection. Put that mirror down and get back to work. Those urinals won’t clean themselves!
I guess we could talk about Jefferson but the thread is about Lincoln is it not?
True. But if you condemn Lincoln for what you call his 'low opinion of Negroes' then shouldn't Jefferson be condemned for the same thing?
That would be too intellectually honest and hence above their “pay grade”...
You WISH Youy qwere JOHN BOORTH juast cuz YOU HATE LINCOLNNNnnn and WNAT HIM DEADDDDD!Q!@!!!!!!11111
OMG YOU ARE LIKE EVILLLLLLL!!!111!!!!!
I THINK YOUU AWRE A DEMOCRAYTT UYNDERFTRGRTOU*ND PLANTTTTTT mYYYYOOUUUUUU OMG!!~~~~!!!!!1`11
Re #59:
You make a good point.
Hear Hear! Well spoken!
I sent Freepmail to Stand Watie, no reply. I think he may never come back. I guess that makes you happy. (The shift-key thing does get a little tiring).....
Wish they would release his DNA. Before I die, I’d love to know if my children are his cousins. 6 times removed.
Maybe he's riding around in that U-boat he said was captured by Texas privateers during World War 2 and put on display in a Galveston park.
If you want to keep it on topic then keep it to the mid-19th century. If all you want to do is bash Lincoln and exaggerate his views on blacks then be honest enough to admit it.
OMMGMGGG!!!Q LIKEG HOOWWW YOUY WaNRTED TO KILLLLLLLL ABRAHAM LINKOLN!!!!!11!!!!11! YOU WUISHED HIMN DEADCDDDD!Q!!! VECAUSE YOU QARE EEEECVVBVVVIKLLL:LLLLLL!L!!!!!!!!
I believe cowboyway is convinced I had him banned and said as much on the forum. Why his ID would still be active after having done that is something he hasn’t been able to explain.
LOL!
Thank you. Sometimes my proclivity for measured and cogent reposte exceeds my wildest imaginations, for it is in the logical measure that one can finally touch the bright face of a timeless truth. For example, and to my esteemed foe central_va:
LLL#O#L.LLLL!!! TYYHUYYOOOOOYUUUU SUCKKKKKK!!!11!!1``!!
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