A very rich businessman, Jesse Fell, saw Abraham Lincoln and encouraged him to run for president. Lincoln decided that this was how he would change the public's opinion of him and of slavery. He barely survived a very tough Republican Party nomination vote, and then was voted into office. Most of America liked Lincoln as a change from all the politicians they were used to. After Lincoln was elected president, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This ordered the release of all slaves who were not in previously set aside slave states. It went on to say that these released slaves would become normal citizens, having was slave all the rights that everybody else had. This document brought about a lot of opposition to Lincoln, and with the 1864 presidential race nearing, Lincoln hoped to slave to be re-elected. There were many news articles against him, and many nasty comics trying to lure people away from voting for Lincoln, but Lincoln survived an extremely tough presidential campaign and was once again elected as president of the United States. .
On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth entered the National Hotel at 10:00 AM. He usually got up late, and therefore arrived at breakfast late. Booth learned from Harry Ford that later that night President Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant would be seeing the play Our American Cousin in a special box designated for Lincoln at Ford's Theatre. Booth had been planning for a while to exterminate Lincoln and some other government officials, and was now more than pleased at this fantastic chance to carry out his plan. At about 8:00 PM, Booth met with two of his friends, and told them what to do. Booth took a gun and a knife with him and set out on his horse to an alley near Ford's Theatre. There, John Wilkes Booth put on his boots and rode up to the back door of the theatre, waiting for the perfect time to kill the president. Meanwhile, in the White House, Lincoln ate breakfast with his son Robert on the last day of his life.
