Change Andrew Johnson's policies

[Derek Jackson]

In OTL the old Southern was allowed for about 2 years to carry on as usual other than the abolition of formal slavery.

Life was very rough for former slaves and uncomfortable in many case for white Unionists.

This was the background of the attempt at Radical Reconstruction carried through over Johnson's vetoes by an almost unanimous Republican party stretchng far beyond those labeld 'radicals'.

Lincoln had wanted to believe that the South would meet him half way if he showed magnanimity in victory. He was mistaken

I wish to believe that had he not been murdered Lincoln (signicantly less racist than his contemporaries) would have reacted as Republicans did in OTL. I may be wrong about what Lincoln would have done.

Andrew Johnson had always disliked the old elite in the South.


WI things had happened to make Lincoln's succsesso less racist. (I wonder what they had been)

Could Andrew Johanson have bee persuaded that there was a chance for the less prosperous sections of the white community in places like Eastern Tennessee to ally with freed slaves.

As folk will be aware I feel that the aftermath of the Civil War was the one time when the US had the best time to deal with racial issues, and that the Spring and summer of 1865 was the one time when reparations for slavery might have been achieved.