Student Question
Why did John Wilkes Booth kill Abraham Lincoln?
Quick answer:
John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln because he was a fervent supporter of the Confederate cause and viewed Lincoln as a tyrant who needed to be stopped. Booth, a well-known actor with a flair for drama, was particularly incensed by Lincoln’s policies towards freed slaves. He and his co-conspirators believed that by killing Lincoln and other key figures, they could destabilize the North and potentially revive the Confederate cause.
Booth was a Confederate sympathizer from Virginia who happened to live in Union territory, and he was upset that the South had lost the war. He was a pretty well known actor for his time, but couldn't bring himself to enslit in the actual Confederate Army.
He and his band of co-conspirators thought that by assassinating Lincoln and other members of the government and military, he could 1) get revenge against the North, and the man who led them, and 2) give the South another chance to break away while the North was leaderless.
Not the most well thought out plan, but Booth drank a lot too. He also wanted to make the assassination as dramatic as possible, choosing a theater where he had acted numerous times, and jumping on to the stage to yell "Sic Semper Tyranis" at the crowd before he ran out - which means "Ever so...
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be it to Tyrants" in Latin.