What would have happenned had Lincoln not been shot?

[12th Doctor]

Prior to Lincoln, there never was a national draft.

Before Jeff Davis, there was no national draft in the CSA.  Wait, Davis was the first President!

[12th Doctor]

Blacks would be treated pretty much the same, but former Confederates would have been spared the brunt of Radical reconstruction.

You contradict yourself here.  Part of the reason that blacks were so reviled in the South after the war was precisly because of radical reconstruction.  Without all that built up anamosity towards the North (and directed against blacks) treatment towards them would have been decidedly better.

[12th Doctor]

April 1865:

Abrahman Lincoln chooses to follow his preminision of the night before and have a military gaurd of two decorated officers posted outside of his box.  As Booth approuches, he notes the two officers.  They recongnize him immediatly, as he well known during the era.  He says that he wishes to speak with the President - just a freindly chat to congratulate him on the news.  The officers think nothing of it and let him through.  The President, engrossed in the play, does not notice Booth.  Booth does miss the oppertunity to strick at the President during the funniest line of the play, however, as he had wished.  Booth approuches the President, and draws his weapon.  Luckily, one of the officers noticed the seemingly odd movement and grabs Booth's arm, before he can aim and the president.  Booth starts to wrestle with the officer.  The officer cries out which causes Lincoln to turn sharply in his chair to the right, just as Booth westles free of both of the officers.  Booth hastily fires his weapon, catching the shaply turned President at an angle in the front of his left shoulder.  The bullet moves through the shoulder, avoiding bone and exiting out the back.  Lincoln will never have complete use of the arm again, but he manages to survive without an amputation.  Booth is finally westled to the ground.  He is tried, convicted and hung within a month.

Lincoln notes, in a public statment, the irony that he managed to visit the former Confederate capital and leave unscaved, but cannot be afforded the same luxary in his very own.

Lincoln recieves a telegraph on the 24th of that month that Johnston is prepared to surrender to Sherman.  Lincoln gives the same orders that he gave to Grant just a week earlier, "Let 'em up easy".  Sherman manages the same terms from Johnston that Grant secured from Lee.

Just like that, the major combat portion of the American Civil War was over.  Lincoln makes no grand speechs.  No proclaimations of victory.  He simply settles in the White House and goes about the work required to reunite the country.

His easy reconstruction plan barely passes the congress and is immediatly implimented.  Limited reparations are to be paid to those Southerners that relied on slavery as a livelyhood.  The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments pass, more of less in their present form.  Military occupation is deemed recessary, but is much lighter and ends, on Lincolns terms, in 1870.  All those imprisoned during the war are realeased by 1866.  All rebel leaders (except Henry Werz) are allowed to go free (Davis spends five months in prison, as nothing more than an assurance that he will not try to stir more support).  In America, "Reconstruction" comes to mean, not the forced reordering of southern society, but rather nothing more than the physical rebuilding of the South's industrial and commercial centers.

By 1875, the railroad system in the South is acctually better than that which existed before the war.  Atlanta becomes the major transportation center on the south and enjoys a boom period that lasts until the present day.  Birmingham also enjoys a considerable boom when all the essential elements needed in steel production are found near by in the 1870's.

The first major crisis to arise during Lincoln's second term is the "West Virginia" crisis.  Virginia claims that Lincoln's allowance of West Virginia to suceed from Virginia is blatantly unconstituional, and that the state should be returned, now that the war is over.  Rather than cracking down on the complaitants, Lincoln tells the military governor of Virginia to allow the case to go to the Supreme Court, where it is decided, 6-3, that the act was unconstitutional, but West Virginia should not be forced to return.  Rather, a plebisite is held in November of 1868 to determine that fate of the new state.  Violence erupts between opposing forces in the state.  The two months up to and after the election are somewhat reminisant of Bleeding Kansas.  It is estimated that as many as 5,000 might have died as a result.  The out come of the election is clear, and unambiguous, however... 62-38 in favor of continued statehood.

The second major crisis is linked to the post war economic climate.  The massive debt inherited from the war by both the federal government and all of the states, payments to southerns, concerns about shady business practices by some northern companies that are involved in southern reconstruction efforts and railroad scandals threatened to create an economic panic.  To deal with the problem of debt, Lincoln borrows a page from history, having the federal government assume all debts from all of the states, north and south, just as Alexander Hamilton had at the end of the Revolution.  The plan works.  Within 20 years, all the debt is gone.  Lincoln asks congress to create commisions overseeing all business opperations in the south and making certain that railroad companies are held to their word.  This does much to calm the fears of people, as most of the accusations were nothing more than rumours, anyway.  The economy manages to remain stable all throughout the 1860's, 70's and 80's (a "Great Depression" occures from 1892-99, largely due to changing economic climate and the debate over currency standards).

The radical Republicans were hardly satisfied by Lincoln's actions, but remained largely quite, out of deference and respect, during most of his second term.  The election of 1868 allowed them, to voice their opposition and they voiced it loudly.  The Republican Convention became a show case of extremeism, with Charles Sumner winning the Republican nomination, over moderate candidates U.S. Grant and George McClellan.  Grant accpeted the offer to be second stringer on the ticket.

The Democrats nominate Winfield Scott Hancock for president and Horace Greeley for Vice President.  Lincoln quitely endorses Hancock.  The election is an easy win for Hancock, who carries every state but Vermont, Maine, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Masschusetts and Rhode Island.

On Innaguration Day, Lincoln sits beside Robert E. Lee and Joe Johnston as Hankcock ushers is "an era where we can put our past behind us and endevor into a new birth of Freedom".