The Conspiracy to Assassinate Lincoln — Parks, Presidents and Parks

Do you remember President Lafayette Sabine Foster? Our nation’s 17th President? He came close to becoming President after Lincoln’s assassination.

Lincoln Assassination Conspiracy

In April 1865, John Wilkes Booth led a conspiracy to murder President Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward. I think Booth figured that killing the three most prominent members of the administration would somehow cripple the Union. It doesn’t make sense. By this time, Robert E. Lee had already surrendered at Appomattox; the Confederacy was doomed. Booth succeeded in killing President Lincoln at Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865. Future President U.S. Grant was scheduled to attend theater that night with Lincoln but canceled at the last minute, or he might have also been a victim. One of Booth’s accomplices severely wounded but did not kill, Secretary of State Seward. And the person who was to murder the Vice President never acted.

Imagine Booth’s plot had succeeded, with Lincoln, Johnson, and Seward dead. In 1865, the next to ascend to the Presidency, after the Vice President, would have been the President ‘pro tempore’ of the Senate (the person who acts as President of the Senate in the absence of the Vice President). In April 1865, the President ‘pro tempore’ of the Senate was Lafayette Sabine Foster, Republican Senator from Connecticut. Had Booth’s collaborator killed Vice President Andrew Johnson as planned, Senator Foster would have ascended to the Presidency. We can only speculate how this would have affected history, but since Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, became the first President to be impeached, it probably could not have been worse.

Assassins have succeeded in murdering four Presidents and firing shots at several others. In each case, but one, a single person was involved (conspiracy theories regarding Kennedy’s assassination aside). Lincoln’s was the only assassination or assassination attempt that was part of a multi-person conspiracy.

Originally John Wilkes Booth planned to kidnap Lincoln and exchange him for Confederate prisoners as the South was running short of manpower by 1865. The kidnapping plans were aborted due either to infeasibility or last-minute changes in Lincoln’s schedule.

On April 11, 1865, Lincoln made his last public address a few days after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Booth was present. In this speech, Lincoln discusses his plans for the reconstruction of the South into the Union. Many political issues needed to be resolved, such as readmission of Confederate States, when could those States vote again in Presidential elections or send representatives to Congress. Not to mention the overriding issue of entering freed enslaved people into society. Lincoln brought up the subject of the vote for former slaves: “It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers.” This reference to voting angered Booth, who declared “That means nigger citizenship. Now, by God, I will put him through. That will be the last speech he will ever make.“ And it was.

Booth was cornered and shot twelve days after the assassination. A hundred-mile manhunt caught up to him in Virginia. He had photographs of five women on him. One was of Lucy Lambert Hale, daughter of, ironically enough, an abolitionist Senator from New Hampshire. He was secretly engaged to her. She procured a ticket for Booth to attend Lincoln’s March 1865 Inauguration. After Lincoln’s assassination, Senator Hale posted notices denying any relationship between his daughter and Booth. And there is no record of her being interrogated by the investigators, unusual since Booth was carrying a picture of her. Lucy Hale had several suitors, including Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and Teddy Roosevelt’s future Secretary of State, John Hay. And, at least a passing interest from Lincoln’s oldest son, Robert Lincoln. Booth’s sister, Asia, later reported that John had become angry at the sight of Lucy dancing with Robert Lincoln one night at a social function. In a strange coincidence, Booth’s older brother Edwin, had saved Robert Lincoln’s life in 1864. Robert Lincoln had fallen onto some train tracks in a crowd, and Edwin Booth pulled him off.

Lincoln’s Burial in Illinois

Lincoln Returns to Springfield, Illinois

After Lincoln’s death, his body was transported to Springfield, Illinois for burial. The train journey lasted eleven days. A bizarre story unfolded about ten years later, in 1876. Some criminal counterfeiters decided to steal Lincoln’s remains and hold the body for ransom. They successfully broke into the memorial tomb and gained access to the coffin, but were then stymied by the weight of the coffin and later captured. There’s more. As a result of this break-in, Lincoln’s coffin was first temporarily re-located elsewhere in the tomb and then buried in a shallow grave in the tomb disguised under a pile of wood. In 1887, the coffin was moved again to a sealed brick and concrete vault. The coffin was opened to prove that this was actually Lincoln. It was. Another thirteen years passed, and Lincoln’s tomb was deteriorating from water damage. The casket was moved into a temporary tomb while the monument was rebuilt. In September 1901, Lincoln’s casket was moved back to the now completed memorial. After opening the coffin one last time, and Lincoln’s identity confirmed, he could finally rest in peace. As the man who saved the Union and freed the slaves.

Lincoln’s Final Resting Place in Springfield, Illinois