Abraham Lincoln's Assassination Research Paper

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

On the evening of April 15, 1865, America lost one of the greatest presidents of all time. Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the united states. His most known accomplishment was writing the emancipation proclamation. The emancipation proclamation allowed all slave to be freed in the seceding states. He was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in ford’s theater during his second term in office. Abraham Lincoln’s assassination was unjust because he was killed for being an eloquent opponent of slavery, and he wanted to unite America; however, the confederate sympathizers disagreed with these actions.

Abraham Lincoln was an eloquent opponent of slavery. With the Emancipation Proclamation, he abolished

slavery in the southern states that seceded during the Civil War. “Lincoln often expressed moral opposition to slavery in public and private (Donald David, 2).” The Emancipation Proclamation was issued to the public on February 12th, 1809. In 1855, Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to Joshua F. Speed mentioning how much he despised slavery. “Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed met in Springfield, Illinois, during the 1830s. Although Speed returned to his native Kentucky, they remained friends throughout life. In this letter, Lincoln expresses his thinking about slavery, which contrasted with Speed, who grew up on a plantation and owned slaves. The year before Lincoln wrote this letter, the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed Congress, repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and opened the territories to slavery. The passage of this bill proved a turning point in Lincoln's career. As he observed, "I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again” (Letter to Joshua Speed, 1).
Lincoln also strongly wanted to unite America during the Civil War. The emancipation proclamation really helped the union army by freeing the slaves, because the confederates were using slaves against their will as soldiers in the army. Other than that very well-known document, Lincoln helped the union army in other ways. He also led the union army to victory as the commander in chief throughout the whole bloody war. At the end of the Civil War, Lincoln played a key role in ratifying the 13th amendment, which ended slavery completely in the United States. The 13th Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865. This amendment was also one of the first of three Reconstruction Amendments officially used during the five years after the Civil War. Unlike what Lincoln wanted, after the 13th amendment was ratified; African American citizens still weren’t treated with the equality that he pictured.
The reason he was assassinated was because some confederate sympathizers disagreed with these actions.

Like John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of the 16th president Abraham Lincoln. The main reason Lincoln was assassinated was because of his many efforts to equalize the rights of American citizens. Lincoln tried very hard to free many slaves during the civil war because of the fact that the confederates were using them to fight in the war. The confederates still fought back in the war after the emancipation proclamation was released, but not in a very productive fashion. The confederates still wanted to continue using slaves even after they came back to the union, so Booth took it upon himself to assassinate the man who put these rules into play. However, the assassination of Lincoln made no difference. In fact, it was indeed a waste of a life for Booth, because he was hunted down and killed after the longest manhunt in history.

In conclusion, Abraham Lincoln’s assassination was unjust because he was killed for being an eloquent opponent of slavery, and he wanted to unite America; however, the confederate sympathizers disagreed with these actions. He was an eloquent opponent of slavery. He strongly wanted to unite America. However, the reason he was assassinated was because of the confederates. Confederate sympathizers still disagreed with all of his good

deeds.