Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Fri, 30 May 2025
The boys are back for a classic historical true-crime deep dive, this time on a fascinating story that's often forgotten about in American History - This week we begin the story of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, starting with the backstory of the man who took the life of the 16th President of the United States, American Stage actor and confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. For Live Shows, Merch, and More Visit: www.LastPodcastOnTheLeft.comKevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Last Podcast on the Left ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
There's no place to escape to. This is the Lost Podcast. On the left.
That's when the cannibalism started. Who's that?
Man, I was... God, I was thinking about this about how... My dad was one of these big memories that came up. One of my favorite bits. Your deceased father. My dad, he's dead.
Was it dysentery? Actually, no. Cholera? Dropsy?
He drowned. He drowned while they were fording a river. You know my father is loving to ford rivers. But he used to say a poem, and I think it was from an old comedy special, and I've been thinking about it ever since we started on this series. And I think I've done it before here, but maybe not. Lincoln, Lincoln, I've been thinking, what the hell have you been drinking? Is it water? Is it wine?
Oh, my God, it's turpentine.
But that's the only thing I have. My dad used to say that one, too. I think that's a Northeast thing. What is that from? Just like old man limericks.
There was less entertainment back then. It's completely nonsensical.
Really?
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Chapter 2: Who was John Wilkes Booth?
Well, it wasn't like a hip thing. I mean, it's like saying today that people believe in stuff just because it's woke. Like it is. It is definitely like people just came around to it like, oh, maybe this is a fucking horrible thing. I know John Adams was vocal about it. Yeah.
I just mean in hip in terms of like, you know, when movement takes place, it's like now it's getting very it is both probably on the you know, it's probably however you view it. Like leftist politics are now viewed as more like cool. Right.
Right.
Right. Like it's that style or if you're these the MAGA shitheads.
Let's say I think let's say fashionable. I think it's probably a better way of putting it. Yes. Yes. Abolition did become as you know, the years went on as the 19th century with abolition did become much more fashionable up north. And it was also very fashionable up north to call the southerners a bunch of fucking hicks.
Yep.
Yeah. And anything that was southern was. It's not sugar. No.
Can I borrow a cup of black man? I'm looking for a cup of black man. I got a fence I got to destroy.
They had a standing staff of six people. But anytime anyone pointed out to Mary M. Booth that there wasn't really any difference between owning a slave and renting one, she would just fucking stonewall them and say like, no, it's actually very, very different. And they would ask why. And they'd say, it's very, very different. But she would never say why it was very, very different.
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Chapter 3: What were the conspiracies surrounding Lincoln's assassination?
Certainly don't look at me, famous actor. Julius Booth, who is raining defecation upon the starfish. Like Dave Matthews Band.
Yes. Now, even though John Wilkes Booth was only 14 years old when his father died, he became the de facto man of the house because, as I said, his two older brothers had already left to pursue fame and fortune.
Quite stupidly, Booth's mother, Marianne, let the teenage John Wilkes manage their farm for two years, which would be a disastrous decision for both the Booths financially and when it came to further shaping John Wilkes' worldview.
I just never understand why we bother with corn. Can't the corn just grow naturally in its own state? Oh, look how hairy it gets. Look how fibrous all of the plantage that comes out of it. Ah, mother, I do not need to fret about it with the corn.
I simply must enjoy the corn while we have it.
Well, John Wilkes hired enslaved people, free black people and Irish immigrants to work his family's farm all at the same time, which wasn't all that strange in this era. But since John Wilkes was just a kid, he was not prepared to handle the conflicts that erupted. And he, in fact, usually just made them worse with his natural haughtiness.
See, John Wilkes was a stickler for hierarchy and tradition, and he believed wholeheartedly from a young age that there was a natural pecking order when it came to races, classes, and nationalities.
And it's an absolute coincidence that I'm at the very tip and height of that hierarchy.
It is not something that I—it is just coincidence. It is just luck. And certainly, yes, I benefit from it, but we can't argue with it.
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Chapter 4: How did Booth's upbringing influence his actions?
Except for tickling little fat boys.
The only thing I like best when I'm on the stage is when I'm done strutting and fretting is having a fresh, full-titted little boy that I can perturbulate with my acting appendages. I go underneath his tendril chest meat. I feel upon his woman-like bosom. I touch upon his cavern-like armpits. And I make him giggle like a little brand-new otter freshly born from its mother's pussy.
And he didn't even have the courage to finish you off.
No. Donnie Wahlberg, if you don't want me to call Variety, I need you to come to my home and jerk me up. That's it.
Ransom's been set. I'm glad you're finally saying it, because you've been saying that in private for years.
No, I'm coming for him now. I want you to make me cum.
Well, John Wilkes Booth, he held the fairly common opinion, it was very common at this time, that black people were actually happier as slaves, that they were better off in bondage than they were even free in Africa, and that giving black people freedom would only make them miserable, and it would destroy America in the bargain. That's how a lot of people justified slavery.
They would say, you know, the abolitionists would say, like, slavery is obviously evil, and the pro-slavery people would come back and say, like, no, no, no, look at him. He's got a smile on his face. Everything's fine.
Yeah, why would you want to get rid of that? They're having so much fun. They invented grits. They obviously love it. They're singing songs.
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Chapter 5: What led to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln?
Yes, I'm allowed to sometimes speak in a patois. Because I own several Jamaicans. It is going to be a re out there by the beach.
I will say for John Wilkes Booth, every summer was indeed white boy summer. Now after being given free reign to do whatever, Booth chose to spend most of his time in the local tavern, a place called the Traveler's Home. But rather than becoming a total deadbeat party boy, Booth latched on to politics whilst conversing with his fellow patron.
Just stay a deadbeat party boy. I would have been better for us all. Also, the Traveler's Home makes no sense. Well, it's a whole, don't worry, it's like The Wanderers Inn.
It's a double entendre. It's like, it's aggrammatic. Don't get angry. It's wordplay. Don't get angry, get even. Well, during Booth's gap year, he became enamored with one of America's early conspiracist political parties.
How does all this sound so familiar, Marcus?
It's about to sound extraordinarily familiar. This party was the highly successful Know-Nothing Party, who were so named because members were required to say, I know nothing, in respects to the party's inner workings. And they would do that because the Know-Nothing Party actually started as a secret society, like the Freemasons.
Yeah, but a bunch of hate-filled fuckers. Yes. Weren't they successful for a little while?
Extraordinarily so. Like, if you remember Gangs of New York, remember Bill the Butcher? Yeah. No nothing, Bill the Butcher, Butcher, No Nothing Party. Yeah, that was him. Now, the No Nothings were actually pretty ideologically similar to the modern Republican Party, which is ironic considering how John Wilkes Booth ended up killing the first Republican president.
The Know-Nothings were nationalist, populist, and staunchly against immigration. But also, like today's Republicans, what informed the Know-Nothings' beliefs more than anything were conspiracy theories.
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Chapter 6: What was the aftermath of Lincoln's assassination?
Harper's Ferry deserves its own episode.
I actually had a very hard, I had a very hard time pulling back on both that and the Christiana riots. Like, they're both fascinating stories.
And then the fucking New York draft riots.
That was the hardest one of all.
That was the hardest one of all. We did a good job, guys. We're telling one of the stories. There's whole books about it. I know. There's whole books about it.
There's one of the stories.
There's whole books about the New York draft riots. I want to talk about the New York draft riots all day.
We're going to have so much time to talk about all of it.
I love New York history.
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