We could use some good leaders like Abraham Lincoln nowadays

Well actually...I had to write an essay about Abraham Lincoln for school once and the things I found out about him were shocking. He actually wasn't a good leader at all, he just made us all believe he was.

Here's just a gist of what I found out:

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln was tragic to say the least. But I think the world has overlooked John Booth’s reasoning behind the event. He didn’t do it for power, or money. He did it because while the whole world seemed to think Lincoln was a great president, Booth saw his corruption. Little did we know, Booth changed history for the better.

Let’s start off with how Abraham Lincoln became president. Obviously he was a very intelligent, witty man, a good story teller, a lawyer by profession and a great debater. But his political career really had him firmly in the pockets of northern protectionists. This trained Abraham Lincoln with a mindset that communism was good, with a communist mentality you would have the freedom to do whatever we want, which often was bad when this idea was used to deceive, to commit fraud, or to get gain or power over others, especially for those serving in political positions of power. As Abraham Lincoln passed bill after bill, he wasn’t always doing it for the good of the people and for our country although he made it sound like that. He did it to elevate himself above everyone else. His hope was to one day become a ruler of the people instead of a leader for the people.

Luckily for us, John Wilkes Booth and his “gang”, or the rebels, the true patriots, whatever you want to call them, saw what was happening in our country and devised a plan to stop it.

Now obviously they couldn’t just ask Lincoln to stop his greediness and corruption; let’s face it, honest Abe, as we have been taught in our school systems, wasn’t honest at all. Patriots like Booth knew that fighting against him would mean that they would most certainly fail and maybe even end up in a jailhouse which would get them nowhere. They knew they couldn’t rise up against Lincoln because there weren't enough patriots, or people who understood enough about the truth that would help support them. They decided that their only option was to kill Lincoln and hope we end up with a better President. So the patriots devised a plan to kidnap Lincoln and torture him to death, but Booth saw this as a cruel inhuman act and came up with a plan of his own to keep him from being tortured. He decided that he would kill Lincoln himself so that it would be a quick death.

Here is what Booth wrote in his journal the night he shot Abraham Lincoln: Until today nothing was even thought of sacrificing to our country’s wrongs. For six months we had worked to capture. But our cause being almost lost, something decisive and great must be done. But its failure was owing to others, who did not strike for their country with a heart. I struck boldly and not as the papers say. I walked with a firm step through a thousand of his friends, was stopped, but pushed on. A colonel was at his side. I shouted Sic Semper (Which means "thus always to tyrants". It suggests that bad, but justified, outcomes should, or eventually will, befall tyrants.) before I fired. In jumping broke my leg. I passed all his pickets, rode sixty miles that night with the bone of my leg tearing the flesh at every jump. I can never repent it. Thought we hated to kill. Our country owed all her trouble to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment.

Booth did not believe in killing, knowing it was an act God greatly disapproved of but he also knew that if he did not do this our country would suffer far worse. In his diary he wrote that if in the eyes of God he has done wrong then he will suffer in hell for this doing.

I am here in despair. And why; For doing what Brutus was honored for. What made Tell a Hero. And yet I for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew. Am looked upon as a common cutthroat. My action was purer than either of theirs. One, hoped to be great himself. The other had not only his country's but his own wrongs to avenge. I hoped for no gains, I knew no private wrong. I struck for my country and that alone. A country groaned beneath this tyranny and prayed for this end, and yet now behold the cold hand they extend to me. God cannot pardon me if I have done wrong. Yet I cannot see any wrong except in serving a degenerate people.

God try and forgive me and bless my mother. Tonight I will once more try the river with the intent to cross, though I have a greater desire and almost a mind to return to Washington and in a measure clear my name, which I feel I can do. I do not repent the blow I struck. I may before my God, but not to man.

Little know the true story of what John Booth did for our country but soon I hope all will know.

[Lincoln believed, our founders were forward thinking visionaries.]

They certainly were. Several, like Jefferson, were well read in the enlightened thinking of the times which valued fact and reason and a balanced spiritual sense.

If Lincoln was president today he would be hated because of his belief in God and high moral standards, which people seem to find taboo nowadays, but it's the very thing that made him a good leader and president.

You had plenty of leadership!
Bad choices aren't a mistake with the killer empire. Confused? Nah. Just evil!!!