Talk:John Wilkes Booth/@comment-38.114.202.226-20140516211815

The lies we believe.

Major Thomas Eckert interrogated Lewis Paine when he was in prison as an accomplice for Lincoln’s assassination. Thomas Eckert said that Lewis Powell said that Booth said, “That means nigger citizenship. Now, by God, I will put him through. That will be the last speech he will ever make.” Booth made no such statement!!!!

Eckert was working with Edwin Stanton in a separate, but failed attempt to kill Lincoln. Eckert wanted to place all the attention unto Booth and away from himself and Stanton. Eckert made up this quote.

Who was Eckert? Eckert was a powerfully built man and the head of the telegraph department. Lincoln asked him to attend the theatre and be his body guard on the night of April 14, 1865. In an act of insubordination, Eckert told the president—no. He told Lincoln that he had business to do at the telegraph office that night. At about 10:00 pm all the telegraph lines went down, slowing down the news of Lincoln’s assassination and allowing the killer time to get away.

Is anyone curious why the head of the telegraph department was interrogating Powell? Powell might have information of Stanton’s plan to kill Lincoln, and Stanton didn’t want any information that might be damaging to himself to get out. Eckert was equally guilty of plotting Lincoln’s assassination so he was given this assignment to interrogate Powell.

How did Booth feel about the black man? He said, “ I have never held the South were right...Heaven knows, no one would be willing to do more for the Negro race than I.” (New York Times April 21, 1865)