What were Abraham Lincoln’s politics?

Abraham Lincoln was a member of the Whig Party and later a Republican . He believed that the government’s job was to do what a community of people could not do for themselves. One of his greatest preoccupations as a political thinker was the issue of self-governance and the promise and problems that could arise from it. The choice by some to allow the expansion of slavery was one such problem and was central to the American Civil War . Although opposed to slavery from the outset of his political career, Lincoln would not make its abolition a mainstay of his policy until several years into the war.

How did Abraham Lincoln get into politics?

From 1834 to 1840, Abraham Lincoln occupied a seat in the Illinois state legislature. He also practiced law in Illinois during the 1830s and ’40s, and in that time he became one of the state’s most renowned lawyers. He first entered national politics in 1847 while serving a single term in Congress . In 1858 he made a bid for the Senate in a much-publicized race which he ultimately lost but which transformed him into a nationally recognized political figure. In 1860 he was nominated at the Republican National Convention to be the party’s presidential candidate, and he embarked on a presidential campaign that he would win.

What were Abraham Lincoln’s chief goals in the American Civil War?

Abraham Lincoln’s chief goal in the American Civil War was to preserve the Union. At the outset of the war, he would have done so at any cost, including by allowing slavery to continue. But abolishing slavery would become a nonnegotiable objective for him as the war progressed because of his own long-expressed abhorrence for the practice and because of the growing antislavery sentiment among his fellow Northerners. His intransigence on the subject scuttled possibilities of a peace conference between the Union and the Confederacy in 1864. By winning the war, he achieved both these objectives—reunion and abolition.

What is Abraham Lincoln’s legacy?

For many, Abraham Lincoln has gone down in history as something of a martyr for his country. That’s in part because of his assassination by John Wilkes Booth , which happened to occur on Good Friday —a connection that has been drawn time and again. But Lincoln had already begun to be mythicized during his lifetime, some of his contemporaries drawing parallels between him and figures like George Washington . Lincoln had his critics as well, particularly in the South: there were those who regarded him as an opponent to the values of personal freedom and states’ rights .

What was Abraham Lincoln’s personal life like?

Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 in a backwoods cabin in Kentucky. His father was a pioneer and a farmer, and his mother was a deeply religious woman who died when Lincoln was young. His father’s second wife adored Lincoln and is said to have stoked his love of learning. Lincoln would go on to marry Mary Todd and have four boys with her, only one of whom survived into adulthood.

John Wilkes Booth

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John Wilkes Booth summary

John Wilkes Booth

Q: What is John Wilkes Booth famous for?

John Wilkes Booth was part of a family of celebrated actors, but he is remembered as the assassin who mortally wounded U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. , on April 14, 1865, as part of a broader conspiracy that included an attempt on the life of Secretary of State William H. Seward .

Q: What was John Wilkes Booth’s family like?

John Wilkes Booth was part of one of the most distinguished acting families in the 19th century United States. His father, Junius Brutus Booth, an English immigrant, achieved popularity in the U.S. second to that of American actor Edwin Forrest . Booth’s brother Edwin was a renowned tragedian, remembered as one of the greatest performers of William Shakespeare ’s Hamlet .

Q: What was John Wilkes Booth’s occupation?

John Wilkes Booth was an actor. After an unsuccessful Baltimore , Maryland, theatrical debut in 1856, he played minor roles in Philadelphia until 1859, when he joined a Shakespearean stock company in Richmond , Virginia. He was widely acclaimed on a tour of the Deep South in 1860 and remained an in demand actor throughout the American Civil War .

Q: What did John Wilkes Booth believe in?

John Wilkes Booth was a vigorous supporter of the Southern cause. He was outspoken in his advocacy of slavery and his hatred of U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln . He was a volunteer in the Richmond militia that hanged the abolitionist John Brown after Brown’s Harpers Ferry Raid in 1859.

Q: How did John Wilkes Booth die?

John Wilkes Booth fled after shooting U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln . During the massive manhunt he was discovered by Federal troops while hiding in the barn of a Virginia farm. After being shot, either by a soldier or by himself, Booth was carried to the farmhouse porch, where he subsequently died, though rumours persisted that the man killed was not Booth.

