Booth's Mental health

[Juan Marrero]

I can see why a lot of Boothies would be wary of anyone bringing up any sort of mental issue regarding JWB. I promise that this isn't the case here. I agree 110% that Booth had his motives and didn't do what he did just because he was some "madman."
[/quote]

Jenny, I think your are absolutely on the right page. It is difficult to unknot the question of mental health and motive. What prompted my original post was the picture that emerged of JWB from reading "Fortune's Fool." Clearly, his feelings about Lincoln, slavery and the South were shared by 100,000s of people. Yet, it was Booth who effected the murderous act. It seemed from the book that he was a brilliant, charming, sometimes cruel, sometimes empathetic, adrenalin-driven individual who was all things some of the times.

What kind of man abstains from military service so as not to hurt his mother then commits an act that would logically lead to his being hanged or killed before capture--not to mention bringing Mary Ann the ignominy of being the "assassin's mother". Even if he thought he would be lionized in the South, he still needed to reckon with the fact that his family lived in New York at the time of the murder.

He had a grandiose vision of himself that when meshed with his politics made him the most interesting (and successful) of presidential murderers. Oswald had this grandiose vision too, but there was nothing grand about him. Oswald did not walk away from theatrical acclaim and fortune to kill a president.

I wonder what Ayn Rand thought of JWB, if she did at all.. She lionized figures who acted grandly because they were so above the average run of mankind. The normal rules did not apply to such types. I think JWB saw himself that way. But is that a diagnosable mental health issue or a run-away ego supercharged with poisonous politics?