The Lincoln Conspiracy Theories

The Lincoln conspiracy theory assumes that the inner circle of government had more means and incentives then the South to take out or kidnap Lincoln. Eventually, these means included the ability to persuade the public and the judges on who committed and plotted the assassination of Lincoln in Ford theater. Part of the inner circle included Lincoln’s brain trust members or the intelligence community that had the control of the army and agencies like the Pinkertons. Those parties included agents, prosecutors, investigators and instigators who were in charge of whitewashing tyranny like the Habeas Corpus abuse, mass incarcerations, involuntary conscription and the 4th amendment abuses by creating incidents and media hit jobs. The same people who were in charge of protecting the president had the means of enabling his elimination when his job was done.

During and after wars there is a race for power grab and cover ups and elimination plots between bureaucrats , generals and politicians that use the conflict as a springboard . In many cases conspirators don’t do the job by themselves, they may just use influence peddling to “convince” or “enable” third parties to take out their adversaries. High society plotters seldomly stain their hands when they can coerce or trade favors. Sounds like the JFK, Sadat or Rabin assassination conspiracy theories that occurred after or during Black Swan events. Both in JFK and Lincoln assassination some conspiracy theorists claim the vice president was involved in the plot. Eventually, the vice presidents took office with their disastrous policies brought them to public condemnation which prevented them for running for office again. The aftermath of Lincoln vice president taking over was the failure of the reconstruction and the effectual re-enslavement of most Southern blacks with Jim Crow laws. The aftermath of Lindon Johnson presidency was the Vietnam debacle and the civil unrest.

Was it because they didn’t play ball with the “Intelligence community” and the “Elites” all the way through? Eventually, when a puppet (president) has many puppeteers , there is always someone who is not satisfied when he doesn’t have enough cord to move the puppet. In the power grab that someone moves toa point where he replaces the puppet or takes the cords of the others. When a puppeteer creates or weaponizes Swan Events all hell may broke loose, which may lead to covered up power grab assassinations and apprehensions like the events of the long knives in 1933.

Abolitionists also resented Lincoln since the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t actually free all enslaved people. Emancipation was a military policy that would further undermine the Confederacy while providing the Union with a new source of cannon fodder as was alleged by Lysander Spooner in his writings writings. It was understood that Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation as a military measure, it didn’t apply to border slave states like Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. In practice, then, the Emancipation Proclamation was relevant to the Southern states currently fighting against the Union.

In the movie “The Lincoln Conspiracy” from 1977, we can find many inaccuracies and controversial claims. Nevertheless the movie is an eye opener on the possibility and incentive of the real motives of the assassination and it leveraging by inner circle participants.

https://youtu.be/lkLX0HILjQU

Colonel Baker: If we all trust each other (after the war) I am afraid I will be out of the job, Who will need a national detective police?

Ward H Lamon: You have got as many enemies as friends… I wouldn’t turn my back on one of them.

After the election, he conceived that he would not “last” through his term of office, but had at length reached the point where the sacrifice would take place. All precautions against assassination he considered worse than useless. “If they want to kill me,” said he, “there is nothing to prevent.”
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40977/40977-h/40977-h.htm

In hindsight, to many people in the north the idea that the Civil war caused millions of casualties and that the constitution was broken in three ways This idea that slavery would eventually abolish itself in the south over time as it was the case in the states of the north were slavery was legal during 1776. The claim was that slavery could be abolished without the need to kill 600,000 Americans and wound more then a million.

In the book “The Broken Constitution” Noah Feldman allegedly criticizes Lincoln, with illogical, incoherent, paranoid thinking and of “subverting” the Constitution. Consequently, suspending the writ of habeas corpus meant that the government could use martial law to arrest and hold civilians indefinitely without trial.

Constitutional Integrity

Lincoln presidential policy led to widespread military arrests of common citizens, editors and politicians, Press censorship was targeting critics of the administration violating the constitution and the rule of law. Lincoln sought to justify the suspension by claiming that the Constitution authorized it in times of “dangerous emergency” and that it was necessary to abrogate this one legal protection to enable the civil war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF6UZDAeWLo

The Intrigues of the Reactionary Republicans in 1864-5

The assassination made easier the job for the Republicans not answering why did they made a conflict that resulted in a huge destruction including at least 600,000 Americans dead. They could have make the conflict smaller scale or negotiate a settlement during 4 years of the civil war. They also had to answer why they violated Habeas Corpus, civil rights in the north and the south, as well as other actions they made against the constitution.

