He assured his cabinet that the Emancipation Proclamation would apply only to states that belonged only to the Confederacy. This was one of the main causes of the civil war. However, Lincoln always broke the laws. On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth planned to assassinate Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was at Ford's Theater in Washington watching “Our American Cousin.” Booth walked to the stage where Abraham Lincoln was sitting, then took out his gun and fired. He shot Abraham Lincoln. That night, while his wife was by his side, doctors tried to save his life. The next morning, April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln died, and a few hours later Vice President Andrew Jackson was sworn in as the seventeenth President of the United States.