There are various theories about Booth's motivations.

In a letter to his mother, he

wrote of his desire to avenge the South.[14] Doris Kearns Goodwin has endorsed the
idea that another factor was Booth's rivalry with his well-known older brother,
actor Edwin Booth, who was a loyal Unionist.[15] David S. Reynolds believes
Booth greatly admired the abolitionist John Brown;[16] Booth's sister Asia Booth
Clarke quoted him as saying: "John Brown was a man inspired, the grandest
character of the century!"[16][17] On April 11, Booth attended Lincoln's speech at
the White House in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for blacks;[18] Booth said
"That means nigger citizenship ... That is the last speech he will ever give."[19]

Enraged, Booth urged Lewis Powell to shoot Lincoln on the spot. Whether Booth
made this request because he was not armed and/or because he considered Powell a
better shot than himself (Powell, unlike Booth, had served in the Confederate
Army and thus had military experience) is not exactly known. In any event, Powell
refused for fear of the crowd and Booth was either unable or unwilling to
personally make an attempt on the President's life. However, Booth said to David
Herold, "By God, I'll put him through."[20][8]:91

Lincoln's premonitions

According to Ward Hill Lamon, three days before his death Lincoln related a
dream in which he wandered the White House searching for the source of mournful
sounds:

I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a
sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped
in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards;
and there was a throng of people, gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face
was covered, others weeping pitifully. "Who is dead in the White House?" I
demanded of one of the soldiers, "The President," was his answer; "he was killed
by an assassin."[21]

However, Lincoln went on to tell Lamon that "In this dream it was not me, but
some other fellow, that was killed. It seems that this ghostly assassin tried his hand
on someone else."[22][23] Paranormal investigator Joe Nickell writes that dreams of
assassination would not be unexpected in the first place, considering the Baltimore
Plot and an additional assassination attempt in which a hole was shot through
Lincoln's hat.[22]

For months Lincoln had looked pale and haggard, but on the morning of the
assassination he told people how happy he was. First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln felt
such talk could bring bad luck.[24]:346 Lincoln told his cabinet that he had dreamed
of being on a "singular and indescribable vessel that was moving with great
rapidity toward a dark and indefinite shore", and that he'd had the same dream
before "nearly every great and important event of the War" such as the victories
at Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg and Vicksburg.[25]