What would have happenned had Lincoln not been shot?

[The Duke]

My friend has to write a paper for a scholarship telling what would have happenned to America if Lincoln had not been shot.  Any thoughts?

[TheWildCard]

I believe that things would have been better for the South in that case. Yes, congress would have hated the South but hopefully after Lincoln finished his term things would have calmed down.

Or, lets say Congress did continue treating the south like crap, after the Lincoln administration, could you imagine if Lincoln actively complained and perhaps in campaigned against the extremist Senators... That could have really changed the landscape of politics.

It's an interesting subject it sounds like something that is kind of abstract and he could just write a fairly creative alternative timeline.

[The Duke]

I believe that things would have been better for the South in that case. Yes, congress would have hated the South but hopefully after Lincoln finished his term things would have calmed down.

Or, lets say Congress did continue treating the south like crap, after the Lincoln administration, could you imagine if Lincoln actively complained and perhaps in campaigned against the extremist Senators... That could have really changed the landscape of politics.

It's an interesting subject it sounds like something that is kind of abstract and he could just write a fairly creative alternative timeline.

She's asked me to help her write it as she isn't a big history person.

My understanding is that Johnson's plan was tougher on the plantation aristocracy, but less firmly behind blacks and their rights.

The power of confiscation of rich southerner's land and the land of confederates certainly alienated the southerners.  Lincoln, by contrast, wanted to rebuild civil government the way he had already begun to in Louisana.  So Lincoln, while demanding loyalty oaths did not stuff military occupation down the south's throat.  So Lincoln was more forgiving of the southern whites.

He was also more pro-black civil rights.  Johnson let the Freedmen's bureau collapse.  Lincoln would not have let this critical organization fall apart, nor do I think he'd have allowed the "Black Codes" to stand.

Lincolns also could have blocked the Reconstruction Acts, which did no favors to the reconstruction process.  He had enough clout to stop the radicals on that one, and it would have prevented some of the animosity that ended up happenning.

[CARLHAYDEN]

There is a general, and I believe mistaken, view of Lincoln as some kind of benevolent sort. 

The trouble is, it doesn't match historical fact.

You cite Louisiana as a shining example of how Lincoln would have handled the south. 

I suggest you check out the record of the military Govenor there, generally known as 'beast' Butler.

I suggest also that you check out Lincoln's record in the north. 

Prior to Lincoln, there never was a national draft.

Lincoln had political opponents arrested and tried before military tribunals.

He was NOT a nice man.

[Cashcow]

Prior to Lincoln, there never was a national draft.

So....

[PBrunsel]

In 1866 Lincoiln would have a run in with Congress over Reconstruction. Lincoln's passive pro-South Reconstruction policy would have been torn to shreds by radicals like Charles Sumner of MA and Thad Stevens of PA. Lincoln would not have been put up for impeachment, by relations between him and Congress would have been severed.

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

14th and 15th Amendments would still have been passed, but probabaly better enforced by Old Abe than by Andrew Johnson.

In 1868 the Radical Wing of the Republican Party elects Senator Charles Sumner as President and the Radical Reconstruction Poliocy hits full tilt. By 1880 federal troops leave the South as a ploy to win votes for President John Sherman's reelection.

[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.

[Storebought]

I suspect that the (wildly) divergent views of Reconstruction between Lincoln, his own cabinet, and the congressional party would have split the GOP apart.

The (northern) Democratic Party, with its romantic notions of the South, support for free trade and low taxes, and utter revulsion of blacks, would have resumed its role as "party of the common man" and have dominated US politics throughout the late 1800s

[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".

[??????????]

Well thank God this didn't actually happen. Lincoln was absolutely a horrible man and president. I wouldn't even want to think how "reconstruction" (ie terrorism on the south) would have been had Lincoln not been spared from the nation.

[dazzleman]

I think that had Lincoln lived through his second term, he would have reined in the power of the radicals who wanted to severely punish the south for the civil war.

Reconstruction would have been much more benign, and there would have been less bitterness in the south over the war and its aftermath.  I have long contended that it's not so much the effects of the war that are with us today, but its aftermath.  This is especially true on the race issue.

