Today, I read a book about the life of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Lincoln. Booth was a well-known actor who had a twisted mind. He believed that Abraham Lincoln was an American Caesar and would take away our freedoms. Therefore, he believed that it was the will of God for him to assassinate Lincoln.
The fanaticism that was on display on the 700 Club by Pat Robertson was nothing new. John Wilkes Booth was also a religious fanatic. Over the span of four years, he developed a hatred towards Lincoln as the result of the Civil War. He hatched several plots to kill Lincoln during the war; these plans finally came to fruitation shortly after the war was over. I will highlight some of the aspects of Booth’s twisted mind and compare it to Robertson’s.
Like Robertson and many other TV preachers, Booth had a charisma which could cause people to suspend their better judgement:
Many people who came in contact with Booth mentioned the magnetism and power of his eyes. Sir Charles Wyndham, a fine comedian who witnessed the acting exploits of both Booth and his brother Edwin, wrote that Booth’s “… eyes were striking features, but when his emotions were aroused they were like living jewels. Flames shot from them.”
Once, Booth was surrounded by a group of soldiers after singing a Confederate song; he had little difficulty talking his way out of it:
Without a second thought, Booth broke into the words of the banned rebel song. Fearful of the consequences, most of Booth’s companions ran away. Undaunted, Booth finished the first verse before being surrounded by excited Union soldiers. Upon being questioned, Booth gave a performance worthy of any played upon the stage. Feigning innocence, Booth quietly explained that he didn’t know about a law against singing the song. He went on to claim that he sang it because he had heard someone singing it in the street and liked the words and the tune. Incredibly, the soldiers let him go. His companions were certain that had the perpetrator been anyone else besides the famous John Wilkes Booth, he would have spent the rest of the war in a prison cell. “He had a way about him which could not be resisted, the way which permits a man to overstep the boundaries of the law, and do things for which other people would be punished.”
Booth believed that God was on the South’s side and that he created the institution of slavery for their benefit:
“This country was formed for the white not for the black man. And looking upon African slavery from the same stand-point, as held by those noble framers of our Constitution, I for one, have ever considered it, one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us) that God ever bestowed upon a favored nation.”
As one observer noted, (same link as above) Booth was focused on one thought only — that of the well-being of the Confederate Army:
“He (Booth) became a monomaniac on the success of the Confederate arms, a condition which generally follows when a man’s thoughts are constantly centered upon one subject alone.”
Booth was enraged at the idea that Blacks could ever get the right to vote. The trigger that finalized his plans to assassinate Lincoln was a speech by the latter proposing giving voting rights to certain Blacks:
Among other things, Lincoln discussed possible new rights for certain blacks. He suggested conferring voting rights “on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers.” Booth was enraged! He said, “Now, by God! I’ll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make.”
Booth had a lot in common with Shakespeare’s Richard III in that he believed he was a slave of destiny in that he was fated to kill someone and could not do anything about it. Therefore, he was not responsible for the murder he committed, because the murder was beyond his control:
Two key events occurred in Wilkes’ childhood which, no doubt, affected his thinking for the rest of his life. In a memoir of her infamous brother entitled THE UNLOCKED BOOK, Wilkes’ younger sister Asia described how their mother had a nightmare when Wilkes was a baby “in which she imagined that the foreshadowing of his fate had been revealed to her”. Asia went on to describe an event which took place when she and her mother went to visit the young Wilkes at the end of his school year in June of either 1850 or 1851 at the Milton Boarding School for Boys near Cockeysville, Maryland.
At the conclusion of a picnic for the students and parents, Wilkes took Asia aside and confessed to her that he had met a Gypsy in the woods a few weeks before who read his palm and forecast a gloomy future for him. The gypsy told Wilkes “You’ll die young… You’ve got in your hand a thundering crowd of enemies – not one friend – you’ll make a bad end…you’ll have a fast life- short, but a grand one.” Wilkes had written down the old woman’s words on a tattered piece of paper which he gave to Asia who apparently still had it in her possession when she wrote her memoirs in the 1870’s. Asia observed that Wilkes tried to laugh off the gypsy’s words but it was plain that the episode troubled him and he frequently would frequently refer to the dreary prediction throughout his short life.
We must draw a strong contrast between good and evil. The nature of good is that each person is responsible for their own actions and can rise to avoid their fate. If a person knows that the path they are headed down involves a horrid end, they can still choose to make choices that can help them sidestep their fate.
But the nature of evil is the belief that a person is not responsible for their own actions. For instance, Booth believed that he killed Lincoln because God told him to. Or similarly, Robertson believed that the US should kill Chavez because God told him so. Or the 101st Fighting Keyboarders’ belief that they should not own up to their beliefs and enlist in the military and fight in the war.
In fact, Booth frequently played the role of Richard III (same link as above):
Traveling extensively through the North, Booth routinely opened with RICHARD III in each city he toured. His interpretation of Richard, which he apparently played with great viciousness, quickly become his most famous and popular role. Reviewers, still fondly remembering Junius Brutus Booth’s Richard, compared father and son frequently. It was suggested more than once that it was Wilkes, rather than Edwin, who had inherited his father’s genius.
