Edward Askew Sothern the play that Abraham Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated. Sothern's role was Lord Dundreary, a caricature of a brainless English nobleman. At first, he was reluctant to accept the role; it was so small and unimportant that he felt it beneath him and feared it might damage his reputation. He mentioned his qualms to his friend, Joseph Jefferson, who had been cast in the leading role of Asa Trenchard in the play. Jefferson supposedly responded with the famous line: "There are no small parts, only small actors." On 15 October 1858, "Our American Cousin" premiered in New York.
The Papers of Abraham Lincoln such as military commissions; legislative documents from the Illinois General Assembly and Congress not authored by Abraham Lincoln; and other government documents (such as court-martial files) that were under Lincoln’s purview but for which we cannot positively prove direct interaction. The first online release of material included every known Lincoln document through 1842, when his career in the Illinois General Assembly ended. This amounted to 340 documents written by or to Lincoln and 4,839 documents that provide context on what issues Lincoln faced as a lawyer and legislator. The first document was a small workbook that Lincoln used as a