DBWI: Abraham Lincoln assassinated in 1865

CaliGuy

Banned
What if U.S. President Abraham Lincoln would have gotten assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865 (as opposed to having this assassination attempt fail, as was the case in our TL*)?
 
What if U.S. President Abraham Lincoln would have gotten assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865 (as opposed to having this assassination attempt fail, as was the case in our TL*)?

Is this JUST the Lincon assassination succeeding, or are we looking at a timeline where all the conspirators get their targets? Because the two are DRASTICALLY different.
 
People would have reacted emotionally instead of rationally. In OTL, the wrath was directed at Booth personally, and he was hanged. Had he succeeded, there would have been a concerted effort to punish the South as much as possible.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Is this JUST the Lincon assassination succeeding, or are we looking at a timeline where all the conspirators get their targets? Because the two are DRASTICALLY different.
A TL where just the Lincoln assassination succeeds.

I find the prospects of him surviving a lot more interesting.
Well, yeah, that's OTL*.

People would have reacted emotionally instead of rationally. In OTL, the wrath was directed at Booth personally, and he was hanged. Had he succeeded, there would have been a concerted effort to punish the South as much as possible.
You mean by stripping the plantation owners of their land and property and giving it to the freedmen?

Also, you mean by extending both equal protection and the suffrage to the freedmen?
 
The Presidency passes to Andrew Johnson, who was fiercely hostile to traitors and wished them to be "impoverished" - presumably by property confiscation. So he would have gotten on far better with the Radicals than Lincoln ever did, and been a strong ally of Thaddeus Stevens.

Jefferson Davis would probably have been hanged.
 
Well, or he might go back to his Democrat root.

He might have tried to. OTL several votes were cast for him at the 1868 Democratic Convention. However, since neither he or any other Dem would have stood an earthly against Grant, it doesn't hugely matter what he does.
 
He might have tried to. OTL several votes were cast for him at the 1868 Democratic Convention. However, since neither he or any other Dem would have stood an earthly against Grant, it doesn't hugely matter what he does.

Lincoln's second term was just long enough to lay the foundation for today's strong
Republican Party in the South. This is
because Lincoln made sure that no dis-
criminatory, anti-black legislation was
passed by Southern states against the
former slaves. He also made sure that the
former slave's right to vote was not infringed. At the same time, by pardoning
Jefferson Davis(Andrew Johnson might
well have hung him)& encouraging northern
industry to re- locate @ least some plants
in the South, Lincoln did much to ease
Southern white resentment @ losing The
Civil War. Result: the southern Republican
party today actually can obtain support from
BOTH races. If Lincoln had died all this would
not have happened. That this would be a
great pity is all too obvious!
 
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Lincoln's second term was just long enough to lay the foundation for today's strong
Republican Party in the South. This is
because Lincoln made sure that no dis-
criminatory, anti-black legislation was
passed by Southern states against the
former slaves. He also made sure that the
former slave's right to vote was not infringed. At the same time, by pardoning
Jefferson Davis(Andrew Johnson might
well have hung him)& encouraging northern
industry to re- locate @ least some plants
in the South, Lincoln did much to ease
Southern white resentment @ losing The
Civil War. Result: the southern Republican
party today actually can obtain support from
BOTH races. If Lincoln had died all this would
not have happened. That this would be a
great pity is all too obvious!

Could you clarify that?

His second term ended in March 1869 - far too soon to have made any noticeable difference either to Black rights or to industrialisation. Are you confusing him with his successors?.
 

Georgie777

Banned
A TL where just the Lincoln assassination succeeds.


Well, yeah, that's OTL*.


You mean by stripping the plantation owners of their land and property and giving it to the freedmen?

Also, you mean by extending both equal protection and the suffrage to the freedmen?

No I mean if he survived his actual assassination.
 
Could you clarify that?

His second term ended in March 1869 - far too soon to have made any noticeable difference either to Black rights or to industrialisation. Are you confusing him with his successors?.

A good question Mikestone. Let me get back
to you & I'll @ least try to explain
 
No I mean if he survived his actual assassination.
this type of thread is what we call a "Double-Blind What-If"--basically, we discuss the topic as if it had actually happened and come up with aspects of the alternate timeline as we go, often bringing up how things went in actual history for contrast as if we were talking about it the other way around. don't feel embarrassed that you didn't know--you did just join yesterday, after all ;)
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Could you clarify that?

His second term ended in March 1869 - far too soon to have made any noticeable difference either to Black rights or to industrialisation. Are you confusing him with his successors?.
To be fair, though, the 14th Amendment was passed in 1868--as in, a year before Lincoln's second term would have ended.
 
