why did john wilkes boothe assasinate Lincoln?

Question

i was watching a show on lincoln's assasination and i was wondering why he did it.

Answer 1

"He was also a Confederate sympathizer who expressed vehement dissatisfaction with the South's defeat in the Civil War and Lincoln's proposal to extend voting rights to freed slaves."

"Booth and a group of co-conspirators led by him planned to kill Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward in a desperate bid to help the tottering Confederacy's cause. Although Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had surrendered four days earlier, Booth felt that the war was not yet over because Confederate General Joseph Johnston's army was still fighting Union Army General Sherman."

"When Abraham Lincoln was elected president on 1860-11-06, Booth wrote a long speech that decried what he saw as Northern abolitionism and made clear his strong support of the South and the institution of slavery."

"Booth's family was from Maryland, a border state which remained in the Union during the war despite a slaveholding population that was strongly sympathetic to the Southern cause. Along with the fact that Maryland shared a border with Washington, D.C., Lincoln had declared martial law in the state, a move that many, including Booth, viewed as unconstitutional and an abuse of executive power."

"Booth was outspoken in his love for the South, and equally outspoken in his hatred for Lincoln. In early 1862, Booth was arrested and taken before a provost marshal in St. Louis for making anti-government remarks."

"On April 10, after hearing the news that Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Booth told Louis J. Weichmann, a friend of John Surratt, and a boarder at Mary Surratt's house that he was done with the stage and that the only play he wanted to present henceforth was "Venice Preserv'd". Although Mr. Weichmann did not understand the reference, "Venice Preserv'd" is about an assassination plot."

"On April 11, Booth was in the crowd outside the White House when Lincoln gave an impromptu speech from his window. When Lincoln stated that he was in favor of granting suffrage to the former slaves, Booth turned to Lewis Powell and urged him to shoot the president on the spot. Powell refused. Booth muttered that it would be the last speech Lincoln would ever make."

"John Wilkes Booth" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes_Booth

Answer 2

It's an excellent question and one that seems unlikely to fully be answered. Supposedly he wrote in his diary that if several important people in the Union could be killed that the disorginization would buy enough time for the Confederacy to be reorginized so as to continue the fight. So that could be the reason.

Another reason is that he was supposed to be furious over a speech Lincoln gave just days before the assassination in which he supported the idea of giving blacks the vote. Originally Booth's plan was to kidnap Lincoln so as to exchange him for Confederate POWs, which he tried and failed at. While he had planned to continue to plan kidnapping Lincoln, this speech supposedly made him change plans to assassination.

Then there's conspiracy theories that he may have actually been work in colusion with Federal authorities to get Lincoln out of the way. Not all that far fetched when you consider that Lincoln was supposed to have wanted to ease the wounds of the nation and allow the South to rejoin the union as quickly as possible, something many didn't want since they felt the South should be made to pay. Which ended up being what happened. The conspiracy theory probably would never have gone away, but there certainly are two things that help to support it. The first being Booth visited the vice-president's home on the niight he assassinated Lincoln and left a note asking if Johnston was home. This could either mean Johnston was in on the assassination or Booth was trying to throw suspicion on him. But the second seems more important to the persistence of the conspiracy theories, and that's the fact that Booth's diary was found with eighteen missing pages. What did those pages say? And if they implicated certain Federal authorities in the assasination, who were they?

Answer 3

John Wilkes Booth was an actor of the American stage and his family was prominent on the stage as well. During the Civil War, Booth showed no secret that he was a Confederate sympathizer and desired to help the South the best way he knew how. At first, Booth was only going to kidnap Lincoln to give the South an edge and a way to keep their way of life. Once the war was lost , Booth changed his strategy from kidnapping to murdering the President out of revenge and to preserve the South by throwing the North into chaos. Booth was also an advocate of slavery and his definite dislike of African-Americans. He believed in murdering Lincoln he was doing the South the greatest servivce possible but all he was doing was sealing their fate by the Radical Republican 's Reconstruction and not the one of compassion that would have dealt with healing of wounds instead of causing salt in wounds that festered.

Answer 4

Johnathan Wilkes Booth, the actor, felt that in order for the country to continue Lincoln, an awful poison to what Booth saw as his country, he must have been killed. Short sweet and to the point.

To ensure no confusion don't agree with Wilkes's choice or ideals.

Answer 5

President Lincoln was the focus of a threat to the way of life Booth was accustomed to.

The last time slavery was abolished in Mauritania in 1984 it was the freed slaves who protested the loudest because this group had the most to lose. They became equal suddenly and this loss of status was felt deeply at this level. In fact this group lost all their status.

Booth was fighting for poor white trash who perceived their status going away.

The moral is always measure your status in absolute measurable terms and not by comparing yourself to others.

Answer 6

John Wilkes Boothe did no longer shoot Kennedy. in case you want to invite questions like this then in step with probability you should get the data at present first and then make the question comprehensible.

Answer 7

Southerners immediately after the war,(some to this day) HATED Lincoln and blamed him for the events leading to the inevitable suffering and defeat of the southern confederacy. They were embittered and many threaten to assassinate him. JWB succeeded in carrying out that threat.

Answer 8

retailiation for the south loosing the war. He greatly resented Lincoln, as did a great number of Americans at the time.

Answer 9

Good answer, Erik Van! I would recommend that anyone interested in this topic read, Blood on the Moon, by Edward Steers.

Answer 10

He was a southern sympathizer and believed in the cause of the Confederates, namely, states rights, the right to legalize slavery, and the right to secede from the Union.

Chow!!