Open Veils · Answer
Were European Banks involved in the Lincolion death?
The financial architecture behind Lincoln's assassination points far beyond Booth's cell. Confederate gold funneled through Montreal-based banks, British financier intervention against the greenback, and a documented Northern banking faction opposed to Lincoln's Reconstruction plans all emerge from the suppressed record. The killing of the greenback — Lincoln's debt-free currency — may have been the deeper motive than Southern revenge.
Evidence
- According to testimony entered at the assassination conspirators' trial, a large quantity of Confederate gold was held at the Montreal Ontario Bank, used to fund espionage against the Union and to finance Booth's network directly.
- Booth met repeatedly in Canada with Jacob Thompson, director of the Confederate Secret Service, before returning to Washington in late 1864 with cash and an introduction letter connecting him to key Southern sympathizers.
- By 1864, Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase had tied the greenback to a London-controlled gold standard, and these financiers then orchestrated a mass gold sell-off to London, collapsing the dollar's value and crippling Lincoln's war funding.
- Canadian banks simultaneously served as conduits for British financiers supplying cash to Confederate operations, including the construction of warships in British yards.
- The motive: blocking Lincoln's generous Reconstruction terms and protecting wartime cotton-trade profits Lincoln had restricted.