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"Instead of looking upon slavery as a sin I hold it to be a happiness for themselves and a social and political blessing for us. I have been through the whole south and have marked the happiness of master and man. True, I have seen the black man whipped but only when he deserved much more than he received.
"What right have you to exclude southern rights from the territories? Because you are the strongest? I have as much right to carry my slave into the territories as you have to carry your paid servant or your children."
-- John Wilkes Booth
That quote comes from Mr. Edward Steers Jr.'s Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. One might have thought that Monk had gotten enough from that Civil War era in American history after Shelby Foote's three-volume history. He just could not resist a good book on that assassination - so dark and sexy.
That quote above comes from a speech that Booth composed shortly after hearing about Lincoln's election to the presidency in 1860. Even in the ascendancy of his young acting career, Booth was preoccupied with slavery politics and his racist notion of what America means.
Mr. Steers draws out the complex web of conspiracy that reached from the core of the Confederate government, operating through their secret service, and through their brokers and spies in Canada and the North states. He deals out the effective refutation of the long-time popular idea that Booth was just a lone, crazed assassin, drawing out the depths of passion and enmity of those war years.
Mr. Steers' writing style may lack the best literary grace, but he relates a passionate and often times poignant tale. One will close with his account of Lincoln's mother's reception of his death, and Lincoln was known to be close to his stepmother:
'Strangely missing from family and friends was the woman who had meant the most to Lincoln and who showed him every kindness at a time when his world had turned so very dark. Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln was absent from her stepson's funeral. Now in her seventy-eighth year, "Aunt Sairy" learned from her son-in-law Dennis Hanks that her boy was dead. Five months later William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, would visit the old woman at her home at Goosenest Prairie eight miles south of Charleston, Illinois. Herndon made notes of his visit and conversation with Sarah Lincoln about her son: "I did not want Abe to run for President - did not want him Elected - was afraid Somehow or other - felt in my heart that Something would happen to him and when he came down to See me after he was Elected President I still felt that Something told me that Something would befall Abe and that I should see him no more." Years later Dennis Hanks would tell his listeners that when he told "Aunt Sairy" that he had bad news about her stepson, she said before he could tell her, "I knowed they'd kill him. I ben awaitin fur it.'
xXx
"Instead of looking upon slavery as a sin I hold it to be a happiness for themselves and a social and political blessing for us. I have been through the whole south and have marked the happiness of master and man. True, I have seen the black man whipped but only when he deserved much more than he received.
"What right have you to exclude southern rights from the territories? Because you are the strongest? I have as much right to carry my slave into the territories as you have to carry your paid servant or your children."
-- John Wilkes Booth
That quote comes from Mr. Edward Steers Jr.'s Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. One might have thought that Monk had gotten enough from that Civil War era in American history after Shelby Foote's three-volume history. He just could not resist a good book on that assassination - so dark and sexy.
That quote above comes from a speech that Booth composed shortly after hearing about Lincoln's election to the presidency in 1860. Even in the ascendancy of his young acting career, Booth was preoccupied with slavery politics and his racist notion of what America means.
Mr. Steers draws out the complex web of conspiracy that reached from the core of the Confederate government, operating through their secret service, and through their brokers and spies in Canada and the North states. He deals out the effective refutation of the long-time popular idea that Booth was just a lone, crazed assassin, drawing out the depths of passion and enmity of those war years.
Mr. Steers' writing style may lack the best literary grace, but he relates a passionate and often times poignant tale. One will close with his account of Lincoln's mother's reception of his death, and Lincoln was known to be close to his stepmother:
'Strangely missing from family and friends was the woman who had meant the most to Lincoln and who showed him every kindness at a time when his world had turned so very dark. Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln was absent from her stepson's funeral. Now in her seventy-eighth year, "Aunt Sairy" learned from her son-in-law Dennis Hanks that her boy was dead. Five months later William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, would visit the old woman at her home at Goosenest Prairie eight miles south of Charleston, Illinois. Herndon made notes of his visit and conversation with Sarah Lincoln about her son: "I did not want Abe to run for President - did not want him Elected - was afraid Somehow or other - felt in my heart that Something would happen to him and when he came down to See me after he was Elected President I still felt that Something told me that Something would befall Abe and that I should see him no more." Years later Dennis Hanks would tell his listeners that when he told "Aunt Sairy" that he had bad news about her stepson, she said before he could tell her, "I knowed they'd kill him. I ben awaitin fur it.'