American actor and assassin

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Jun 11, 2025 • Article History

Quick Facts

Born:: May 10, 1838, near Bel Air, Maryland, U.S.

Died:: April 26, 1865, near Port Royal, Virginia (aged 26)

Notable Family Members:: father Junius Brutus Booth; brother Edwin Booth

Role In:: assassination of Abraham Lincoln

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What is John Wilkes Booth famous for?

What was John Wilkes Booth’s family like?

What was John Wilkes Booth’s occupation?

What did John Wilkes Booth believe in?

How did John Wilkes Booth die?

John Wilkes Booth (born May 10, 1838, near Bel Air, Maryland, U.S.—died April 26, 1865, near Port Royal, Virginia) was a member of one of the United States’ most distinguished acting families of the 19th century and the assassin who killed U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln.

Booth was the 9th of 10 children born to the actor Junius Brutus Booth. He showed excellent theatrical potential early on but also exhibited an emotional instability and a driving egocentricity that made it difficult for him to accept his brother Edwin’s rise to acclaim as the foremost actor of the day.

After an unsuccessful Baltimore theatrical debut in 1856, John played minor roles in Philadelphia until 1859, when he joined a Shakespearean stock company in Richmond, Virginia. He was widely acclaimed on a tour of the Deep South in 1860 and remained in demand as an actor throughout the American Civil War, including taking a turn as the lead in a production of William Shakespeare’s Richard III in New York City in 1862.

Civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers a speech to a crowd of approximately 7,000 people on May 17, 1967 at UC Berkeley's Sproul Plaza in Berkeley, California.

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A vigorous supporter of the Southern cause, Booth was outspoken in his advocacy of slavery and his hatred of Lincoln. He was a volunteer in the Richmond militia that hanged the abolitionist John Brown in 1859. By the autumn of 1864 Booth had begun to plan a sensational abduction of President Lincoln. He recruited several coconspirators, and throughout the winter of 1864–65 the group gathered frequently in Washington, D.C., where they mapped out a number of alternative abduction plans. After several attempts had miscarried, Booth resolved to destroy the president and his officers no matter what the cost.

On the morning of April 14, 1865, Booth learned that the president was to attend an evening performance of the comedy Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in the capital. Booth hurriedly assembled his band and assigned each member his task, including the murder of Secretary of State William Seward. He himself would kill Lincoln. About 6:00 pm Booth entered the deserted theatre, where he tampered with the outer door of the presidential box so that it could be jammed shut from the inside. He returned during the play’s third act to find Lincoln and his guests essentially unguarded.

Entering the box, Booth drew a .44-calibre derringer and shot Lincoln through the back of the head. He grappled briefly with Union officer Maj. Henry Rathbone (who, along with his fiancée, was in the box as the Lincolns’ guest), swung himself over the balustrade, and leaped off it, reportedly shouting, “Sic semper tyrannis!” (the motto of the state of Virginia, meaning “Thus always to tyrants!”) or “The South is avenged!” or both. He landed heavily on the stage, breaking a bone in his left leg—though some believe that this injury did not occur until later—and was able to make his escape to the alleyway and his horse. The attempt on Seward’s life failed, but Lincoln died shortly after 7:00 am the following morning.

Having met up with another of the conspirators, David Herold, Booth fled through Maryland, stopping to have his leg treated by Samuel A. Mudd, a Maryland doctor who would later be convicted of conspiracy. A massive manhunt ensued, fueled by a $100,000 reward. Booth and Herold hid for days in a thicket of trees near the Zekiah Swamp in Maryland. On April 26, Federal troops arrived at a farm in Virginia, just south of the Rappahannock River, where Booth was hiding in a tobacco barn. Herold gave himself up before the barn was set afire, but Booth refused to surrender. After being shot, either by a soldier or by himself, Booth was carried to the porch of the farmhouse, where he subsequently died. The body was identified by a doctor who had operated on Booth the year before, and it was then secretly buried, though four years later it was reinterred. There is no acceptable evidence to support the rumours, current at the time, doubting that the man who had been killed was actually Booth.