LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION ALSO A MANUFACTURED EVENT

Lincoln's Assassination 

was also a manufactured event
 

by Miles Mathis@
http://mileswmathis.com/index.html 

I dedicate this paper to the memory of my uncle, Russell Mathis, a scholar of the Civil War 

Written February 19, 2014 

Disclaimer: This paper, like all my papers, is an opinion piece. That is, it is based on my own personal knowledge and research, and reflects my limited expertise in a limited number of fields. Who else could say more? Although it may seem to be revolutionary, it is not intended to be so. I seek only the truth; but unfortunately, the truth has become revolutionary itself. 

You should read this essay as a murder investigation, not as an attempt at revisionist history or as a species of conspiracy theory. Were I attempting either one, this essay would have to be much longer than it is. I will not try to be either scholarly or exhaustive, since although a historian might be expected to be both, a murder investigator is not held to those standards. It is enough to solve the case. I will discuss only the issues that have greatest bearing on the immediate question, leaving tangential issues for others to haggle over. As usual, I am more interested in efficiency than anything else. I do not like to waste your time or my own. If I seem to some to rush to a conclusion, it is only because I cannot be bothered to be misdirected or diverted. Once I have a scent, I prefer to run along it like a hound, since I have learned to trust my nose. I will therefore make every effort to pass through this created bog by the shortest and straightest series of stepping stones and patches of firmest ground. 

This was the last of the major events I unraveled, and I couldn't unravel it until I had unraveled the more recent events. I needed to resolve those events first, since they were nearer in time to the present: the evidence was fresher, broader, and nearer to home. Once I understood the methods of the newer events, I could look at the Lincoln assassination with a new and educated eye. Therefore, if you haven't also studied 911, Sandy Hook, and other manufactured events, you may not follow my reasoning here. If you have trouble swallowing my conclusions in this paper, I recommend you study more closely the history of controlled and manufactured events—especially the history of Intelligence operations, both here and abroad. As an example of a foreign operation which is now partly declassified and about which much has been leaked, I send you to Operation Gladio.

As usual, I will lead you in on the path I traveled, so that you can see my method. The first red flag that really put me on the right trail was the fact that John Wilkes Booth was an actor. As you probably know, much of the controversy of the Lincoln assassination has centered on Booth from the beginning. Those who have offered alternative theories have almost always started with Booth. We will see that they were not wrong to do so, but we will also see that they never went far enough. Even the most creative and “outlandish” theories didn't go far enough—in the right direction. We have seen this over and over in the other more recent manufactured events, where researchers get halfway in and then seem to get lost—sometimes, it would appear, on purpose. We saw this in the Kennedy assassinations, where “alternate” researchers found some of the first major clues, but then wandered off into left field for no obvious reason. We saw it in the Tate murders, where Mae Brussell—considered the bravest of the researchers—boldly discovered the first layer of clues, only to drift off into a fog, getting nowhere near the right answer. You will see it from Pat Shannan, who initially makes a strong charge at all these events, only to end up with theories that don't really challenge the central parts of any of them. I don't know if all these researchers divert themselves or if their jobs were to create diversion from the beginning. I don't really care. I spend my time researching the events, not researching the other researchers. You will have to come to your own conclusions there. 

But back to Booth. The fact that Booth was an actor is the primary clue here, but I have never seen anyone lead with it. It is admitted but passed over as unimportant. But if you have read my other papers or studied recent events, you now understand how important it is. We have seen that all these events featured actors, from 911 to Aurora to Sandy Hook. They had to, because they were all manufactured events. In manufactured events, you want actors involved because actors are trained to manufacture events. That is the job of an actor. As in any other job, you hire professionals. 

The second red flag I found is that the assassination took place in a theater. No one ever looks closely at that. It is a red flag because this is all theater. As with Booth being an actor, I have known about Ford's Theater since I was a child, but—like the rest of you—I have never let the fact really enter my consciousness. I have seen the fact, but I have not observed it. I have memorized it like a bit of history I might need to regurgitate for a test, but have never looked closely at it. We should have always found both facts highly curious. No researcher that I know of has ever tripped over Lincoln's assassination being in a theater. The big clues are missed from the very beginning, which should tell us we have been in the presence of poor researchers from day one. From my vantage, I can tell you that this seems to be caused by the fact that the others are approaching this problem as either history or conspiracy, rather than as a murder investigation. History and conspiracy tend to be very complex, while murder is usually surprisingly simple. Without exception, these other investigators allow themselves to be buried under an excess of information. They soon get lost in the bog. Since the bog was created just for that purpose, we should not be surprised to find them sinking in it; but I will show you a way to pass through without even getting your shoes dirty. 

The third red flag was this kind of statement, which I found over and over in my research: “Very few academic historians have studied Lincoln’s assassination in any depth.” I think you will agree that is astonishing. It is the indication of a successful cover-up, and a cover-up is of course indication that what we have been told is not true. Why would historians avoid studying or writing about the assassination? Isn't that what historians are supposed to do? Apparently not. My research has solidified an impression I have long had, that being that historians are mainly paid to tell the accepted story, to flesh it out, and—if they are really creative—to add somewhat to the lie. I have not found that historians are especially interested in the truth, and the most famous ones seem the least interested. Of course, this isn't limited to historians. It applies to everyone in all fields. There is an incredible amount of top-down control, and there appear to be standing orders to avoid all truths at all times. How else to explain the current state of history, science, education, art, literature, and so on? 

The fourth red flag I found was the amount of current propaganda in support of this very old event. There is lot of new misdirection on the assassination on the internet, and not just at history or encyclopedia sites. If you type in just about any question regarding the event, you get pages and pages of new lies and new fake debunking, as if this event just happened. This leads an investigator to ask several questions: why are living people spending so much time and effort re-telling the old story? Why is it so important to keep the propaganda fresh and up-to-date on the Lincoln assassination? Why are historians still being shushed away from the event? I will not necessarily answer those questions in this paper, but they are a red flag simply because they indicate there is still something worth hiding. As I have said in previous papers, the more someone tries to convince you of A, the more seriously you should look at B. When that person is telling you things that don't make sense, double down. When that person has any connection to the government, immediately invest heavily in B. 

The fifth red flag was the description of the assassination by Walt Whitman. Not many people know that Whitman gave a series of lectures  in 1879-81 called The Death of Abraham Lincoln. Here are some excerpts: 

I read from my memorandum, written at the time, and revised frequently and finally since. . . . 

Through the general hum following the stage pause, with the change of positions, came the muffled sound of a pistol-shot, which not one-hundredth part of the audience heard at the time—and yet a moment’s hush— somehow, surely, a vague startled thrill—and then, through the ornamented, draperied, starr’d and striped spaceway of the President’s box, a sudden figure, a man, raises himself with hands and feet, stands a moment on the railing, leaps below to the stage, (a distance of perhaps fourteen or fifteen feet,) falls out of position, catching his boot-heel in the copious drapery, (the American flag,) falls on one knee, quickly recovers himself, rises as if nothing had happen’d, (he really sprains his ankle, but unfelt then)—and so the figure, Booth, the murderer, dress’d in plain black broadcloth, bare-headed, with full, glossy, raven hair, and his eyes like some mad animal’s flashing with light and resolution, yet with a certain strange calmness, holds aloft in one hand a large knife—walks along not much back from the footlights—turns fully toward the audience his face of statuesque beauty, lit by those basilisk eyes, flashing with desperation, perhaps insanity—launches out in a firm and steady voice the words Sic semper tyrannis—and then walks with neither slow nor very rapid pace diagonally across to the back of the stage, and disappears. (Had not all this terrible scene—making the mimic ones preposterous—had it not all been rehears’d, in blank, by Booth, beforehand?) 

Very strange, as I think you will admit. Although Whitman tries to put this into poetic language—as you would expect from a famous poet—this is in fact the standard story, or very close to it. Whitman misses that Booth was said to have broken his fibula in the jump, not just twisted his ankle, but that isn't what we should be looking at here anyway. What you should be asking is, 

1. Why would the pistol shot be muffled? This was a theater: it should have echoed. Theaters are not built to muffle sound, are they? Everyone in the audience would have heard a gunshot from the President's box. Booth should have had ten men upon him in an instant. We are told in other variations of the story that Booth fired during loud laughter from the audience, after a joke on-stage. But in 1879, Whitman doesn't have it that way, despite being a writer, living through the event, making notes, and revising them often. As with current manufactured events, they can't get their stories straight, even 14 years after the fact. That part of the story should have been very easy to confirm, since they are supposed to have had a theater full of witnesses. And if it was the standard story in 1879, why didn't the paid propagandist Whitman(3)  have it in his revised notes? 

2. Why would Booth jump down to the stage? Surely, to avoid capture, it would have been far easier and wiser to retreat behind the curtain of the box and to flee down the back corridor. Onstage, with a twisted ankle or broken leg, Booth should have been a sitting duck, both for men from the audience and for men on-stage or back-stage. But, unworried by that fact, Booth pauses to address the audience and hold up a knife! 

3. He just killed the President with a gun, not a knife. Where did the knife come from? We are expected to believe he just jumped fifteen feet down with a large knife in his hand or pocket? You will say the knife was in a sheath. No, the story is Booth fought with Major Henry Rathbone, who was also in the box with the Lincolns, wounding him with the knife. Two problems there. One, try jumping down 15 feet with a large knife in your hand. I have jumped down from that height, and it is very difficult to land without injuring an ankle or a knee, even without a knife. You have to roll forward and catch yourself with your arms as well, to take force off your legs. More importantly, struggling with Rathbone should have taken some time. With the shot fired, the women screaming, and the fight with Rathbone, everyone in the theater should have been alerted to the President's box. There would have been at least a dozen men at the base of the box, just waiting for Booth. He would have leaped right into their arms, not onto a deserted stage. 

4. Booth was also said to have had a stick, with which he jammed the door to the Presidential box, keeping anyone from coming into the box from that direction. He is said by a famous witness to have passed a note to an usher, to be let into the box. So, speaking to the usher, Booth was carrying a large stick, a gun, and a large knife? In order to get into the Presidential box with at least three weapons, all you need to do is pass a note to an usher? The President travels with no security, during the Civil War? More on this below. 