A more benign reconstruction would have meant better treatment of blacks.  Blacks bore the brunt of southern bitterness toward the north, which the white southerners were powerless to redress against those they considered the perpetrators.  So they chose blacks instead, and the bad results of this are with us to this day.  Had blacks been treated properly after the civil war, we would have long since gotten over the whole slavery issue.  It's not the slavery issue that plagues us today, but the fact that it's only been one generation since we decided that maybe we should actually treat blacks as human beings.

Without harsh reconstruction and the stultifying effects of segregation and the willful suppression of the talents of a significant portion of its population, the economy of the south would have developed much better after the war.

I think the assassination of Lincoln was one of the great tragedies of history.  Roosevelt's death in 1945 had nowhere near the effect of Lincoln's death, since in Roosevelt's case, the Cold War would have happened anyway, and I don't think history would have turned out a lot differently had Roosevelt served another four years.  But Lincoln's death resulted in a radical change for the worse that is with us to this day.

[PBrunsel]

Well thank God this didn't actually happen. Lincoln was absolutely a horrible man and president. I wouldn't even want to think how "reconstruction" (ie terrorism on the south) would have been had Lincoln not been spared from the nation.

His Reconstruction would have been more lenient than Johnson's.

[??????????]

Well thank God this didn't actually happen. Lincoln was absolutely a horrible man and president. I wouldn't even want to think how "reconstruction" (ie terrorism on the south) would have been had Lincoln not been spared from the nation.

His Reconstruction would have been more lenient than Johnson's.

Look how the tyrant dictated during the war. You know with his shutting down of the free press, illegal seizures and false imprisonment. Tell me how the tyrant would have changed post war? That bullet that mercifully entered that "mans" head saved thousands of lives and probably the future of the USA as we know it now.

[PBrunsel]

Well thank God this didn't actually happen. Lincoln was absolutely a horrible man and president. I wouldn't even want to think how "reconstruction" (ie terrorism on the south) would have been had Lincoln not been spared from the nation.

His Reconstruction would have been more lenient than Johnson's.

Look how the tyrant dictated during the war. You know with his shutting down of the free press, illegal seizures and false imprisonment. Tell me how the tyrant would have changed post war? That bullet that mercifully entered that "mans" head saved thousands of lives and probably the future of the USA as we know it now.

That was durring the war, and was needed to win the war IMHO.

Didn't you even read Lincoln's second inaugural "With malice toward none and charity for all"? Or perhaps you have forgotten he was willing to allow anystate back into the Union if they would simply ask tpo be let in.

He denied the Radical Republican "Virginia Acts" that took away all voting rights from the white men of the South. He would have been much more lenient on the South than Johnson.

[jokerman]

Well thank God this didn't actually happen. Lincoln was absolutely a horrible man and president. I wouldn't even want to think how "reconstruction" (ie terrorism on the south) would have been had Lincoln not been spared from the nation.

Reconstruction would have been much better under Lincoln.  He could have controlled the radical Republicans better.  He had a pretty lenient plan.

[??????????]

Well thank God this didn't actually happen. Lincoln was absolutely a horrible man and president. I wouldn't even want to think how "reconstruction" (ie terrorism on the south) would have been had Lincoln not been spared from the nation.

His Reconstruction would have been more lenient than Johnson's.

Look how the tyrant dictated during the war. You know with his shutting down of the free press, illegal seizures and false imprisonment. Tell me how the tyrant would have changed post war? That bullet that mercifully entered that "mans" head saved thousands of lives and probably the future of the USA as we know it now.

Didn't you even read Lincoln's second inaugural "With malice toward none and charity for all"? Or perhaps you have forgotten he was willing to allow anystate back into the Union if they would simply ask tpo be let in.

I find it funny that you say that Lincoln would have simply allowed any state to "re-enter" the union. Especially when he believed that no states had left the union originally.

[CARLHAYDEN]

Oh, and just how was West Virginia CONSTITUTIONALLY created?

The ONLY state which according to the constitution can be broken into two or more states is Texas, whose admission was predicated on the agreement that it could be broken into up to five states.

Either Virginia WAS in the union, and West Virginia's creation was unconstitutional, or it was NOT in the union at the time of the creation of West Virginia.

This is just one of many examples where Lincoln said one thing and did another!

[TX_1824]

He wouldn't have died.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. I've been looking at this thread for a while and debating whether or not to respond that way. I guess I'm just weak.

Lincoln's surviving the war would have helped ease the transition of the Reconstruction period. Who is to say he doesn't run for a third term? Interesting.