April 14, 1865 President Lincoln Shot

History Channel.com ^ | 4/14/2005 | staff

[kellynla]

At Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally wounds President Abraham Lincoln. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox, effectively ending the American Civil War.

Booth, 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 Laura Keene's acclaimed performance in Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater on April 14, Booth plotted 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 a paralyzing 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 jumped to the stage and shouted "Sic semper tyrannis! [Thus always to tyrants]--the South is avenged!" Although Booth had broken his left leg jumping from Lincoln's box, he succeeded in escaping Washington.

The president, mortally wounded, was carried to a cheap lodging house opposite Ford's Theater. About 7:22 a.m. the next morning, he died--the first U.S. president to be assassinated. Booth, pursued by the army and secret service 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 persons eventually charged with the conspiracy, four were hanged and four were jailed.

[Fudd Fan]

But Ted Kennedy SHOULD be arrested.

[streetpreacher]

The North does not like corn bread and ice tea... a bigger sin.

What do you think you know about the South?

[Fudd Fan]

"I think those who object to Lincoln's treatment of oppositionists, which was certainly much gentler than Wilson's treatment of his opponents in WWI, do so primarily because they sympathize with their cause."

You say that like it's a BAD thing.

[streetpreacher]

The south does not like Lincoln.

The devil does not like Jesus. What else is new?

Jesus does not like the North.

Jesus does not like the devil.

Therefore Northerners are satanic.

[smug]

It may be an exercise in fantasy, or wishful thinking.
But, I can envision a CSA that won their independence.
Where slavery would have ended, Roe v Wade had never been allowed to happened. Where no type of Ninth Circus Court could act like unAmerican jerks that they are. Where the ten commandments could proudly be displayed. A history that include USA and CSA troops fighting side be side in WW1 and 2. etc.

[daybreakcoming]

Well, sorry but I kinda like the United States of America. As far as Gorbachev's former states....look at 'em now.

[Fudd Fan]

Ever hear the word HISTORY?

[Sweet Southern Freedom]

Ever heard of the word FUTURE?

[Fudd Fan]

Oh geeze Edith, do I have to go into Santayana?

[Euro-American Scum]

And I'm sure this secret society was under the thrall of an international cadre of Jewish bankers who secretly ran the world.

George W. Bush and the International Zionist Conspiracy. I just knew it!

/sarcasm

[Gunslingr3]

That was the situation in 1862, except that the US was much closer to being destroyed than at any time in the 1940s.

The US was no closer to being destroyed in 1861 than the UK was to being destroyed in 1776. Lincoln, like Old King George, meant to keep his forts and collect his taxes, whether the locals liked it or not. When they resisted he launched a war of annihilation upon them the likes of which even King George wouldn't consider.

[streetpreacher]

Listening to some fellow Southerners moan and groan about "northern oppression" of the Confederacy is like listening to liberal blacks talk about how slavery has affected them and then demanding reparations.

Neither one of them has personally sacrificed anything and to listen to them rant and rave is laughable.

Anyone who would portend that slavery had nothing to do with the war between the States is either shooting up good ol' Southern meth or is deliberately deceitful. Slavery was the central issue guiding succession; indeed one need only look at South Carolina's Declaration of Succession to verify this. http://www.usconstitution.com/SouthCarolinaDeclarationofSuccession.htm

The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right.

In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

Anyone who can defend this garbage with a straight-face, I say is a racist.
 

[Gunslingr3]

They didn't want a peaceful secession of a few of the Deep South states, which is all they would have got that way. Such a Confederacy would have been unsustainable.

Unsustainable? Why? More States joined the Confederacy when Lincoln called upon them for troops to invade and conquer the Southern Confederacy. They were unwilling to join Lincoln in pissing upon the Declaration of Indepedence's concept of political sovereignty.

Funny how the Chi-coms echo Lincoln on the subject of secession and the rights of people to determine their own government and poltical bonds.

[daybreakcoming]

You forgot it was all about oil. :o)

[Gunslingr3]

Neither one of them has personally sacrificed anything and to listen to them rant and rave is laughable.

As a person who labors of the kind of income taxes and intrusive federal government Lincoln introduced to the nation, I'd say the legacy of oppression from Washington, D.C. continues to this day.

[TexConfederate1861]

My point EXACTLY! :)

[TexConfederate1861]

I believe in it's nobler aspects. Not Slavery. The problem is that the Confederacy stood for the basic struggle of States vs Fed Government, which is STILL a problem today. Under the original government of the states which the Founding Fathers created, there would be no problem with 2nd amendment rights, executive orders, etc. These problems exist as a direct result of the usurping of power from the states. The Union won the war, but as a country we ALL lost.

[TexConfederate1861]

If Lincoln had only minded his own business, there would have BEEN no war.

[Restorer]

Unsustainable? Why? More States joined the Confederacy when Lincoln called upon them for troops to invade and conquer the Southern Confederacy.

For most of early 1860 the Upper South and Border states were on the fence with regard to secession. Had they remainined in the Union it is fairly obvious that the rump Confederacy would not have been large enough to be viable in the long run, as the chance of future conflict between it and the US approaches 100%.

Think of the Confederate leaders as similar to Serbian and Croat extremist leaders during the breakup of Yugoalavia. Most people, in all the ethnic groups, just wanted to get along. The extremists precipitated war, as in the crunch most would support "their people." War has the effect of forcing people to take sides. The Confederacy, IMHO, initiated war to force Upper South and Border states to pick a side.

They were unwilling to join Lincoln in pissing upon the Declaration of Indepedence's concept of political sovereignty.

This is an example of the logical fallacy of begging the question. All Americans of the time believed in the principles of the D of I. Some claimed it gave states the right to secede. Others strongly disagreed. Asserting a claim does not constitute proof or even evidence.

Whenever two groups strongly hold mutually exclusive positions, the conflict can be resolved in only two ways: mutual agreement to accept the ruling of some authority (in our system usually that of a court), or by violence.

The seceding states chose to not take the first approach. Eventually, they decided to try the second, and they came very close to success.

[mass55th]

"You were there?"

Some days I feel like I was, but interviews and testimony of Dr. Mudd and others clearly show that Mudd and Booth had met at least 2-3 times prior to the assassination. Booth even visited at Mudd's home under the guise of buying a horse.