5. We are told in the mainstream stories that Booth was a well-known Rebel sympathizer. No, we are told he was a rabid Confederate supporter, making no effort to hide it. And yet he lived in the North. He was born in Maryland and acted mostly in Union and border states, spending a lot of time in Boston and New York and almost no time in the South. The rest of his family was Blue to the core. Booth was engaged to a New Hampshire Senator's daughter, and this Senator was not a Democrat, much less a Rebel. I will be told that wasn't so rare, but the problem is it conflicts with another part of the story, which we see here. We are told Booth was let into the box because he was a famous actor. But even so, according to the mainstream story he was a famous actor known to be a raving enemy of the Union. If Lincoln's Secret Service had a no-fly list, Booth would be at the top of it. So the standard story makes no sense. It contradicts itself in a hundred places.* 

6. Once on-stage, Booth is now holding off every man in the theater with a knife? Not one man in the theater has a gun or sword, during the Civil War? Not one man knows how to confront a single man with a knife? Remember, Booth was known as an actor, not as a decorated soldier. In other words, he was not a fighter. I ask any soldiers in the audience, are you afraid to take on an actor? My soldier will say, “No, actors are known to be fairies or milktoasts.” Just so. 

7. In this situation, Booth stops to make a speech? You have to be kidding me! He stops to speak Latin, quoting Brutus from Julius Caesar? You have to be kidding me! And where were Lincoln's guards—in the lobby getting Milk Duds? Do you really think the President traveled in public during the Civil War without guards? C'mon! No one but an idiot would buy this story. This reads like a bad script, not like real history. Things happen like this only when they are staged. 

Here's another problem:

 

That's the Presidential box at Ford's Theater. As you can see, the box is actually on-stage itself. Most of the 1,700 people in the auditorium would be able to see right into the box. They would have seen any struggle in that box immediately. So the idea that Booth could jump down on-stage before anyone in the audience realized what was happening is absurd. Another problem is that the theater has been renovated many times, and that the stage is actually higher now than it was then. 

See how the stage is well above the first level of seating? This should look odd, since the highest paying viewers would have to look up at the performance. For those in the front rows, any performance near the rear of the deep stage would be partially blocked. This was caused by the raising of the stage. But why was the stage raised? Because it lessened the height from which Booth appeared to jump. Most sources try to minimize the height to this day. Although Whitman admitted it was as much as 15 feet, most sources try to sell you 10 or 12 feet. The truth is, the height from the railing was closer to 18 feet, given the original stage. Have you ever jumped down from 18 feet onto a hard surface? You don't want to do it. You really don't want to do it with a large knife in your hand, have to give a speech, and then run from a mob out the back door. You would have to run with more than a broken fibula, most likely. You would be running with two broken feet. 

We find more confirmation of all this when we look at what happened to Ford's Theater right after the assassination. From Wikipedia: 

Following the assassination, the United States Government appropriated the theater, with Congress paying Ford $100,000 in compensation, and an order was issued forever prohibiting its use as a place of public amusement. Between 1866 and 1887, the theater was taken over by the U.S. military and served as a facility for the War Department. 

That should look familiar, given what we know of more recent manufactured events. Remember how they closed, tore down, or confiscated all the crime scenes after 911? Remember how they tore down Sandy Hook elementary after the alleged shootings? This is how it is done, and it is and always has been a sign of a staged event. The best way to deter any private or real investigation is to close or destroy the crime scene. In the Lincoln assassination story, they did both. First they closed it, then bought it, then renovated it many times. This all but prevented any later analysis. 

Which brings us to the next question no one ever asks: “Why wasn't Booth fighting in the war?” You will say the war was mostly over by 1865, but I mean from 1860 to 1864. Why wasn't Booth fighting for the South, if he was so pro-Confederate? An even better question is this: “If he was in his 20's and living in the North and able-bodied, why wasn't he drafted for the North?" Do you think actors were given exemptions? They weren't. I encourage you to do a search on John Wilkes Booth being drafted. I think you will be surprised at how whitewashed the subject is, both on the internet and in books. 

And here's a curious story from Wikipedia: 

Booth attended the hanging on December 2, 1859, of abolitionist leader John Brown, who was executed for leading a raid on the Federal armory at Harper's Ferry (in present-day West Virginia).[69] Booth had been rehearsing at the Richmond Theater when he abruptly decided to join the Richmond Grays, a volunteer militia of 1,500 men travelling to Charles Town for Brown's hanging, to guard against an attempt by abolitionists to rescue Brown from the gallows by force.[69][70] When Brown was hanged without incident, Booth stood in uniform near the scaffold and afterwards expressed great satisfaction with Brown's fate, although he admired the condemned man's bravery in facing death stoically.** 

That's very odd for many reasons. The first reason ties into a recent paper  I wrote, where I showed you that Theosophy founder Henry Steel Olcott was also on-hand for the hanging of John Brown, as a spy for the New York Tribune. Olcott later worked for the War Department, in Intelligence, and was on the panel investigating the assassination of Lincoln. Well, Booth also looks like a spy or agent here, since the given story doesn't make any sense. The reason they had to come up with this story is that Booth was photographed standing near the scaffold in a gray uniform, and they needed to explain it. The problem is, Booth was already a rich and famous actor by 1859, and Wikipedia admits he was making half a million a year by that time. Do you really think the Richmond Grays are going to allow a famous millionaire actor from the North to volunteer for a single event and then un-volunteer a few weeks later? It doesn't work that way. For a start, the Grays were part of the army—the First Virginia Infantry Regiment—and you don't just walk away from the army. Go volunteer for the army now and see if they let you un-volunteer next month. A more logical reading of this is that Booth was acting like a Richmond Gray, and failed to get caught by the real Grays in the turmoil of the event. That explains why he was able to just walk away from the part later. Mainstream sources admit Booth went right back to the theater and finished the 1859-60 season in Richmond. He then went back North for a tour of major cities. 

If the Richmond Grays didn't give him the uniform and set him up in the part, who did? I would say it is pretty obvious Union Intelligence did, and that this is just one more piece of evidence indicating Booth was working for them all along. Actors don't get draft exemptions, but actors who are also hidden agents do. As I think you can see, Booth was actually the perfect choice for this part of double agent. Actors have been used by Intelligence since the beginning, since their acting skills are useful, since they travel widely, since they have many contacts, and since the charm and looks of an actor allow him or her to do many things a normal person could not do. This explains many other things, as I think you will agree, including his relationship with his family, his relationship with Hale's daughter, and his being forgiven his wild and tempestuous statements. Most ranking people in the North knew it was all an act, and those that didn't could be clued in later, to the extent necessary. 

But let us return to Whitman, and the story from the theater: 

A moment’s hush—a scream—the cry of murder—Mrs. Lincoln leaning out of the box, with ashy cheeks and lips, with involuntary cry, pointing to the retreating figure, He has kill’d the President. And still a moment’s strange, incredulous suspense—and then the deluge!—then that mixture of horror, noises, uncertainty—(the sound, somewhere back, of a horse’s hoofs clattering with speed)—the people burst through chairs and railings, and break them up—there is inextricable confusion and terror—women faint—quite feeble persons fall, and are trampled on—many cries of agony are heard—the broad stage suddenly fills to suffocation with a dense and motley crowd, like some horrible carnival—the audience rush generally upon it, at least the strong men do—the actors and actresses are all there in their play-costumes and painted faces, with mortal fright showing through the rouge—the screams and calls, confused talk—redoubled, trebled—two or three manage to pass up water from the stage to the President’s box—others try to clamber up—&c., &c. 

In the midst of all this, the soldiers of the President’s guard, with others, suddenly drawn to the scene, burst in— (some two hundred altogether)—they storm the house, through all the tiers, especially the upper ones, inflamed with fury, literally charging the audience with fix’d bayonets, muskets and pistols, shouting Clear out! clear out! you sons of ——..… Such the wild scene, or a suggestion of it rather, inside the play-house that night. 

So Mrs. Lincoln waits until after Booth has jumped down on-stage and delivered his little speech to cry “he has killed the President.” She doesn't want to interrupt him, I guess. So polite. The “strong men” rush the stage, but only after Booth has gone limping off. So polite. And the President's guard, “suddenly drawn to the scene” after Booth has fired shots, knifed Rathbone, jumped down, waved his knife, said his speech, tied his shoes, adjusted his belt, combed his hair, and checked his watch, come bursting in 200 strong. As if to make up in numbers what they lacked in being there to start with. 

This whole story is ludicrously bad, but say we decided to accept it. We should then ask, “why were 200 guards waiting outside, ready to burst in all together?” That, by itself, would signal some kind of foreknowledge. It is like the current fake events, where the police arrive before the shots are fired, or when fire trucks are at the Pentagon before the alleged plane even crashes. Are we expected to believe that 200 guards or police are just milling around outside the theater, but that not one is anywhere near the Presidential box or stage inside the theater? If you have any friends in the Secret Service, you should ask them what they think of this story. Ask them if they think Lincoln's chief guard would post 200 men outside the theater and zero inside the theater. 

Obviously, the 200 guards were there to burst in and create pandemonium. They didn't want anyone looking closely at the President—who wasn't the President. They didn't want audience members or the public outside talking to each other and comparing notes. They didn't want anyone asking questions or answering questions. They wanted to roust everyone out with maximum violence, giving them such a case of P.T.S.D that they would believe the news reports telling them they saw things they didn't see. 

We are given a lame story for the lack of guards inside as well. We are told the Presidential box was supposed to be guarded by a regular DC policeman named John Frederick Parker, and that he wandered off to a nearby tavern at intermission. Right. One regular policeman to guard the President, during the Civil War. And who was this one policeman hired to guard the President? 

During his time as an officer, he was charged with dereliction of duty and conduct unbecoming an officer several times for being drunk on duty, sleeping on streetcars while at work, and visiting a brothel (Parker claimed the madam had sent for him). Parker was typically reprimanded for these acts but never fired. 

[After the assassination] Parker was charged with neglect of duty and tried on May 3, 1865 but no transcripts of the case were kept. The complaint was dismissed on June 2, 1865. In spite of leaving his post the night Lincoln was shot, Parker was still assigned to work security at the White House. 

They admit this at places like Wikipedia to this day. That is the story they decided to go with. No transcripts were kept. The complaint was dismissed. This is what they call the Glomar response, and you are seeing it 150 years after the fact. In other words, what they do is lead with a tidal wave of lies and follow up with a complete information embargo. The overall structure of these events hasn't changed in a century and a half, as you see. This is the same sort of thing  we saw at Sandy Hook in 2013.

However, we know this story is false, since it is contradicted on other Wikipedia pages. Just go to the page for Allan Pinkerton, where we find this: 

Prior to the war, Pinkerton developed several investigative techniques still used today. Among them are "shadowing" (surveillance of a suspect) and "assuming a role" (undercover work). When the Civil War began, Pinkerton served as head of the Union Intelligence Service during the first two years, foiling an assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland while guarding Abraham Lincoln on his way to Washington, D.C. His agents often worked undercover as Confederate soldiers and sympathizers to gather military intelligence. Pinkerton served on several undercover missions as a Union soldier using the alias Major E.J. Allen. He was succeeded as Intelligence Service chief by Lafayette Baker (The Intelligence Service was the predecessor the  U.S. Secret Service.)

