Did John Wilkes Booth want slavery?

Answer 1

John Wilkes Booth was not interested in slavery, one way or the other. He was passionate about state rights. The states at the time had the right to decide all matters concerning the people of that state and the president in Washington had very little. When the US government discriminated against the South and taxed them unfairly (85% of the tariffs were paid by the South), the South exercised their absolute right to secede from the US.

Abraham Lincoln wanted the central government in Washington to have all the power and refused to release those seceded states. He tricked the South into firing on Fort Sumter and deliberately started the war. He allowed to be killed 640,000 men to gain central governmental power. The Civil War was a fight for control over all the people.

Lincoln took the power away from the states. John Wilkes Booth took the life away from Lincoln.

Answer 2

Let John Wilkes Booth answer for himself.

I have never held the South were right...Heaven knows, no one would be willing to do more for the Negro race than I...I though that the Abolitionists were the only traitors in the land...not because they wish to abolish slavery but on account of the means they have ever endeavored to use to effect that abolition. My love is for the south alone. Nor do I deem it a dishonor in attempting to make for her a prisoner of this man (Lincoln), to whom she owes so much misery. (John Wilkes Booth, 1865) New York Times April 21, 1865

Answer 3

Booth was an extreme Southern sympathizer. He thought that killing Lincoln and the other high ranking union leaders would produce a rebirth of Southern resistance. I do not know his specific feelings about slavery, but he surely defended the right of the South to maintain the practice and strongly opposed the attempts to abolish it by force.