What if Lincoln kept Hamlin as his running mate in 1864

[darklordoftech]

What would President Hamlin be like?

[brucejoel99]

On Reconstruction, he'd obviously take a firmer line with the South than Johnson did, probably insisting on enfranchisement for some blacks (at the very least, black war veterans), though it should be noted that even the Radical Republican-controlled Congress didn't go for full color-blind suffrage until 1867, so it might not be that much sooner. And once the Army (the only effective means of enforcement) goes back to peacetime levels, it's unlikely that he'd be able to do very much to prevent the Redeemers from winning, but he'd at least sign the Freedmen's Bureau & Civil Rights Acts of 1866 into law. Whether any of this makes for much of a long-term difference is another matter.

I doubt he'd get an elected term in his own right. In this era, 2-term Presidents were the exception rather than the rule - even Lincoln himself might not have run again were it not for the war - & if Grant still wants the nomination, it's his. Hamlin is also an ex-Democrat in a party dominated by former Whigs, which wouldn't help.

Some particular individuals may well benefit. Hamlin was a lifelong opponent of the death penalty, so (at the very least) we might take it that Mary Surratt wouldn't hang, & perhaps not even Henry Wirz. However, I doubt he'd reprieve Booth's accomplices - even for him, that's probably a mercy too far.

[Sir Mohamed]

I agree, Hamlin would have taken a firmer stance against the former Confederacy. That results into the question whether the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 would have been enacted the way they were. The reason Radical Republicans won the 1866 midterms is due to Johnson's disastrous presidency. Hamlin may have faced backflash from Democrats instead and spent the 2nd half of the term politically paralyzed.

Whether he would have won a term of his own right is questionable, but impossible. From what I've read, Grant mainly ran because he saw himself in Lincoln's tradition and thought Johnson was an utter disaster. If I were Hamlin, I would have offered the VP slot to Grant to take him out early.

Summarized, he would have been much, much better than Old racist Andy.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

The only other person that could of stood up to the Jim Crow South was Samuel P Chase, Grant's health declined and Jim Crow era began after Chase died as CJ on the SCOTUS. Lincoln defeated Chase for nomination in 1860. Chase would not have gone to theatre as a war President, Mary Todd Lincoln encouraged Lincoln to go, and Lincoln was endangered