So Lincoln was not guarded by one drunken policeman. He was guarded at all times by the Intelligence Service, just like the President is today. Given that, the mainstream story completely falls apart. Why would the Intelligence Service allow Booth into the box? Even more to the point, why would they lie about it later, trying to convince you Lincoln was not guarded? Even more to the point, we find this John Parker was related to Mary Todd Lincoln. See below for full genealogical analysis. 

You should also find it strange that Walt Whitman is repeating this ridiculous story 14 years later, and that people are paying to come hear him recite it. Anyone with any sense should have been asking then —and should be asking now—who is this guy Whitman that is repeating such an obvious lie, and doing it with such pompous flourishes?(3)  You should also be asking, “Why hasn't anyone ever contradicted this obvious lie?” Not even Mark Twain, who should have had a field day with this. 

It is also worth looking at the owner and manager of Ford's Theater, John T. Ford. Not only did he own many prominent theaters North and South, he was a major industrialist and railroad tycoon, being President of the Union Railroad Company and a Director of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. He was also involved in banking. We are told that after the event, Ford and his brothers were arrested as possible conspirators, spending 39 days in jail, but that is unlikely to be true. I suspect it was reported as diversion, to keep eyes off his real connections to the story. He was close to the Booths, and they spun that to make you think he might have been part of a Confederate conspiracy. But since we will see below that Booth is not who you thought, that is misdirection. Ford's ties to the Booths are important, but not for the reasons we have been sold. None of them were Confederate conspirators. Ford was a Baltimore elder, and Baltimore was in the north. In fact, the whole state had been under direct federal supervision since 1861 to prevent it from seceding. As a major capitalist not dependent on slavery or tobacco, Ford was part of the supervision, not part of the resistance. In 1865 the government bought the theater from Ford for $100,000, which is about $3,000,000 now. 

What we have seen already is a series of wildly flapping red flags, all of them pointing directly at a stand-down. Just as the military stood down on 911, failing to launch any jets or follow any normal protocol, Lincoln's guards stood down on April 14, 1865. But we already have evidence of far more than just a stand down. We have seen ridiculous theatrics from Booth, an actor. We have seen a staged event in a theater. We have seen reported events that simply could not have happened in any real-life situation, with none of these people acting like people normally act. As with the actors at Sandy Hook, we see people doing things that people simply do not do. In real life, Mrs. Lincoln would have screamed as soon as the first shot was fired, and would have yelled “He has been shot” immediately. Booth could not have escaped from a crowded theater, guard or no guard, but he especially could not have escaped by jumping down onto the stage, breaking his leg, giving a speech, etc. Even in a nunnery, he would have immediately been mobbed, knife or no knife, but this was 1865 during a Civil War. Fifty men in the audience would have shot him or run him through with a sword before he could get the “Sic” out of his mouth. 

Since none of it could have happened this way, we must assume it didn't. As with all these other manufactured events, what happened here happened only in a completely controlled environment, the prepared story was planted later, and a fair number of people were hired to tell stories to corroborate the event. The story was fake, the witnesses were fake, and the murder was fake. 

Yes, I am already there. You have already hit my conclusion on page 9, but I will help you catch up, don't worry. 

You will say, “Even if the story and witnesses were planted, the murder could have been real. You have shown us no evidence that the murder was fake.” But that's not true. The fake story is itself strong indication that the murder was fake. We will see a lot more evidence for the faked death below, but even before we get there, you should already be seriously questioning the murder. Look at it this way: the murder is the event. The murder is the central fact and only important fact. All the rest is just there to support that. We could change all the other facts and it wouldn't really matter. What I mean is, those who ran the event don't really care whether you believe Booth did it, or whether Booth was killed later, or whether there was a high-level conspiracy including Andrew Johnson or the Knights of the Golden Circle or the Pope and Queen of England. That is why they don't mind if you speculate on any of those things or all of them. In fact, they are quite happy for you to speculate on all those things, because if you are speculating about tangential issues, you aren't looking closely at the murder itself. But they do care that you believe Lincoln was killed. That was the point of the entire event. Therefore, if you discover they faked the story and the witnesses and so on, you should also assume they faked the murder. If they had a real murder, there is no reason for them to fake the story and the witnesses. There is no reason to fake all the supporting evidence when you have a real murder. You only need to fake the supporting evidence when you don't have a real murder. 

To say it another way: The faked story could indicate hidden assassins, or it could indicate no assassins. Why has the no assassins theory never been pursued, or even put on the table? Given what we know about more recent events, we should put it on the table and see how it looks. Before we pursue any of the more complicated conspiracy theories, we should test the simplest one. 

Lincoln was said to have been shot at point blank range in the back of the head. We have no photos of Lincoln's body, except the one above, which didn't come out until 1952. You can't tell anything from that, obviously. But here is the death mask: 

A death mask of Abraham Lincoln, that was made in April 1865 directly from his face, rests on display at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall No exit

No exit wound. Where did the bullet come out? You will say they filled it, but that “death mask” has many other problems. I am a professional sculptor, among other things. I have worked in a foundry, doing waxwork, chasing, and patinas. I have also done life-casting (life-casting is where you take a cast straight from a real face). I can tell you that isn't a life or death cast. It is faked. How do I know? Well, the strange mottling in the patina is the first clue. The patina is the coloration of the sculpture. There is no reason a death mask should be mottled like that, so I assume they are trying to hide something with that patina. What they are hiding is that this mask is not a death mask. It is a copy of a life mask Lincoln had done in February 1865 by the sculptor Clark Mills. That was just two months before the assassination. There was also a previous life mask, made by the sculptor Leonard Volk in 1860. What they did with the faked death mask is combine elements of the two existing life masks. In making this combined copy, they lost a bit of the detail of the real life masks, which is why this death mask didn't look right to me.

 

Those are bronzes made from the two life masks. You can see how they combined elements, using the first for the beard and the overall likeness, but correcting the right ear and the hair and so on using the second. 

You should also ask yourself why they took the second life mask just two months before the assassination. That is curious in itself. That would have been after the election but before the inauguration. Lincoln admitted he looked and felt terrible then (see just below), so we can be sure it wasn't his idea. So I will tell you why they did it then. They knew they would need something they could sell as a death mask. The fake assassination was already planned, and they were creating “proof” of the death. That is how the mask is used to this day, as you see. 

With some more research, I discovered this is known by some. At  a website specializing in death masks, they admit that 

Lincoln actually never had a death mask but he did have two life masks made during his lifetime. The first one was made during Lincoln’s visit to Chicago in the early spring of 1860. The second life mask was created on February 11, 1865. When Lincoln compared the two, it was clear how great a toll the Civil War had taken on his health. Reportedly one friend who saw him a few weeks after the last mask was made noted that he “looked badly and felt badly.” To another friend Lincoln confided, “I am very unwell.” Ironically in 2007, a study was done of Lincoln’s face, life mask, and medical records and it was concluded that he suffered from a disease called multiple mucosal neuroma syndrome [a form of cancer]. It was also determined that had he not been assassinated, Lincoln would have succumbed to this disease rather quickly anyway [within the year]. 

Wow. So let that be your next clue. That fact has never been tied to the alleged assassination, has it? It has just been left as a floater. But that fact, by itself, explains why they needed to fake his assassination. That clue only arrived on the scene about six years ago, which may explain why I am the first to put the various pieces together.

I will pause to remind you that Whitman and many others confirmed that “Lincoln looked badly.” In the above lectures, he said, “I saw Abraham Lincoln often the four years following that date. He changed rapidly and much during his Presidency.” Since Lincoln was only in his mid-50's, this should be very surprising. Remember, Lincoln was basically a one-term President. He served only one month of his second term. So this change all occurred over the span of just four years. Except perhaps for some graying and possible weight gain, most healthy people don't “change rapidly and much” in their mid-50's. And yet anyone can see by studying the photo above and comparing it to photos from just two years earlier that Lincoln had aged dramatically between ages 54 and 56. 

Regarding the diagnosis of cancer, Dr. John Sotos of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine did not come to this conclusion idly. He drew his conclusion of MEN2B “from more than 300 sources, [including] 5,900 physical and mental observations about Lincoln and his family members. Each observation is fully referenced, and organized [into the form of] a modern medical record.” 

A reader who has followed me up to this point will naturally ask, “Why would they wish to fake Lincoln's death? If they didn't want him as President, why not just convince him not to run? If they wanted Andrew Johnson to be President, why not just run Johnson instead of Lincoln?” 

Because they knew Lincoln could win and Johnson couldn't. They wanted Johnson as President, but knew he couldn't win on his own. Johnson was a terrible speaker and wasn't much known outside of Tennessee. The only way to get Johnson into the White House was via Lincoln, and they knew that. So they had to run Lincoln in 1864, despite the fact that everyone inside knew he was dying. We actually have confirmation of that, straight  from mainstream sources:

When Grant's 1864 spring campaigns turned into bloody stalemates and Union casualties mounted, the lack of military success wore heavily on the President's re-election prospects, and many Republicans across the country feared that Lincoln would be defeated. Sharing this fear, Lincoln wrote and signed a pledge that, if he should lose the election, he would still defeat the Confederacy before turning over the White House:[212] 

“This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterward.”[213] 

Lincoln did not show the pledge to his cabinet, but asked them to sign the sealed envelope. 

Historians have always found that to be very curious, even beyond the signing of a sealed envelope. It looks very much like an early “Continuance of Government” plan, like they have now for emergencies. It is basically a pledge to ignore the Constitution and all laws. And who is Lincoln supposed to be making this pledge to? Himself? Since it was sealed, it was not a pledge to the people or to Congress. We must assume it was a pledge to his overseers, the plutocrats who were actually running the country. 

Notice that Lincoln says he is pledging to co-operate with the President elect, when he is pledging to do just the opposite. A sitting President doesn't have to pledge to co-operate with the President-elect, since he is expected and required to do that anyway. A pledge in that case would be meaningless. Remember, if the Democrat McClellan had been elected instead of Lincoln in 1864, it would have indicated the voters no longer supported the war. The incoming Democrat and the Congress would then have a mandate from the people to end the war, including making a settlement with the Confederacy. The President would no longer have support to “defeat the Confederacy.” But Lincoln is pledging to ignore all that—ignore the will of the voters—and continue the war against the mandate of the incoming President elect. That is not cooperation, that is opposition. It is also completely illegal, which is why the envelope was sealed. 

Lincoln even admits that, in his quote above. He says, “as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterward.” Of course that just means that in being elected, the Democrat will have no reason to “save” the Union. If the voters had wished to save the Union, they would have voted for Lincoln, right? Obviously, Lincoln is pledging to ignore the will of the voters, ignore the Constitution, and continue pursuing the war up to the inauguration in March of 1865 (and probably after). Given the wording of this pledge, we would not expect Lincoln to have transferred the Presidency in March. If he was willing and capable of ignoring the law, the people, and the Constitution during the interim, why would he not continue to ignore them afterward? 