Booth was a very talented man who could charm the socks off of anybody he met. But like many talented minds, he misused his talents and came to a tragic end:
In 1899, Joel Chandler Harris, a contemporary of Booth’s who would become famous for his Uncle Remus folk tales, wrote that Booth “had all the elements of genius but seemed powerless to focus them…He was as mad as Hamlet was: no more or less… He was so infected and unbalanced by his profession that the world seemed to him to be a stage on which men and women were acting, living, their parts. There was nothing real to him but that which is most unreal, the theatrical and the romantic. He had a great variety of charming qualities, and his mind would have been brilliant but for the characteristics which warped it.”
Booth wrote a diary in which he revealed his innermost thoughts. In his final hours, he was shocked that he had become a scapegoat for doing the will of God:
“I am in despair. And why? For doing what Brutus was honored for – what made Tell a hero. And yet I, for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew, I am looked upon as a common cut-throat. My action was purer than either of theirs…I hoped for no gain. I knew no private wrong. I struck for my country and that alone. A country that groaned beneath this tyranny…and yet now behold the cold hand they extend me…I bless the entire world. Have never harmed or wronged anyone. This last was not a wrong, unless God deems it so…”
And here is the final entry, from his diary:
Until today nothing was ever thought of sacrificing to our country’s wrongs. For six months we had worked to capture, but our cause being almost lost, something decisive and great must be done. But its failure was owing to others, who did not strike for their country with a heart. I struck boldly, and not as the papers say. I walked with a firm step through a thousand of his friends, was stopped, but pushed on. A colonel was at his side. I shouted Sic semper before I fired. In jumping broke my leg. I passed all his pickets, rode sixty miles that night with the bone of my leg tearing the flesh at every jump. I can never repent it, though we hated to kill. Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment. The country is not what it was. This forced Union is not what I have loved. I care not what becomes of me. I have no desire to outlive my country. The night before the deed I wrote a long article and left it for one of the editors of the National Intelligencer, in which I fully set forth our reasons for our proceedings. He or the gov’r-
After being hunted like a dog through swamps, woods, and last night being chased by gunboats till I was forced to return wet, cold, and starving, with every man’s hand against me, I am here in despair. And why? For doing what Brutus was honored for. What made Tell a hero? And yet I, for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew, am looked upon as a common cutthroat. My action was purer than either of theirs. One hoped to be great himself. The other had not only his country’s but his own, wrongs to avenge. I hoped for no gain. I knew no private wrong. I struck for my country and that alone. A country that groaned beneath this tyranny, and prayed for this end, and yet now behold the cold hands they extend to me. God cannot pardon me if I have done wrong. Yet I cannot see my wrong, except in serving a degenerate people. The little, the very little, I left behind to clear my name, the Government will not allow to be printed. So ends all. For my country I have given up all that makes life sweet and holy, brought misery upon my family, and am sure there is no pardon in the Heaven for me, since man condemns me so. I have only heard of what has been done (except what I did myself), and it fills me with horror. God, try and forgive me, and bless my mother. Tonight I will once more try the river with the intent to cross. Though I have a greater desire and almost a mind to return to Washington, and in a measure clear my name – which I feel I can do. I do not repent the blow I struck. I may before my God, but not to man. I think I have done well. Though I am abandoned, with the curse of Cain upon me, when, if the world knew my heart, that one blow would have made me great, though I did desire no greatness. Tonight I try to escape these bloodhounds once more. Who, who can read his fate? God’s will be done. I have too great a soul to die like a criminal. Oh, may He, may He spare me that, and let me die bravely. I bless the entire world. Have never hated or wronged anyone. This last was not a wrong, unless God deems it so, and it’s with Him to damn or bless me. As for this brave boy with me, who often prays (yes, before and since) with a true and sincere heart – was it crime in him? If so, why can he pray the same?
I do not wish to shed a drop of blood, but ‘I must fight the course.’ ‘Tis all that’s left to me.
Now, compare this with the twisted mind of Pat Robertson, justifying the killing of Chavez:
There was a popular coup that overthrew him [Chavez]. And what did the United States State Department do about it? Virtually nothing. And as a result, within about 48 hours that coup was broken; Chavez was back in power, but we had a chance to move in. He has destroyed the Venezuelan economy, and he’s going to make that a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent.
You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don’t think any oil shipments will stop. But this man is a terrific danger and the United … This is in our sphere of influence, so we can’t let this happen. We have the Monroe Doctrine, we have other doctrines that we have announced. And without question, this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.
This is what Pat Robertson and John Wilkes Booth have in common — they both believe that God can justify the killing of tyrants in the name of some vague “greater good.” I don’t know what God they were praying to, but it is not the God of the Bible presented by Jesus.
The Jesus of the Bible never sanctioned the killing of a dictator. Despite the gross immorality of the Roman government, he did not order his followers to assassinate the Roman Emperor and create a new Christian nation. Instead, the early church leaders commanded their followers to live quiet lives and to live in a way which reflected credit on the new faith.
Although Pat Robertson would never actually shoot someone himself, the problem is that he is not different enough from Booth. He has the same talents as Booth and the same flaws. Robertson also has the power to charm audiences and develop a devoted following. He also misuses that talent by making death threats against people. He also believes that he is being led by God to kill people. The scary thing about Robertson’s fanaticism is not that he would kill Chavez, but that one of his demented followers might make an assassination attempt on him.