Lysander Spooner, an abolitionist, in a letter to Charles Sumner, blames the bloodshed of the civil war on selfish Republican Establishment economic and centralization interests:

“Your concessions, as to the pro-slavery character of the constitution, have been such as, if true, would prove the constitution unworthy of having one drop of blood shed in its support. They have been such as to withhold from the North all the benefit of the argument, that a war for the constitution was a war for liberty. You have thus, to the extent of your ability, placed the North wholly in the wrong, and the South wholly in the right. And the effect of these false positions in which the North and the South have respectively been placed, not only with your consent, but, in part, by your exertions, has been to fill the land with blood.

The South could, consistently with honor, and probably would, long before this time, and without a conflict, have surrendered their slavery to the demand of the constitution, (if that had been pressed upon them) and to the moral sentiment of the world; while they could not with honor, or at least certainly would not, surrender anything to a confessedly unconstitutional demand, especially when coming from mere demagogues, who were so openly unprincipled as to profess the greatest moral abhorrence of slavery, and at the same time, for the sake of office, swear to support it, by swearing to support a constitution which they declared to be its bulwark.”

https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2233#Spooner_1492_15

For Lincoln the war was about to put the Union integrity above States interests so America would be more power and well-being.
Accordingly with Lincoln views as a statesman, a nation can do better if all states are united. For the seceding states and some constitutionals in the North the struggle was to keep the state liberties and rights above DC and the Industrial Complex interests. Train, shipping, Banking, Manufacturing companies and bureaucracy agenda was to maximize profits, federal bid favoritism, political appointments, tariff favoritism and taxation from as many states as possible under one federal government.

The war was about to put the Union rights above States rights. As Lincoln put it in his letter to the press in a letter to Horace Greeley on August 22, 1862:
“If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union… “
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm

Accordingly with constitutionals of that time the states signed for the Constitution only if the constitution guarantees and prioritizes state rights over central government agenda. Their claims are based on the interpretation that the Constitution allows them to secede and supports the guidlene that state rights are to be superimposed on central government actions.

In that sense, Lincoln won the war because from then on all states would no secede and the reconstruction made nationalism and Americanism and supreme court supersede the states self government and interests.

Although the mainstream media and historians blame the south for the Lincoln Assassination, it was the Establishment, who did put him in office, got the political and material benefits from the event. In that sense it may be argued that Lincoln was the “Manchurian Candidate” of the Republican Establishment. Some evidence might point to that from the following issues:

Why Stanton which was part of the establishment wasn’t in the assassination list since the confederates regarded secretary of war Stanton as bigger enemy then Lincoln
The fact that Lincoln assassination was right after the war end just before reconstruction and right after Lincoln intended to reconcile with the south. Lincoln gave Grant a free hand to free General Lee at Appomattox Courthouse without trial against Republicans Reactionaries will. In that sense this contradicts the previous orders to execute or try whoever acted for the secession with charges of treason both in the south and in the north.
It is unconceivable that the South could plot to kill the Union president and the Union couldn’t plot to kill Jefferson Davis
Many insiders turned a blind eye on the low security of Ford theater
The premise that the Establishment wanted to centralize state power and takeover taxes and tariffs from the south as well as to control the exporting ports of the south.
The fact the Establishment got a free hand to make the reconstruction violent in the south using the Assassination conspiracy as a tool
Congressional investigation and perjury evidence found in the conspiracy trial
The fast apprehension and hanging of the plot ring may indicate inner circle knew about the plot and had handy a list of plotters or escape goats
Reportedly the killer didn’t wear a mask while shooting
The fact that the Reactionary Establishment used Lincoln as a martyr to their agenda and media publications
Booth and other plotters weren’t arrested before the assassination despite of many red flags
Lincoln had a big chest of vendettas with persons who wanted his demise, such as the James Shields duel who was a top general in the Union and other politicians that weren’t promoted after 1864 elections
Jefferson Davis and General Lee non-trial makes some sense when considering what he could have disclosed the Reactionary Establishment collusion in a trial
The machinations of the media and Establishment and impeachment effort against President Johnson reconciliation steps once the conspirators couldn’t kill him.

Even if the assassins were opposed to Lincoln, someone from the governments lowered the alert and guarding attention when the stakes were high. Some of the plotters might have double agents infiltrated in the John Wilkes Booth group, because this is what the Secret service and Pinkerton was paid to to do. It is also confirmed in the trials, biographies and witness documents that some unionist were aware of the plot. The hunt for the plot members had many informants that made it easy to catch the plotters.

Having said that, even if the Establishment was wrong in the decision making, one of the end results is the civil war, the reconstruction and the assassination is that states would be more afraid to secede, or to nullify federal decisions or would be more hesitant to challenge higher federal taxes and actions even if those federal steps would be against the Constitution or the founding fathers constitutional spirit.

In retrospective the question must be asked, were the decision makers in the Reactionary Establishment involved or enabled Lincoln Assassination?