As it turns out, the pledge was moot, since Lincoln and Johnson won the election of 1864. But that election was very strange, just like the rest of this. They avoided defeat even in Johnson's home state of Tennessee only by cheating. Johnson had been the governor of Tennessee since 1853 and a Congressman for that state before that back to 1843, but Lincoln and Johnson—realizing they were going to lose Tennessee—decided to require an oath from Tennessee voters that they did not support making a settlement with the Confederacy. This effectively disenfranchised any and all McClellan voters. Congress saw this as so flagrantly unconstitutional they threw out the votes from Tennessee. We are told that Lincoln and Johnson nevertheless won the national election by a wide margin, but we find similar if less obvious cheating in every other state. There is strong evidence that the election of 1864—like every other close election—was stolen. 

Even the mainstream admits this. For example, Lincoln won the entire state of New York by only about 6,500 votes, or less than 1%. That alone would have swung 66 electoral votes. Pennsylvania was decided by about 19,000 votes, and that would have swung another 52 votes. Remember Lincoln's pledge? Even the bosses were afraid of losing the 1864 election, and they were making extraordinary plans in case they didn't. They weren't sure they could “deliver the vote.” As it turns out, they found a way to do it without even making it look close. One way they did that was by allowing Confederate or border states to vote if they were sure to go to Lincoln, but not allowing any Confederate states to vote if they were likely to go to McClellan. 

Voters in many other states than Tennessee were disenfranchised by local voting laws that either required them to support the Union or otherwise guarantee their votes. So although Wikipedia admits that several states were won by less than 5%, the margin of stealing was actually well beyond that, given the tricks of the time. Even Indiana and Lincoln's home state of Illinois were close. Lincoln won Illinois by only 30,000 votes. Given that Illinois has had one of the most corrupt political machines since the beginning, you can be sure they were finding a way to keep McClellan's voters from the polls. But could they push the vote by more than 8 percentage points? Of course. They pushed the vote more than that in Tennessee and Louisiana, which is why Congress refused to recognize the results there. 

You will say, “even if that is true, what does it have to do with Lincoln being mortally ill?” They are linked because they are all indication that extraordinary things were going on at the time, all having to do with Continuance of the Preferred Government. We see that those running the country behind the scenes had to win the election of 1864 in order to finish off the war they had started. The only way they could hope to do that was with Lincoln. No Union candidate but Lincoln could win, even with the amount of cheating they planned to do. Neither Johnson nor any other Union candidate could have won, even with all the cheating in the world, and it would have been a disaster for those running the country if the Democrat McClellan had won. 

Therefore, Lincoln had to be convinced to run even though he was too sick to serve another term. He probably said something like, 

“Look friends, I would love to oblige you, but there is no way I can handle the responsibilities of President for another term. It just isn't possible. I need to retire and either nurse myself back to health or die in comfort. I think I have at least earned that privilege.” 

His friends, realizing that they had to run Lincoln or perish, then came up with a brilliant plan. “See here, Abe,” they replied, “We understand your point, but we only need you for the election. We don't need you for the rest of the term. Just give your inaugural address and then we will let you go.” Lincoln then looked at them, mystified, and said, “How are you going to do that?” 

“We'll fake your death. Just tell everyone you died. We will then secretly move you back to Illinois, or wherever you want to go, and it will be over. You just have to agree to stay on your farm and not show yourself in public.” 

“I guess we can do that.” 

“Of course we can. It has been done before. We fake deaths all the time. It isn't nearly as hard as you think. We control the press and the police, and can easily quash any rumors.” 

Within a week of the inaugural address, Lincoln had probably already gone back to his farm. But they didn't tell him how they planned to fake it. My guess is he thought they would just put a death notice in the paper and fake a funeral. Instead, they decided to use the event to create a lot of emotion and further the Union cause. They drew up a script that made Lincoln into a hero and a martyr and that scapegoated some Confederate sympathizer. These guys were masters of propaganda even then, and they knew how to turn a bad situation into a great one. It was brilliant, since Lincoln's assassination is what cemented the Union cause, finalizing an end that was still somewhat in doubt. All the emotion created acted to bring the country—or at least the North—back together. After the assassination, there was a period of unity, and those behind the new President used that unity to promote the final points of the war, including the various indignities of Reconstruction.

The next question I foresee is this one: “Why couldn't Lincoln just retire after the inauguration in 1865? That would have achieved the same thing, right?” No. The Vice-President becomes President if the President dies or resigns, that is true. But according to Article II, Section 1, clause 6 of the Constitution, there is confusion on this point. This is why Amendment XXV was later added to the Constitution. According to the wording of Article 1, if a President declares an inability to serve based on ill health, the Vice-President only becomes Acting President “until the disability be removed or a President shall be elected.” In other words, it is likely that the clause would have been read that Congress should wait until Lincoln got better or died. But it was probably feared that if Lincoln retired due to ill health, one of two things might happen that no one wished to happen. Either the government would be considerably weakened at it time it could ill afford to be weakened, due to the lack of authority of an “Acting” President. Or, the Congress, seeing this predicament as a sign of weakness in the Executive, might either impeach both President and Acting President as ineffectual, appointing a new President under the terms of Clause 6, or call for a special election. None of these possibilities could be countenanced in 1865. In late 1864, the future of the war was still very much in doubt, and so they could not risk that Lincoln might retire due to illness in 1865. They had to convince him to run, since it was their only chance of winning the election, but they could not let him serve. As you can see, there is only one solution to this problem: fake his death.

You will say there are two solutions: fake his death or kill him. But since it is much easier to fake his death, and much less risky, there is no reason to kill him and many strong reasons not to. If you can achieve the same things with a faked event that you can achieve with the real event, you will go with the faked event every time. That is precisely why we have seen so many faked events in recent history. This is especially true with a murder. If they had actually assassinated Lincoln, they would have risked being caught. The penalties would have been extreme. But it has always been very hard to prosecute someone for a fake murder. There were probably no laws on the books at the time that would have applied, and the prosecution—even if it occurred—was unlikely to be for a capital crime.

The chosen solution turned out to be brilliant, since Andrew Johnson's authority was actually increased by the event, rather than decreased. If Lincoln had retired due to ill health and Johnson had been elevated to Acting President, his authority would have suffered from the confusion. But due to the apparent assassination of Lincoln, Johnson benefited from all the emotion created by the event. We see this in the history of the time, where Johnson's popularity was very high at first, but faded quickly. Very few suspected Johnson or anyone else of foul play, with the majority rallying behind their new President in a time of crisis. This is exactly what was planned, and for a short time it worked marvelously. It worked long enough to finish off the war, preventing a settlement or concessions to the South, which was job one. 

You will say, “But if that is true, why not admit it now? Why is the government perpetuating the lie? Wouldn't people be relieved by the truth? Isn't a fake death better than a real assassination, at this distance in time?” You would think so, but you can see that it would be very hard for the government to admit to a lie of this magnitude. They would have to admit that all the history books were faked for 150 years, and this would incriminate all those who faked the history, including Walt Whitman and many thousands of other famous people. It would also put into question all the other events of history. The lie is so big, so old, and so far-ranging that those in power feel they have no choice but to continue it. It is thought that the entire myth of the United States relies on it.

I would suggest that the myth of the US is already dead. Everyone knows recent history is a lie, either consciously or subconsciously, and that is why we are in the state we are in. The only way to rebuild confidence in government—and in life in general—is to come clean and start over. These lies have fed on one another, growing and multiplying, and they have ended up causing the collapse of the entire society, through a general corruption and rot. So although those in charge think they have no choice and that they are protecting society from collapse by continuing the lie, just the opposite is true. It is the lies that are causing the collapse, and the only hope is to quit the lies and embrace the truth. 

We are told that any lie is preferable the truth, but that itself is a lie told to protect the guilty. Any truth is preferable to a lie. 

As further evidence the whole event was faked, we can look at another famous photograph.

That is Lewis Powell, and the photo is tagged “Powell in wrist irons aboard the monitor USS Saugus, photographed by Alexander Gardner, 1865.” Powell is said to be the one who was assigned the killing of Secretary of State Sewell, simultaneously with Booth's killing of Lincoln. 

That photo looks staged as well. Both he and the picture are entirely too pretty. Here are some other pictures of Powell: 

So Powell just happened to be even more handsome than the universally acclaimed charmer John Wilkes Booth? What are the odds of that? Actually, in these manufactured events, it is par for the course. They are hiring actors, and of course actors are known for their looks. Here are two pictures of Booth:

Booth was said to have been tallish for the time [around 5'8”—average was around 5'6”], but Powell was much taller:

You can see that he was a giant for that time (we are told 6'2”). You can also see that they told him, “Lewis, look mean for this one! The last pictures were way too sexy.” And what in God's name is he wearing there? Are we supposed to believe that is regulation prisoner attire? It looks more like an artist's smock. He should have paintbrushes in his hand.

So who was Powell? Well, for starters, he was an admitted spy. Mainstream sources tell us he was in the Confederate Secret Service, but his story indicates to me another double agent, just like Booth. He was clearly working for the Union in this faked assassination, working mainly as another actor. Which would make him Union Secret Service, not Confederate. We have plenty of evidence for this, since he traveled across battle lines many times, including an “escape” from a POW camp in Baltimore to rejoin the Virginia Cavalry. We are told he managed this escape with the help of a nurse, but the whole story is fishy. It is much more likely that his trips North were for debriefings or holidays, and that his return to the South was a return to his spying for the North. I would suggest to you that Powell didn't escape from that POW camp in Baltimore, he was recruited for Intelligence there. It wasn't with the help of just a nurse that he escaped. He was allowed to escape by higher-ups. The story that he later became Confederate Intelligence is just a cover story. My interpretation fits the facts far better than the mainstream story. 

As more evidence for that, we are told that after some time in Virginia, he returned to Baltimore to revisit this nurse, Maggie Branson; but again, it is much more likely Branson also worked in Intelligence for the Union, and that she was a contact, not a lover. Why do I think that? Well, we are told that while in the North this time, he was arrested as a spy and required to sign an oath of allegiance, which he signed as Lewis Paine. None of that makes any sense. They don't arrest spies, have them sign oaths of allegiance, and then just release them. Normally they execute or jail them. If he was simply released, we must assume it was because he was a double agent, working for the North while appearing to work for the South.

