<P> Although the historian James W. Clarke has suggested that most American assassinations were politically motivated actions, carried out by rational men, not all such attacks have been undertaken for political reasons . Some attackers had questionable mental stability, and a few were judged legally insane . Since the Vice President of the United States has for more than a century been elected from the same political party as the President, the assassination of the President is unlikely to result in major policy changes . This may explain why political groups typically do not make such attacks . </P> <P> The assassination of President Lincoln took place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, at approximately 10: 15 p.m. Lincoln was shot once in the back of his head with a . 44 caliber Derringer pistol by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth while watching the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and two guests . Major Henry Rathbone tried to stop Booth from escaping, but Booth stabbed him in the chest and slashed his arm to the bone with a dagger that he was also carrying . Soon after Lincoln was shot, his wound was declared to be fatal . The unconscious President was then carried across the street from the theater to the Petersen House, where he remained in a coma for nine hours before dying the following morning at 7: 22 a.m. on April 15 . </P> <P> Booth was tracked down by Union soldiers and was shot and killed by Sergeant Boston Corbett on April 26, 1865 . Booth apparently believed that killing Lincoln would radically change U.S. policy toward the South . </P> <P> Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward were targeted in the same plot . However, Johnson's would - be assassin, George Atzerodt, lost his nerve and failed to go through with the attack, while Lewis Powell, who was assigned to kill Seward, was only able to inflict largely superficial injuries due to a combination of his gun misfiring and intervention from Seward's family . </P>

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