Andrew Johnson assassinated along with Lincoln

I just read something which claims that Johnson was supposed to have been attacked as well but the assassin got drunk and didn't do the job:
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Booth had assigned George Atzerodt to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson, who was staying at the Kirkwood House in Washington. Atzerodt was to go to Johnson's room at 10:15 p.m. and shoot him.[13]:735 On April 14 Atzerodt rented the room directly above Johnson's; the next day he arrived there at the appointed time and, carrying a gun and knife, went to the bar downstairs, where he asked the bartender about Johnson's character and behavior. He eventually became drunk and wandered off through the streets, tossing his knife away at some point. He made his way to the Pennsylvania House Hotel by 2 a.m., where he obtained a room and went to sleep.[8]:166-7[76]:335

Earlier in the day, Booth had stopped by the Kirkwood House and left a note for Johnson: "I don't wish to disturb you. Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth."[75] One theory holds that Booth was trying to find out whether Johnson was expected at the Kirkwood that night;[8]:111another holds that Booth, concerned that Atzerodt would fail to kill Johnson, intended the note to implicate Johnson in the conspiracy.[77]
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What would have happened if Johnson had been killed along with Lincoln?
 
I'm not sure who would have succeeded Johnson since there was no Presidential Succession Act at the time. You can bet that there would be a hell of a lot more tinkering with the Constitution at that point.

One possibility is that the presidency would have been abolished entirely, since there was a lot of momentum toward doing so at the time. I wonder who would be the head of state in such a scenario - in the original Virginia Plan, the House chose the Senate and the Senate chose the national leader. So it's possible the Senate picks the head of state in this scenario, though a big part of me says it goes to the House.

There was also a push many years later to do away with the Senate altogether and make the legislature unicameral. So we may be looking at a single House of Representatives, which chooses the head of state much as Parliament does in the U.K.

And if that's the case, I don't think the number of representatives gets capped at 435; I think it gets capped but at a larger number.

I also know that the process for amending the Constitution will have to be revisited - do they add an extra step? Reduce the number of states that have to ratify it? Or simply say 2/3 of the House and 3/4 of the states and go with it?

This butterflies a LOT. For one thing, it's a lot easier to keep a guy like Theodore Roosevelt out of the highest office - he was made VP to get him out of the way and shut him up, and then oh shit, McKinley gets shot. I don't know of another position to put TR in to reassign him to Antarctica and still make him feel important - perhaps a useless Caninet position? For that matter, what becomes of the Cabinet in this case? Does the executive branch become a meritocracy of some kind based on the civil service model? And how does it check the other two branches bearing in mind that the checks it had involved vetoing laws and appointing justices?

Andrew Johnson's death will fundamentally change America forever.
 
There was a Presidential succession act. It provided for President pro tem of the senate becoming acting president and a special election for a FULL 4 year term
 
Senator Lafayette Foster of Connecticut becomes President (or Acting President?) until March 1866. In Nov 1865 there is an election for a new President. Very hard to see it being anyone but Grant.

The biggest change is that Congress can't be left in recess as OTL. The next in line is the Speaker of the HoR, but as the old House has expired and the new one hasn't yet met, that position is vacant. So the first order of business will be to summon Congress so that a Speaker can be chosen, and possibly also to change the law and bring Cabinet Officers into the line of succession, which OTL wasn't done until 1886.

As to Reconstruction, Foster is a Republican, but on the Conservative wing of the Party, who iirc later became a Democrat. So he isn't likely to do anything really radical. OTOH he will have to deal with Congress (as OTL Johnson didn't until December) and in his position he will probably have a more realistic assessment of what it will let him get away with. So he probably bans prominent ex-Rebs from standing for election, and enforces the ban in a way that Johnson didn't. He may also insist on all Union war veterans over 21 getting the vote regardless of their colour. OTOH the ex-Rebs probably still get their land back. Foster may also sign the Civil Rights and Freedman's Bureau bills, or at worst allow them to become law without his signature.

One point. If Congress is sitting, the 14th Amendment or something similar may be sent to the States a year earlier than OTL, and the South required to ratify it in order to be considered for re-admission. In Summer 1865 and with a less complaisant POTUS, they are far less likely to risk rejecting it. So the whole business may be sorted out a lot quicker, and Grant take office to find it already largely "done and dusted"
 
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