This applies to John Surratt as well, a contact of Powell also said to be a conspirator against Lincoln and a Confederate spy. However, anyone who looks closely can see he was another member of Union Intelligence. Why do I think that? Here's another curious story from the mainstream: Not wanting to take part in the fake trials after the fake assassination, Surratt left the country and ended up being a Papal Zouave. A Zouave is a guard for the Pope. Remember my joke above, about the Pope being involved? We won't go there, but this does allow us some other interesting analysis. I say I won't go there, because although the Vatican undoubtedly did have ties to some of the wealthy people in the US pulling the strings of the war, the Pope cannot have had anything to do with the assassination of Lincoln. Conspiracy theorists try to pull all sorts of players into their theories, as you know, but if Lincoln wasn't assassinated, all these theories fall apart. I am not saying dark hands aren't pulling the strings of Presidents, but in this case, the answer is much simpler. There was no dark conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, since he wasn't assassinated. If you want to pursue these dark theories, you have to theorize about the greater control of the Civil War, not about Lincoln's assassination.

 

That is a picture of Surratt as a Zouave in 1866. He is supposed to be on the run for being involved in the biggest US conspiracy of all time, but he allows himself to be professionally photographed? This is all just a continuance of the joke. It it also more proof Surratt was Union Intelligence, since only an Intelligence officer would be so bold. He knew he was protected. We see proof of that when 

an old friend, Henri Beaumont de Sainte-Marie, recognized Surratt and notified papal officials and Rufus King, U.S. minister in Rome. On November 7, 1866, John Surratt was arrested and sent to Velletri prison. He escaped and lived with the Garibaldians, who gave him safe passage. 

Agents escape from prison, but almost no one else does. We see it again when he was finally caught and brought back to the US for trial. Unfortunately the statute of limitations had just run out. So convenient, right? Surratt ended up marrying a cousin of Francis Scott Key, living in Baltimore—the North—and having seven children. He was clearly protected from the beginning, by the winner in the war, not the loser. 

As more proof of that, you should also take a closer look at the Zouave connection. The main protector of the Pope at this time was not the Zouaves. They were only guards. The protector of the Pope was the army of France. France, although said to be neutral in our Civil War, was actually aligned with the North. France never recognized the Confederate States and at times helped in their blockade. And although Garibaldi was not an ally of the Vatican, the Garibaldians were nonetheless allies of the Union, too. Garibaldi was beholden to the North for financial support during his campaigns, which is why the Garibaldians sheltered Surratt. So both the Zouave connection and the Garibaldi connection link Surratt to the North, not to the South. We have been fed a lot of disinformation on this point, with the mainstream most often telling us Surratt's connection to the Pope indicated his Confederate ties. But that is simply an inversion of the truth, as you see. 

I will be told that Surratt's mother Mary was the first woman hanged by the US, and that she died along with Powell, Herold, and Atzerdodt. But that event was also faked.

 

What indication do we have of that? To start with, “Alexander Gardner, who had photographed the body of Booth and taken portraits of several of the male conspirators while they were imprisoned aboard naval ships, photographed the execution for the government.” Since there was no body of Booth, Gardner is immediately suspect. He is also the one who took that sexy photo of Powell above, so, again, he is suspect. In addition, attendance at this execution was severely limited, and almost all those in the audience were military personnel. Fewer than 200 tickets were printed and we aren't told they were all given out or sold. This is important because military personnel can be ordered to keep quiet. They only see what they are told to see.

Before we move on, let us study that last quote. Gardner is supposed to have photographed the body of Booth. Where are those photos? They don't exist. Search for them on the internet. If a photo of the dead Booth existed, it would be all over the internet. It isn't. We can see why the photos had to be destroyed if we study the history of the identification of Booth's body: 

Charles Dawson, the hotel clerk, said he knew Booth from the initials tattooed on his wrist but he named the wrong wrist. The Captain's clerk on the Montauk [the ship where Booth's body was first taken] said he knew Booth and recognized the body from “general appearance.” Likewise [said] the Montauk’s acting master, William Crowninshield. There is no good evidence that either of these had ever met Booth. Dr. [John] Frederick May who had removed a tumor from Booth’s neck was summoned. His first comment was, “There is no resemblance in that corpse to Booth nor can I believe it to be him.”‡ Dr. May later said the scar on the neck was similar to Booth's. No stage acquaintances, personal friends, relations, or co-conspirators were questioned, although they were readily available. . . .

Booth was the most wanted man on earth. The natural course would be to take the body to Washington where as many people as possible could see it, pictures taken and documentation by impeccable sources. The army did the exact opposite. Instead of taking the remains to a hospital, they were placed on a ship where the number of people allowed to view the body was controlled by the Army. Dr. May was the only witness to identify the body who had actually known Booth. This identification was obviously made under duress. His first statement was “There is no resemblance in that corpse to Booth nor can I believe it to be him.” Luther Baker [cousin of Lafayette Baker of the War Department, and one of those who had captured Booth] then had a private conversation with May, who then said that the scar was similar to Booth’s. Washington was under martial law at the time and habeus corpus had been suspended, therefore Baker had the power to put Dr. May in jail without being charged and could keep him there indefinitely. The body was interred almost immediately after the inquest in an Army arsenal where the Army had total control of the site. What was the hurry? Why this spot instead of a cemetery?†

Booth was also from a prominent respected Union family, and that family had the legal right to take possession of Booth's body after the autopsy and investigation had concluded. There was no legal precedent or authority for the government kidnapping the body and burying it in an Army storage room. Why wasn't Booth's family summoned to identify the body? They were nearby in Maryland, and this is normal protocol. If you died, would they call your family, or rely on the identification of people on board a ship who had never met you? Would they call your parents or call a doctor who met you once years earlier? I would say it is fairly obvious this corpse wasn't Booth. If you have the right corpse, you don't need to create all this ridiculous fiction.

We also have a negative ID of Booth's body by Wilson D. Kenzie, 16th New York Cavalry, who was present at the Garrett barn.1 Also by his partner, Joseph Zeigen. Both later signed affidavits that the body was not that of Booth. Likewise Andrew and Luther Potter, National Detective Police agents who were also on the trail of Booth in 1865.2 They tell that they were “ordered” not to continue to pursue Booth, although they had made a negative ID on the body.

But back to these others, who were said to be buried with Booth at the Arsenal. As you see in the above photo, the condemned were hooded, so they couldn't be identified. Also curious is that Mary Surratt's noose “was put in place by a Secret Service officer.” Why would the Secret Service need to be involved in this execution? Even more curious is that the white hoods were not removed when the bodies were cut down and put into coffins. That is completely contrary to policy, since the hoods are for the prisoners, not for the audience. It keeps them calmer and aids in the execution. Once the prisoners are dead, the hoods should be removed. And then, 

The coffins were buried against the prison wall in shallow graves, just a few feet from the gallows. 

What? Do you think that is standard procedure? Well, it gets weirder: 

In 1867, the War Department decided to tear down the portion of the Washington Arsenal where the bodies of Surratt and the other executed conspirators lay. On October 1, 1867, the coffins were disinterred and reburied in Warehouse No. 1 at the Arsenal, with a wooden marker placed at the head of each burial vault. John Wilkes Booth's body lay alongside them. 

The Arsenal was an army post, not a burial ground. You can't just bury bodies anywhere you like, and that was as true in 1865 as now. In fact, there was a hospital on the grounds. You don't bury bodies just a few yards from a hospital, for health reasons. These hanged people also have families, and those families would have had a right to take possession of the bodies. Just because you are found guilty of murder doesn't mean the government is allowed to kidnap your corpse and bury it anywhere it likes.

All these people are known to have had families, but even if they hadn't, a hanged criminal would have been taken to a city morgue and then to a city plot. In no case would a criminal be buried just a few feet from the scaffolding, on army grounds. They admit this was right in the Arsenal courtyard. That would be like burying four criminals in the quad at your school, and then just building a little fence around it. Study the second frame: look how close they are to the main building. Does that look like a good place to bury four murderers?

Speaking of burials, what about the burial of Lincoln? The first strange thing we read is that when Lincoln's body was returned to Illinois, Mrs. Lincoln didn't travel with it “because she was still too distraught.” Instead, she returned to Illinois about a month later. This means that Lincoln's own wife missed his funeral and burial, a funeral still called the greatest funeral in the history of the US. And remember, while she was packing at the White House, her guard was. . . John Frederick Parker, the drunken policeman who left the theater to go next door to the tavern. 

Do you honestly find any of that believable? Recent widows are always distraught, but they always manage to attend the funeral and burial, unless they have been seriously injured themselves. Mary Todd Lincoln was known to be a tough cookie. The only reason I can imagine why she wouldn't attend her husband is if her husband weren't there to attend. She knew this funeral and burial were fake, so why bother attending? She had better things to do in packing up the White House, since Abe couldn't show himself to help her. 

We are told that hundreds of thousands of mourners viewed the funeral as it processed across the country in late April, but all they viewed was the coffin. They didn't view the corpse directly, since they weren't allowed to pass close enough to see it. So, as with these other manufactured events, you have thousands of witnesses to nothing. They think they see but they do not see.

The same problem comes up if we look more closely at Lincoln's medical attendance right after the shooting. Did they take Lincoln to a hospital? No. Curiously, they just moved him across the street to a private home. He was attended by a young army surgeon who happened to be in the audience at Ford's Theater. None of that makes any sense. They misdirect you by allowing moles to ask, “Why wasn't he sent to the White House, which was four blocks away?” That seems like a good question, but the better question it is meant to hide is this one: “Why wasn't he taken to a hospital?” Washington D.C. was simply stiff with hospitals. This was only five days after the Battle of Appomattox Court House, in central Virginia. There had been major battles in central and eastern Virginia for many months, and of course the most eastern of those areas are only a few miles from DC. DC is tacked onto the eastern end of Virginia. So all the hospitals in DC were still fully functional at that time: 

Among the most significant of these Civil War hospitals were the Armory Square Hospital, Finley Hospital, and the Campbell Hospital. More than 20,000 injured or ill soldiers received treatment in an array of permanent and temporary hospitals in the capital, including the U.S. Patent Office, and, for a time, the Capitol itself. 

Actually, there were 56 hospitals in DC during the Civil War, as you can see by going to this site. Here they are, numbered for you:

As you can see, there are five within a few blocks of Ford's Theater, including the Patent Office Hospital (7), the Union Hotel (19), Caspari's House (33), and the Presbyterian Church (38). There were also facilities at City Hall (39) and on the White House grounds (46). Note that: there were medical facilities on the White House grounds, just five blocks away from the theater. The “significant” Armory Square hospital (20) was also within easy walking distance. We are told the doctors on-hand didn't want to subject the President to a “bumpy carriage ride.” But that is more misdirection, since these facilities were so close the President could have been carried by hand on a stretcher by two men. No carriage ride was required. 

We are told the President was taken across the street to Petersen's Guest House, but since there were no operating facilities there, that is completely illogical. In the real world, Lincoln would have been hand carried on a stretcher to the nearest and best medical facility, and the top surgeons in DC would have been rushed over to attend. Since that didn't happen, we know again that the story is fiction. 

