President Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth

In the year 1865 on the 15th of April, President Abraham Lincoln became the first President of the United States of America to have been assassinated. President Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States of America, was not only an Anti- Slavery Republican but also a simple and passionate man. In fact, many Americans saw him as a father figure. People tend to hold famous individuals to a higher standard however Abe Lincoln was truly a man of the people. He grew up like them, talked like them, and walked like them, which gained him respect from the people. President Abraham Lincoln was not like any other president considering that he would often walk miles by himself while in office, which was why the task to murder him was not difficult. He was both fearless and reckless. Wilkes Booth, the son of a well-known actor and also an actor himself, was the very man to murder the president with a pistol. In all reality, John Wilkes Booth was a self- centered man. For example, although the Booth family is from the Northern part of America and maintains strong Northern political views, John himself spent most of his life in the South and was actually a strong advocate for the South. It is believed that the reason his political views were completely different from that of his family was because it was his own way of becoming independent from his family and making a name for himself. He actually believed that he was entitled to more wealth and fame because of his family, but he could not have been more wrong. Eventually, John Wilkes Booth failed as a stage actor because of bad timing since America began to lose interest in the entertainment industry and began to become more focused on the war at the time. He soon lost all hope in life and believed that the only way to get his way was in fact to shed blood. He believed that the reason for all of the South's troubles was because of one single man, President Abraham Lincoln. All the anger that was pent up inside John Wilkes Booth drove him to pull the trigger and allow a bullet to fly into the head on a somewhat innocent man. Booth must have felt empty when he finally pulled that trigger. He should have known that one man's death, no matter whether he is the President of the United States of America or not, does not change the fact that the South and their wrong- doings will not go unpunished or that everything he had ever wanted would become, just like that. John Wilkes Booth knew he was done for and he wanted to take someone down with him. He wanted to go down in infamy and he did not care whether what he was famous for was moral or corrupt. The tragic murder and death of President Abraham Lincoln will not be forgotten- neither will John Wilkes Booth.

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