hm here's a go, John Wilkes Booth and Co set their plans into motion shortly before Appomattox, they pull off the murder of Lincoln and Johnson as well as Secretary of State Seward, in the panic and rage that fallows it Secretary of War Edwin Stanton sets up a committee of safety to hunt the assassins and wage the war, conservative Republican President pro tempore Lafayette Foster and the courts try to protest this, and Stanton gives no fucks, he gets support from the Radical Republicans who cheer the Stanton plan to punish the Confederates and support for freeman rights, with military support Democrats and conservative Republicans are jailed and the constitution suspended, in 1866 or 67 Stanton and the rest of the committee of safety proffer up a new constitution for an American Federal Union, with a powerful Presidency and military, little in the way of states rights/powers, aggressive land redistribution to new freemen, and long term occupation of the South, Jeff Davis and other top Confederates are tried and hanged by military courts between 1865 and 1867 Stanton is chair of the committee of safety, than President of the new nation till his death in 1894