JOHN WILKES BOOTH
Booth was the younger son of a very prominent Northern family of actors. His older brother was considered the greatest American actor, and the rest of the family were abolitionists and vehement Union supporters. They found young John’s views reprehensible.
After attending a Lincoln speech, Booth said to Lewis Powell, one of his band of conspirators, “Now, by God, I’ll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make.”
The original plan was to kidnap Lincoln from Ford’s Theater and hold him as ransom for Confederate Prisoners of War. However, other conspirators thought it would be difficult to spirit the President out of the theater. Actually, after Booth attended a Lincoln speech, he changed his mind and changed the objective to assassination. See {623953}.
The Latin phrase is the motto of the State of Virginia.
John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. A member of the prominent 19th-century Booth theatrical family from Maryland, he was a noted actor who was also a Confederate sympathizer; denouncing President Lincoln, he lamented the recent abolition of slavery in the United States.