There is misdirection on this point to this day. If you type in the question “why wasn't Lincoln taken to a hospital”, the first thing that comes up is this. Dr. Blaine Houmes tries to tell us that that gunshots to the head were 100% fatal in 1865 and still are. That's just an outright lie, since this was a slug from a Derringer. 

That's a tiny single-shot pistol, used mainly as a stow-away weapon. Although .44 caliber, it had a very slow bullet speed, and the bullet was also spinning less quickly, due to the short barrel. The truth is, a lot of people have survived being shot by Derringers, even head shots. The kill rate was nothing like 100% in 1865, and is even less now. 

Dr. Houmes even admits that a paragraph later, directly contradicting himself. He says, 

However, the problem also lies in the different accounts written by the physicians at the autopsy of President Lincoln performed on April 15 at the White House. Unfortunately, depending on which account you read, you'll find that there could have been a different path of the bullet. If you only read one or two of the reports, in theory Lincoln could have survived, particularly today with our medical care. But if you read all the others, there's no way he could have survived, due to the severity of the injury. 

He just said a few sentences earlier that these events were 100% fatal, and now he is saying they aren't. Given the right trajectory, survival is possible. 

Which takes us to the next problem: the different accounts. How could there be different accounts in an autopsy? There was one head, one bullet, and one path. If we have two different accounts, we already have proof that all this is fiction. In a real autopsy, there is one account and only one. Only in fake murders do you find multiple contradictory autopsies.

All the evidence leads us to the conclusion that they had no body. Which means the President was never there, which means no one was shot, which means the entire account is fiction. We don't even have any evidence Booth was there. If all the rest of this is fiction, why believe Booth was there, jumped down, fled, etc.? Even if we assume there was some sort of real event that night, and that the whole thing wasn't just fed to the newspapers wholesale, we can get the same story without bothering to include Booth at all. The entire audience could have been planted. Just tell anyone who wants a ticket that night that the show is sold out. Then partially fill the theater with military and government personnel—especially Intelligence people—and run whatever event you like. To fool people on the street, you may wish to actually have guards running in and clearing the place. You may wish to have a body carried across the street to Petersen's, and so on. But all the rest can be achieved with a pen. You just write it down, send it to the newspapers, and the job is done.

We even have some proof of the above scenario, since although the President was supposed to be in attendance at this very popular play, the theater was about 1/3rd empty. You may wish to compare that to the flights on 911, which were mysteriously only 1/3rd full. It looks like the government didn't have enough trustworthy personnel on-hand to fill the 2,400 seats in Ford's Theater.

I suppose a lot more could be said on this event, and I may return to it later. But I feel I have already shown you the main evidence. In my opinion, the murder is solved: there was no murder. If you aren't convinced, or at least intrigued, by now, I doubt you ever will be. I will only take a moment to answer a couple of questions and tie up a couple of loose ends. Some will ask me what happened to Booth. Did he escape from the barn and all that? Well, no. There never was any barn and no one was ever killed in that event either. That was just another faked and planted story. The body they used was of a Confederate soldier, already dead. Kenzie and Zeigen swore that the body they saw at Garrett's farm wore a gray uniform and yellow brogans, and had a red mustache. They “knew” that Booth had shaved his mustache because they had already visited Dr. Mudd, who had told them that himself. Andrew Potter tells much the same story.  

We have been told by alternate theorists that Booth escaped to Texas or India or somewhere, but I don't believe it. The reason I don't believe it is that I know Booth was in Union Intelligence. I also know he was very wealthy and famous. He already had a great life, so to convince him to sell out his name and reputation and future would be very difficult or impossible. I simply don't believe he was that patriotic. Given what we have discovered, the best guess is that he didn't agree to it. Remember, always check off the most likely things first, before moving on to the less likely. Since we have seen that Lincoln was not where we are told he was, we should assume Booth was also not where we are told he was. They could only use Booth's name in this event because he was already gone. Like Lincoln, he was gone long before the event even started. 

It is conceivable Booth switched sides sometime in late 1864. He had been hanging out with Intelligence assets from both sides for years, pretending to be Confederate but actually being Union. It is possible he got a great offer from the South and moved down there. But I think it is much more likely he got caught in his own schemes and was murdered by Southern agents while in costume and under an alias. Because he was under an assumed name, they didn't know they had killed John Wilkes Booth. So they just buried him. Those in Union Intelligence discovered Booth had been murdered as a spy at the same time they were working on the fake assassination. They needed a fall guy, so they decided to use Booth. They simply neglected to publicize his death. To buy time, they made up a story about him going to Canada for a while.

You will say he was seen in plays up until March, 1865. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. That fake is also very easy to pull off. You hire an actor who looks like Booth and pay the local theater critic to say he was smashing. Only a few smart people in the audience figure it out. 

OK, but do we have any evidence for this theory? In fact, we do. We have a photo of the three Booth brothers acting in Julius Caesar in late 1864.

Unfortunately, that is an obvious paste-up. It is fake. How do I know? Simple research and a good eye. That is supposed to be John to the left, Edwin in the middle, and Junius to the right. Even without examining the photo closely, we know it again contradicts the mainstream story. By 1864, Edwin and John are supposed to be totally estranged. We are told that Edwin would neither talk to nor work with John. So how did they convince them to work together in here? They didn't. John wasn't in the play and that photo is fake. 

Did you know that Junius was 17½ years older than John and 12 years older than Edwin? He should have been a month shy of 44 there, while John was just 26. It that how it looks to you? It isn't how it looks to me. But there is much more. Let's look at some real photos from that time of these guys.

That's what real professional photos of the time look like. Compare them to the photo above. See a problem? 

If you don't, I will point out a few for you. Look how small Edwin's foot is compared to his head. Look at John's arm. Why is it so short and so white? Now compare the black tones in Edwin to the black tones in John. The hair is a good place to compare, but you can compare all the blacks in the eyes, robe, and sandals. See how Edwin is darker overall than John? John's blacks are all two steps grayer, aren't they? Now look at the shadows beneath the three men. Although there are shadows under the other two men, there is no shadow under John. You will say it is because his skirt is higher, but look at the little dark lines around his feet. Even those small shadows don't match the other guys. The blacks aren't black enough and there are no shadows falling to the right, as from his raised heel. The focus of the whole photograph appears off as well. Do you think they paid a photographer to come in and take pictures of them in costume, only to release this one that is out of focus? No, the photographer takes a set of photos, and one will surely be better quality than this. Whoever released this fake photo back in the day purposely released it in low resolution (out of focus), to help hide the paste seams and other anomalies. I would say all three heads have been pasted on, as just a start. Notice the halos around all three heads. It is especially obvious with John. Look at the light band around his hair, to the left. This tampering with a famous photo is proof John wasn't there. If he wasn't there, where was he? Why were they faking his whereabouts in late 1864? 

This strongly supports the death hypothesis. He was too famous and too handsome to disappear in the South or West at that time, especially with his picture in all the papers. And he would not have wanted to disappear anyway: he had it too good where he was. You will say no reward was offered for Booth, beyond April 26. But reward or no reward, a lot of people hated Booth. Many knew there was a question mark over his death. He wouldn't have been safe anywhere in the US, much less comfortable.

That's why I don't think he would agree to having his name used, not even for a large sum of money. He already had money and fame and comfort. They would have had to move him overseas, but why would he want to go overseas? Even Europe wouldn't be safe. It wasn't safe for Surratt, as we have seen, and Surratt was much less famous, much less handsome, and much less wanted. Booth wouldn't wish to move to India or South America or anywhere else, since that would be a big step down for him, no matter how much money he was offered, and I don't see him agreeing to be used for this job. The people who agree to relocation are people who aren't doing well where they are. But Booth had it made. He was rich, handsome, famous, working for Union Intelligence, and about to wed a Senator's daughter. There is no logical way to explain this, except that he was already dead and they just borrowed his name.

[Addendum January 2, 2016: John Wilkes Booth may have been Jewish. It is not my research that discovered that, it is in the new book on Lincoln by Sarna and Shapell—who are Jewish themselves— and in the testimony of Booth's sister Asia and brother Edwin. Both stated that their father was Jewish, attending synagogue and speaking Hebrew. The authors also admit that the Lincolns attended a performance of the Merchant of Venice, in which John Wilkes Booth played Shylock. Why is that worth mentioning? Because Shylock was a Jewish banker.] 

So there you have it. We have passed through the bog and come out the other side. I think you will admit that this theory, though astonishing on a first read, is actually much less extreme than most other alternative theories of Lincoln's death. Because the mainstream story was seen to be full of holes from the beginning, the alleged assassination has generated mountains of speculation. Those who have studied these theories know that just about everything imaginable has been proposed, to fill these holes.

I think my explanation is far simpler, far more logical, and that it fits the known facts far more gracefully. And, although it points the finger at hidden players, it points to hidden players we know were there. We know Military Intelligence was active during the Civil War. Intelligence wasn't invented in 1947. So the involvement of Intelligence is the natural first assumption, not the involvement of esoteric international cabals. Even if we accept the existence of esoteric international cabals, they are not needed here. We have explained it without them. You may or may not wish to insert them wherever I talk about powers behind Lincoln, but that is beyond the purview of this paper. Faking a murder is well within the capabilities of local Intelligence, even a murder of this prominence.

In fact, most of the alternate theories look like purposeful misdirection to me, simply because they fail to consider the most likely answers first. In any real investigation, an investigator crosses off the simplest and most likely scenarios first, proceeding to less likely ones only when those simpler ones fail to fit the evidence. When an investigator of a murder comes across a mountain of evidence of tampering and fakery and lies, his first question should be, “was there a murder at all?” Only when he is convinced of the murder itself does he proceed to asking further questions. Given the story we have been told, we should never have been convinced of the murder of Lincoln. We never had any real evidence for it. All the evidence we have is clearly pushed, so we should then look for evidence he wasn't murdered. As it turns out, there is actually a lot of that evidence, buried just below the top layer of falsehoods.