By all accounts, even by the standards of the day, Andrew Johnson was something of an embarrassing VP. Constantly drunk, always feuding with Senators of both parties; even Lincoln was exasperated by him (and he liked the guy). A Johnson Presidency would probably be a repeat of the Tyler administration, with less expansionism. (Would he even go for the Alaskan Purchase? Or the then-Danish West Indies? I know that expansionism was mostly Seward's thing, but would Johnson keep him and listen is the question.)
 

CaliGuy

Banned
By all accounts, even by the standards of the day, Andrew Johnson was something of an embarrassing VP. Constantly drunk, always feuding with Senators of both parties; even Lincoln was exasperated by him (and he liked the guy). A Johnson Presidency would probably be a repeat of the Tyler administration, with less expansionism. (Would he even go for the Alaskan Purchase? Or the then-Danish West Indies? I know that expansionism was mostly Seward's thing, but would Johnson keep him and listen is the question.)
The Danish West Indies are certainly possible, but Alaska? Forget it! Indeed, a Southern hick like Johnson wouldn't give two cents about Alaska!
 
. . . His second term ended in March 1869 - far too soon to have made any noticeable difference either to Black rights or to industrialisation. . .
I'd argue that Lincoln did get the ball rolling on both. He established the norm of simply holding federal troops in reserve to be used as needed to protect the rights of newly freed slaves to vote. And yes, as I think almost every American child still learns in school, 1885 was the last time federal troops actually needed to be used to protect voting rights in the South.

And although not near as flashy as voting rights, I've read in one or two economic history books (not as boring as it sounds!) that the Lincoln Administration really did help to established the norm in which railroads and grain elevators were regulated with transparency, in almost a modern way. If these had remained quasi-monopolies, we might have seen a very different South.
 
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By all accounts, even by the standards of the day, Andrew Johnson was something of an embarrassing VP. Constantly drunk, always feuding with Senators of both parties; even Lincoln was exasperated by him (and he liked the guy). A Johnson Presidency would probably be a repeat of the Tyler administration, with less expansionism. (Would he even go for the Alaskan Purchase? Or the then-Danish West Indies? I know that expansionism was mostly Seward's thing, but would Johnson keep him and listen is the question.)

In fairness to AJ- not my favorite President by any means- he did once, unforgettably, get drunk in
public(at his Vice- Presidental- & Lincoln's 2nd inaugural- on March 4, 1869 IOTL when he drank
some whiskey to get him through the occasion & got intoxicated off it)but other than that one
occasion there is no evidence he drank a lot. Ironically enough, it was AJ's SON, Robert, who was
an alcoholic.
 
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By all accounts, even by the standards of the day, Andrew Johnson was something of an embarrassing VP. Constantly drunk, always feuding with Senators of both parties; even Lincoln was exasperated by him (and he liked the guy). A Johnson Presidency would probably be a repeat of the Tyler administration, with less expansionism. (Would he even go for the Alaskan Purchase? Or the then-Danish West Indies? I know that expansionism was mostly Seward's thing, but would Johnson keep him and listen is the question.)
It would probably be overstating things to say that Lincoln liked him. He saw him as a loyal Southerner who was useful to balance the ticket and keep War Democrats on board. That is as far as it went, as I recall.
 
OK, here I am to try & answer Mikestone's question. No, I'm not confusing Lincoln with his successors.
What I mean is Lincoln in this ATL would have acted differently than Andrew Johnson did in fact act
IOTL. For example---

IOTL after the Civil War provisional Southern state governments passed the infamous "Black Codes"
which forbade the former slaves from serving on juries, marrying whites &(in some states)required the
freedman to sign binding employment contracts with a(white)employer for a year. He/she could not
work elsewhere, & was to be sent back if they tried to leave their employer before the year was up
("This was not slavery, merely involuntary servitude" quipped historian Robert Leckie)(in his THE WARS
OF AMERICA, ch. VI, sub-chapter 1). AJ- who believed blacks were inferior to whites- didn't lift a
finger to stop these codes. AL by contrast would have stopped them(probably by passing the word to
Southern states that if they kept the Black Codes they could forget about EVER being re-admitted to
the Union).

As for getting @ least some Northern industry to re-locate to the South, AL would in this ATL have
granted subsidies to various railroads to establish lines there- & in the 19th Century, where the
railroads went other businesses followed. Of course the way to do this was to get Congress to pass
the necessary legislation- but AL was flexible, & far better @ working with people than AJ(in addition
the powerful Radical Senator Charles Sumner was a good friend of Lincoln's).

These steps, along with the other ones I mentioned earlier, would have- as GeographyDude put it-
started the ball rolling when Lincoln in this ATL would have left office in 1869. With a bi-racial
G.O.P. established in the South that region's subsequent history would have been different- & I think
better- than it has been IOTL(for one thing the terrible reign of Jim Crow would have been avoided).
 
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