Page 30 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - March 2012

Lincolnspiracy? LINCOLNSPIRACY Abraham Lincoln was assassinated immediately after the Civil War. But was it really John Wilkes Booth who did it? BACKGROUND: On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was shot while watching a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The country was thrown for a loop: No American president had ever been assassinated. John Wilkes Booth, a young actor with Confederate sympathies, was witnessed pulling the trigger, but as with many sudden, tragic events, the facts couldn’t prevent minds from wandering to thoughts of conspiracy. Here are some real conspiracy theories that circulated in the weeks and months after Lincoln’s death. CONSPIRACY THEORY: Vice President Andrew Johnson, next in line to the presidency and a Southerner, hired John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Lincoln. THE STORY: On the afternoon of April 14, 1865, Booth stopped by the Kirkwood House, a Washington hotel where Johnson kept an office. Johnson was out, so Booth left a note (later was a murderer: She was simply overwrought. SOME “WEIRD” found by Johnson’s secretary William The Rothschilds were a very powerful banking CANADIAN LAWS Browning). Why would an assassin want to family in Europe, but they never had any meet with the vice president? To coordinate money-printing operations in the United States final details, such as Lincoln’s whereabouts for (although at the time, individual banks often did - Living in a streetcar is illegal in Thompson, that night. While Johnson was military governor print their own money). There is no doubt that Manitoba. of Tennessee in 1862, he and Booth had Booth pulled the trigger. Witnesses saw him - In Quesnel, British Columbia, one may not mistresses who happened to be sisters, and were enter the box, and since Mrs. Lincoln was exercise in a manner frightening to a horse. often seen together. The relationship grew over sitting next to the president, she couldn’t have - Wildlife may not be hunted with flashlights in their mutual hatred of Lincoln, whose death shot him in the back of the head. Alberta. fulfilled both men’s ambitions: fame for Booth, - It’s illegal for a teenager to walk down the the presidency for Johnson. CONSPIRACY THEORY: The Catholic street in Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan, with THE TRUTH: Browning really did find a note, Church killed Lincoln. his shoes untied. and Booth and Johnson really did know each THE STORY: In 1856 Lincoln, them a lawyer - Playing craps is legal in Alberta, but using dice other in Tennessee. The theory spread because in Illinois, represented an ex-priest in a slander to do so is not. northern congressmen hated Johnson. Booth case over a claim that the Vatican planned to - In Wawa, Ontario, it’s against the law to paint may have been just stopping by to see a friend, take over the United States. The Vatican was a ladder. albeit a curiously well-connected friend... but livid that their plot had been exposed. They - If you catch an edible fish in Canadian no one knows for sure. decided to kill Lincoln, which would throw the national park waters, according to a federal law, country, still fragile after the Civil War, into you must eat it. CONSPIRACY THEORY: Mrs. Lincoln shot chaos and allow for an easy takeover. The - In Alberta, it;s illegal to set fire to a man’s Mr. Lincoln. Church also planned to stack the odds by wooden leg. THE STORY: The Rothschilds, a European importing millions of Catholic immigrants from - In Winnipeg, it’s illegal to goad an alligator banking family, wanted Lincoln dead for two Ireland, Germany and France. Former into a fight. (There are no alligators in reasons: Confederate president (and secret Vatican Winnipeg.) 1. he was going to shut down their puppet) Jefferson Davis offered a $1 million - Taxi drivers in Halifax, Nova Scotia, are money-printing bank in favor of a federally reward to anyone willing to pull the trigger on legally required to wear socks. backed currency; Lincoln. The man who stepped up: John Wilkes - Possessing a chipped bathtub is against the law 2. he’d sired an illegitimate child with a Booth, who spent three years in Rome learning in Dalhousie, Nova Scotia. Rothschild. They planned to kidnap Lincoln assassination techniques from the Jesuits. - Dartmouth, Nova Scotia also prohibits citizens from Ford’s Theatre and leave him drugged on THE TRUTH: The theory was spread by from throwing chickens across the road. a ship at sea for days. When he returned, the Charles Chiniquy - the ex-priest Lincoln - In Ontario, it’s illegal to drive and watch baby scandal would force him to resign and defended in 1856. The Church has television at the same time. abandon his currency plan. The hired kidnapper: excommunicated Chiniquy because he’d had an - It’s against the law in Nova Scotia to do Mary Todd Lincoln’s opium dealer, who also affair with a teenage girl. After Lincoln died, cartwheels and somersaults on the street. happened to be John Wilkes Booth’s theatrical Chiniquy published a book outlining the - Street musicians in Victoria, British Columbia, stand-in. But as “Booth” arrived, Todd, who Catholic Church’s “plan” to take over the are breaking the law if they hand out balloon was high on opium, shot Lincoln because she’d United States and fill it with Catholic animals to children. just found out about the illegitimate child. The immigrants - indicative of both anti- - In Ontario, it’s against the law to drive a fake Booth panicked and escaped. The real immigration and anti-Catholic sentiments of the hovercraft on the highway. [] Booth changed his name and went into hiding. time. [] TRUTH: Rumors about Mrs. Lincoln’s The ‘X’ Zone Radio Show - all day, all The ‘X’ Zone Radio Show podcasts involvement began when she didn’t show up for night, all of the time - her husband’s funeral. But it’s not because she www.xzbn.net/live.htm are available at Apple iTunes.