Even when the historical record is unambiguous, the museum sometimes improvises. John Wilkes Booth famously declared “sic semper tyrannis” (Latin for “thus always to tyrants”) after assassinating Lincoln. That sounded too arcane for modern ears. So in one of the multimedia presentations, the script writers have Booth growling instead: “Vengeance shall be mine.”
The goal is to make Lincoln’s story accessible so both adults and children “feel the fascination of history down in their gut,” Rogers explained.
Maybe they could even go Deadwood style and have Lincoln call Douglas a “c***sucker.”