A lesson plan from the producers of the 16-episode PBS series "Freedom: A History of US" that examines the factors that led John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Lincoln. Also involves comparing and contrasting Lincoln's and Andrew Johnson's plans for reconstruction after the Civil War. The impact that Lincoln's death had on the country is also considered, using the text of Walt Whitman's famous elegy and a series of excerpts from Lincoln's speeches and proclamations.