Addendum, August 27, 2016: I just found an entire layer I missed the first time. It required a very close and extended study of the genealogy charts in the mid-1800's, which I later ended up doing as part of the research for many later papers, including my paper on Lizzie Borden, my paper on F. Scott Fitzgerald, and so on. Only by cross-referencing these many genealogy searches was I able to discover that all these families are closely related. That is to say—as that research relates to this paper—we find the Todds were related to the Surratts. They were also related to the Booths, Parkers and Rathbones. So we find more evidence this was all an inside job. They chose people from their own families to play the parts in this hoax. Remember, Henry Rathbone was the one who allegedly fought with Booth in the theater box, before the shot was fired. Two Surratts were among the alleged conspirators. So you should find it highly suspicious to discover all these people were closely related, mainly through Lincoln's wife Mary Todd. The genealogy sites have scrubbed the first layer of relationships, so it is not obvious on a first glance. However, once you discover the connecting families, you can make the links indirectly. For instance, the link to Rathbone wasn't made for me until my paper on Mabel Dodge Luhan(Ganson), where I discovered her great-grandmother Lucy Anderson had married twice, once to John Ganson and once to Israel Rathbone. Israel's father and Henry's grandfather were brothers.5 [The Rathbones were also related to the Reeds. See Lydia Rathbone who married William Reed. Henry Rathbone's full name was Henry Reed Rathbone. That links us to my paper on John Reed  as well. The Rathbones were also related to the Burrows/Burroughs.  See Elizabeth Rathbone who married Amos Burrows That links us to my paper on the Beat poets, and William S. Burroughs, among many others.8 ] 

That links the Rathbones to the Gansons, but how does it link them to this paper? Well, the Gansons were also related to the Gates, as I showed in my paper on Mabel Dodge Luhan. So were the Rathbones. Isaiah Rathbun married Molly Gates. 6 Isaiah was the half-brother of the Rathbones. One of his descendants was Horatio Gates Spafford Rathbun, father of Edna Chapman.7 Anyway, the Gates were related to the Todds. See Sarah Todd who married George William Gates, Sr. in around 1830. This Gates was the son of Jerusha Russell Clark, which ties us to the Clark and Russell families as well. We saw the Russell's involved in the Lizzie Borden hoax. So the Rathbones were related to the Todds through the Gates.

The Rathbones were also related to the Booths. To discover this, I had to trip across a book at Googlebooks called A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City Bridgeport …, Volume 2. See pp. 1331-2. There we find a Rev. Izrahiah Wetmore (d. 1798) marrying a Phebe Walker of Stratford, CT. His mother was Sarah Booth. Their last son Charles married Elizabeth Rathbone, daughter of John Rathbone of New York.

What about the Surratts? We have seen that the Surratts were related to the Fitzgeralds. That is admitted in F. Scott Fitzgerald's bio. They were also related to the Scotts and Keys. Susannah Scott Key's daughter Mary Hunter married John Surratt. Beyond that, Mary Surratt's mother was Elizabeth Webster, which brings that family into it as well. The Surratts were also related to the Jacobs. See Elisha Surratt who married Jan Jacobs in about 1825. This ties into my Leo DiCaprio paper. Anyway, I send you first to the genealogy of Joseph Wilkes Todd, father of Harvey Webster Todd. That sort of kills two birds with one stone, since you see the link to both Wilkes and Webster there. You can also go here, to see the marriage of William Webster and Mary Anne Todd in about 1855. Then we have Edith Webster Todd, daughter of Theron Todd and Hattie Webster.

[While we are here, I thought I would remind you that Daniel Webster's granddaughter Caroline Appleton married Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte II. His grandfather was the brother of Napoleon. Which of course ties us to my paper on him. Daniel Webster's mother was an Eastman, and we have seen that name come up many times as well, most recently in my paper on Lizzie Borden. Lizzie's mother was a Morse, and we found Eastmans in her recent ancestry. There were also Eastmans involved in the Salem Witch Trial.]

We have seen the Clark family come up already. Well, the Booths were related to the Clarks. See Asia Frigga Clarke, nee Booth. She was the sister of John Wilkes Booth and the wife of John Sleeper Clarke. Curiously, he took his mother's name instead of his father's. He was born John Clarke Sleeper. His mother Georgiana Clark [yes, that is the spelling at Geni] has been thoroughly scrubbed, indicating they are hiding something important. But not hiding it well, because the name Clark is enough. It ties us to the Todds once again, since Mary Todd Lincoln's brother was named George Rogers Clark Todd. He was named for George Rogers Clark, son of Capt. William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame.

 The Todds were also related to the Owens. George Rogers Clark Todd's grandfather was Levi Todd, son of David Todd and Hannah Owens. This links us to my paper on Friedrich Engels and Robert Owen, two of the founders of Communism.

Also useful is the genealogy of James Clark Todd of the Kentucky Todds, early 1800's. He married Maria Blair, and their son was Lyman Beecher Todd. He married Sarah Swift in about 1850. She was the daughter of Stephen Swift and Louisa Tarbell. We just saw the Tarbells come up in my paper on Lizzie Borden, where the ex-Governor of Massachusetts was George Robinson. He was her defense attorney. He was also descended from Tarbells. But it gets better. Stephen Swift's mother was named Thankful Hoar. Not a joke. We saw that surname in my paper on F. Scott Fitzgerald. Scott's editor was Maxwell Perkins, whose mother was a Hoar. There was a Dorcas Hoar at the Salem Witch Trials. Thankful Hoar's mother was Susannah Pierce, and we saw that surname in my paper on Lizzie Borden, related to all those people. We can also pull in a Jackson, since Stephen Swift's grandmother was Anne Jackson. This probably ties them to President Andrew Jackson, among others.

Anyway, Geni breaks the line of James Clark Todd, giving us no father. They also appear to give an incorrect date for his birth of 1804 to throw us off. But if we change that date to 1802, we find another James Clark Todd in the same place at the same time. And this man's parents are given as General Levi Todd and Jan Briggs, tying us back into the line of George Rogers Clark Todd. This proves the name Clark is not an accident. It is a family name, indicating despite all the scrubbing a tie between the Clark's and the Todd's. In fact, we find two more James Clark Todd's. Samuel Blair Todd had a son and grandson of that name. The first of these James Clark Todd's married Mary Boone Bryan, of the famous Bryan's (see William Jennings Bryan, who took part in the fake Scopes Monkey Trial). Her great-grandmother was Sarah Russell. She is scrubbed, but she may be from the Russell family we saw in the Lizzie Borden hoax.

If we follow these Bryans in the Todd genealogy, we find some of them changed their names to Bergan in around 1915. That's curious, and may tell us something about the famous Bergans/Bergens after that. 

These Bryans also give us another important link. Mary Boone Bryan's great-grandfather was Daniel Boone Bryan, and his wife's mother was Catherine Scott. She was the daughter of Joseph and Eleanor and the sister of John. This links the Scotts to the Todds, linking Francis Scott Key to Abraham Lincoln—a relationship the mainstream says does not exist. Of course it also links the Surratts to the Todds once again, since it is admitted that the Scotts and Surratts are related.

Now, what about that drunken policeman John Frederick Parker, who was allegedly next door at a pub while Abe was getting himself assasinated? He was also later the personal guard of Mary Todd Lincoln at the White House, indicating some relationship were aren't being told. Hold on to your hat, because this is the closest relationship of all. Mary Todd Lincoln's mother was Anne Elizabeth Parker. She had a brother Archibald Parker, who is listed as having no children. John could have been his son. Mary Todd Lincoln had a great uncle named John Parker, and his son was also named John Parker. His grandfather and great-grandfather were named John Thomas Parker. The most recent of those, John Parker b. 1797 is scrubbed, as you would expect. But again, he could have had a son, that son being our John Frederick Parker. We find John Frederick Parker's bio scrubbed as well, but when you are told he wasn't related to the Parkers in Mary Todd's line, you shouldn't believe it. Do you really think it is just a coincidence that this suspicious drunken policeman had the same name as four of Mary Todds close relatives? 

Studying the Parker lines gives us yet another link. Mary Todd's great-grandfather was James Parker, and his sister was Lucy Parker. She married Charles Keys, which is of course just a variation of Key. Some of the family later dropped the “s”. This once again links the Todd's and the Keys, which not only links Francis Scott Key to Abraham Lincoln again, it links Lincoln to the Surratts one more time. 

[It is also worth mentioning that Mary Todd's sister Elizabeth married Ninian Wirt Edwards. His brother was Albert Gallatin Edwards, who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln. We are told he was named for Albert Gallatin, Treasurer under Jefferson and Madison, but he was actually related to him. 

Like many others, this Albert Gallatin is sold to us Swiss. If you believe that, I don't know what to say. Have your eyes checked. Maybe this little song will jog your memory: “♫You've got to pick a pocket or two♫”. His real first name was Abraham. He was a wealthy merchant from a family of wealthy merchants and is obviously Jewish. Which is why I thought him worth adding here. It reminds us all these people were Jewish.

Gallatin's second wife was Hannah Nicholson. The Nicholsons were related to the Edwards through the Bealls. See Thomas Nicholson Beall, 1797, Maryland, for one example. Beall's mother's surname is scrubbed, but my guess it is Nicholson. The Bealls and Edwards intermarried many times in the same period, indicating Albert Gallatin Edwards wasn't just named for Albert Gallatin, he was a great nephew or something.

But let us back up a bit. I hope you also noticed the middle name of Ninian Wirt Edwards. Remember Wirt Walker, related to George Bush? That is no coincidence. Wirt Walker's 3g-grandfather was Solomon Walker, NH, who married heiress Charity Stevens, granddaughter of Elihu Stevens. So we are looking at more crypto-Jews here. Either this Solomon Walker or his father previously married a Sylvia Delano.  These Delanos were partners in Russell and Co., apparently an arm of the East India Company which imported opium from China. The Delano family later spit out Franklin Delano Roosevelt, among others. Russell and Co. links us to my recent paper on Lizzie Borden, since a Russell was governor of Massachusetts at the time. He was related to Samuel Russell of Russell and Co. and also to William Russell who founded Skull and Bones. The Walkers and Bushes were and are Skull and Bones. The Forbes and the Alsops were also involved—both in Skull and Bones and as in investors in the Walker enterprises—and we have seen them recently as well, especially in  my papers on John Forbes Nash and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The name Ninian Wirt Edwards tells us that the current John Edwards, John Kerry, and the Bushes are all related. They are also related to the Roosevelt's. They admit some of these relationships, but try to spin them as very distant. They aren't very distant. I have found in my research that they hire some fake genealogists to tell us the relationships are something like 16th cousins ten times removed, when they are actually fourth cousins twice removed or something. In other words, they point you to a common ancestor in Europe in 1600, overlooking the common ancestor in the US in about 1850. 

The Delano link above takes you to a 2010 paper by 911 truther Kevin Ryan, where we learn something else interesting. Solomon Walker's son James Monroe Walker was President of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in the mid-1800s. He also controlled the Union Stock Yards, the Kansas City Stock Yards, and the Wilmington Coal Company. Finally, he was involved in Russell and Co.,, the trader in opium that was backed by many of the billionaires of the time. It was opium money that financed these other ventures. In these projects, Walker worked with Nathaniel Thayer and Sidney Bartlett. Sidney and Jonathan Bartlett are mentioned many times in the papers of banker Salmon Chase. This is because Russell and Co. was just an arm of the giant merchant banks, including Baring Brothers and N. M. Rothschild. If you don't know why I bolded those two names, see my old paper on artist Bo Bartlett. I proposed there a link between Bartlett and Rothschild, based on admittedly circumstantial evidence. But what we are finding here supports that link. A further search on Sidney Bartlett takes us here, where we learn much about the family. Apparently Sidney Bartlett had a son or brother named William S. Bartlett, who was a very wealthy Orange County banker. He had a grandson or nephew Lanier Bartlett who was a Hollywood screenwriter and Los Angeles Times reporter, and a grandson named Sidney Lanier Bartlett who was a bon vivant. This last Bartlett briefly married the actress Ursula Cheshire. He was also US Vice-consul in Casablanca, and a spy. I found no direct link from him to Bo Bartlett, but I did find some indirect links. For a start, Bo's real name is James William Bartlett III. Here we find a Sidney Bartlett, b. 1894 to James William Bartlett. And here we find a James William Bartlett with a brother (and sister?) named Israel. 

Anyway, back to the Edwards line. In about 1800, the Edwards married into both the Green and Warfield families. Lucretia Edwards married Gen. Duff Green of Maryland. Rachel Edwards married William Warfield of Maryland. We have seen both in recent papers. John Reed's grandfather was a Green. His bio is scrubbed. Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, was actually Bessie Warfield. We saw the Warfields in my paper on F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Edwards were also related to the Muses. Hayden Edwards of this line was the son-in-law of Mary Muse. We saw the Muses in my paper on Eustace Mullins, whose mother was a Muse. Which brings us to the other thing I showed in that paper: the Muses were related to the Booths. Which links the Booths to all these families one more time.]

To reiterate: what I have just shown you is that Abraham Lincoln was closely related to most of the major conspirators in his faked assassination. It was a family affair. This of course acts as more strong evidence the whole story was manufactured by these families to sell another one of their hoaxes. Much more research could and should be done on these linking genealogies, and I suspect I will continue to expose it in upcoming papers. Every paper I write tends to take us back to these same families, who are at the center of the long lie now sold as history. 

For some this essay has likely been overly long already, but for those whose eyes are still in their heads, I have a few more comments. I will remove the investigator's cap and change my tone a bit for this. I still won't act the historian, since I was never interested in straight reportage. I will put on the cap of the philosopher or legislator. After discovering what I have discovered, it occurred to me that I wasn't feeling the disgust I might be expected to feel from this whole charade. In fact, I found I was more offended by the vote stealing in the election of 1864—what with the requirement of oaths and so on—than I was by the faked assassination. With the faked murder, I felt I could understand the need for it, due to circumstances. It was a magnificent fraud assuredly, and I would never defend fraud. And yet, I could see so clearly why and how it happened, that I was tempted to pass part of the blame to the framers of the Constitution, who—through sheer negligence, one supposes—allowed it to occur. It was a disaster waiting to happen, and in fact this wasn't the only time it happened. As we have seen above, the vague wording of Article 1 set this whole thing up. So let us study the problem and the solution.

It appears the authors of the Constitution didn't wish to allow a President to resign due to ill health or other reasons. They appeared to have assumed—for reasons that aren't really clear—that no President would simply wish to quit. They wrote Article 1 assuming ill health would either lead to a cure or to death, and they included language to cover both possibilities. But they didn't foresee a third possibility: lingering ill health that would not lead to death, but that would lead to the permanent inability to govern. They also didn't foresee that even ill health lingering for a short time could cause a crisis in times of emergency, since an Acting President would not have the authority of a full President.

And they clearly didn't foresee how loopholes in the rules of Article 1 would lead to exploitation of those loopholes, which is precisely what happened in 1865. It appears they didn't want a President just passing the ball to the Vice-President for no reason, since that would have allowed a candidate to get into office on false pretenses, by a sort of Cyrano gambit. But the only thing they did to prevent that was make it impossible for a President to just retire (without scandal). Under the current language and customs, any retirement not due to ill health would be seen as scandalous, and would negatively affect the Vice-President as he became the President. We saw that with Ford, as he succeeded Nixon. Therefore, to successfully run a Cyrano gambit (pretending you are running one candidate while really running the other), they have to fake the death of the President. That allows the new President to govern with augmented authority, rather than diminished authority. That is what we just saw in the above analysis.

Now, the Constitution is a wonderful document in many ways, but in other ways it is a terrible document. Its vagueness on many issues is sold to us as a strength, but in most cases it is nothing but a weakness. The Constitution is mainly a piece of legislation, and vagueness in legislation is never a plus. The brevity of the Constitution is admirable, but it could be almost as brief and ten times as powerful, with the right wording.

The authors of the Constitution did not take full account of human nature, by which any loophole is sure to be exploited. Admitting that, vague language should be avoided at all cost, and any loophole discovered later should be immediately filled. This has simply not happened. The loopholes have been exploited with ever more fantastic gambits. 

To prevent this Cyrano gambit, you could do one of two things. Most instances would be stopped by adding a clause to the effect that any President who dies or quits for any reason not due to scandal in the first year of office will NOT be succeeded by the Vice-President. The Vice-President will become Acting President only while a special election is called. This special election must be called immediately, and in fact no one has to call it. As soon as the President dies or resigns, the election is understood to be called already, by the Constitution itself. The actual voting should take place within six weeks; in times of war, three weeks. All instances of the gambit could be prevented by extending the clause over all four years, instead of just the first year.

If I have still missed something, what I missed should also be filled with precise language.

I will be told that these quick special elections don't allow time for the public to learn about candidates, but that argument is mostly a diversion. The public now has two years of campaigning to endure, and at the end learns almost nothing of value. If campaigns were honest, you could learn everything you needed to know about candidates in a matter of weeks. In dishonest campaigns, you will be prevented from learning anything to the point regardless. Short campaigns therefore limit the amount of possible propaganda, and are to be preferred for that alone.

Amendment XXV was added to the Constitution in 1967 to clarify Article 1, but it fails to do so. It clarifies a couple of minor issues, but does nothing to close the big loopholes. There are easy solutions to most Constitutional problems, but no one seems interesting in discovering them and implementing them. The Constitution is normally seen as either sacrosanct or as just “a goddamn piece of paper.” It is neither. Any loopholes discovered should be immediately and completely filled, lest fraud ultimately run rampant—as it has. 

Another problem is that the Constitution rarely sets penalties. This again encourages fraud. To see what I mean, let us look at the problem of vote fraud, of which we saw such heinous examples in the 1864 election. The only penalty for stealing the states of Tennessee and Louisiana was forfeiture of those States in the Congressional vote count. That penalty is not commensurate with the crime. Notice that Congress didn't even award the votes from those States to McClellan, which was a logical first step. But the penalties should have been far steeper than that. Fraud on that scale undercuts the entire democratic process, and completely short-circuits the representative government. Therefore it might be argued it is a form of treason. If the Constitution defined vote fraud as treason, the seriousness of the crime would be set, and all penalties up to and including death would be in play.4 If that sounds harsh to you, there are other solutions, just as logical, that do not include death or even jail terms. In my opinion, the best solution in that case would have been to specify forfeiture of the entire election, and a permanent ban from seeking public office at any level. This severe penalty would be reserved, of course, for only the most serious and widespread vote fraud. 

In the most serious cases like this, not only should the candidate be punished, his entire staff should be as well. All the top positions in the campaign staff should also be banned from ever taking part in an election, down to the local level. As I said, if we want to address fraud, there are ways to do it, but the crime has to be taken seriously. If it isn't, we just encourage ever increasing amounts of fraud.

The companies that bankroll elections should also be brought into the penalties, and those penalties should be specified in writing and updated to address current needs. For example, in the recent Propositions concerning genetically modified foods, several indications of vote manipulation were found, as well as campaign fraud. Monsanto and many other major companies were implicated. None of those indications of fraud were properly investigated, but even if they had been, the current penalties are only fines, which these companies simply write off as a business expense. We don't need bigger fines, we need to include any company guilty of vote fraud in the penalty box. Any company involved in vote or campaign fraud should be permanently banned from lobbying, campaign financing, or campaign advertising. Any effort to undermine that ban—by channeling money through dummy companies, for instance—should be met with even stiffer penalties, up to and including liquidation of the company and seizing of all assets. I think you will admit that would put an end to the corruption we now see.

If these sorts of penalties and methods were specified in the Constitution or adjoining documents, Congress could be immediately re-empowered. For example, rather than giving the Justice Department the option of investigating vote and campaign fraud, the Constitution could require it to do so, with specified penalties for not doing so. In that case, both Congress and the Supreme Court could be empowered to step in, applying these penalties against the Justice Department on a Constitutional basis. Failure to investigate could be defined as obstruction of justice, and officials could be removed and permanently banned from public office on that basis.

In the current system, not only is the regulation woefully inadequate, but the penalties—even when specified—are not commensurate to the crimes. This is because the criminals are the ones writing the legislation and doing the regulating. You will say that is just the way things are, but a more precise and extended Constitution could have prevented the growth of fraud from the beginning. We have seen that in this case, and it can be discovered in many other major cases throughout American history, all the way back to the founding.

http://mileswmathis.com/lincoln.pdf

*Another contradiction can be found in Booth's business ventures, which were Blue, not Gray. For example, Booth invested in Back Bay, Boston. He also had a business partnership with John Ellsler, drilling for oil in Pennsylvania. Booth never invested in cotton, tobacco, or slaves, that we know of. 

**Those footnotes refer to Allen, Thomas B. (1992). The Blue and the Gray. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society. p. 41; and Kauffman, American Brutus, p. 105., if you want to look it up

† http://innominatesociety.com/online/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Robert-E.-Arnold-Contradictions-Concerning-theDeath-and-Autopsy-of-John-Wilkes-Booth.pdf

‡http://www.jstor.org/stable/40067011 

1 Steers, Edward, Blood on the Moon

http://books.google.com/books?id=cFi3hlh0VPUC&pg=PA329&lpg=PA329&dq=wilson+d. +kenzie&source=bl&ots=JcBbnll2Dr&sig=n11WYpzMkPF5- gcfPrj4c6R9vWM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UMkGU8GxOeSa2AXxyoGABQ&ved=0CEsQ6AEwCg#v=onepage&q=wilso n%20d.%20kenzie&f=false 

2 http://odin.indstate.edu/about/units/rbsc/neff/booth_escape.html 

3 To figure out Whitman, combine what you learn in this paper with what you learn from his connection to the Beat poets. Or see the movie Kill Your Darlings, where the link is made explicit by the current players themselves. 

4 Both China and Iran recently sentenced billionaires to death, for crimes against the State. 

5 The Dodges were also related to the Rathbones. See this link. 

6 If you think she isn't related to Bill Gates, think again. 

7 If you think she isn't related to Mark David Chapman, alleged murderer of John Lennon, think again. 

8 William Faulkner is also related to the Todds. Roger North Todd's sister was Jan Briggs Breck. Her son Robert Levi Breck married Margaret Faulkner.