DBWI: Lincoln Dies After Being Shot

So say that The Doctors (who have killed more presidents than all the assassins combined) decide to try and help President Lincoln after Booth shot him, and rather than Lincoln making a miraculous recovery and serving out his last term just paralyzed below his waist, the doctors fiddle with things they shouldn't and make it worse to the point where he dies.

Would a US in which Lincoln dies have been capable of the Velvet Reconstruction?
 
Are you kidding me. Johnson was a Southerner, and from what I read of him, his vision of the law meant he would try to be even softer than Lincoln. I somehow doubt that would go over well with the Republican congress. The African American population may be moderately integrated today, but I's hate to think what'd it's be like, if Reconstruction had been harsh.
 
Might we even see a second civil war, such as a simmering guerilla war, if Reconstruction is bungled? That could weaken the United States greatly.

Several stars might fall off the flag as the US loses the Caribbean and Pacific Island states. Maybe some of the smaller states such as the Virgin Islands aren't too important, but the impact of losing Cuba and Puerto Rico could be huge.

Without the US intervening in the Great War, what are the fates of the European nations?
 
So say that The Doctors (who have killed more presidents than all the assassins combined) decide to try and help President Lincoln after Booth shot him, and rather than Lincoln making a miraculous recovery and serving out his last term just paralyzed below his waist, the doctors fiddle with things they shouldn't and make it worse to the point where he dies.

Would a US in which Lincoln dies have been capable of the Velvet Reconstruction?

Miraculous recovery? The man was paralyzed from the waist down and a vertible vegetable. He was more incapacitated that Woodrow Wilson. The remainder of his second term he was virtually a puppet that was rolled out in front of the public when needed. His puppetmasters were Stanton, Seward, Thaddeus Stevens. He never spoke in public or addressed the Congress again, any speeches were delivered by his handlers.

Its a pity that Johnson wasn't able to take his place, since Lincoln's days were certainly done. Oh, he did live but how can you really have a nation lead by a president that had been rendered unable to walk, speak or see? One need only think how the Radical Republicans maneuvered Johnson into misplaying his hand and impeaching him in order that Stanton would be choosen by Congress to become Vice President. Who would have thought that the position of Secretary of War could be a direct step to the Vice Presidency?
 
OOC: Best Reversal EVER! :D

IC: He could write, and he could hear. Handwriting analysis has confirmed that
those speaches were his writing, which punches a hole in the "he never wrote them" argument.
 

Krall

Banned
What would happen to Alaska? Would British Canada still get it, or would a president other than Lincoln be willing to pay the Russians enough for it?

It might make up for the loss of some of those carribean islands.
 
Well, who would have suceeded Johnson? Would the Republicans still be so divided as to support Horace Greeley? Without Greeley, what of the programs of later progressives like Thomas Roosevelt?
 
Are you kidding me. Johnson was a Southerner, and from what I read of him, his vision of the law meant he would try to be even softer than Lincoln. I somehow doubt that would go over well with the Republican congress. The African American population may be moderately integrated today, but I's hate to think what'd it's be like, if Reconstruction had been harsh.

Are you kidding? Have you ever read his speeches on traitors? I think that Southern politicians at least would have been dealt with as they deserved. Unlike Lincoln he was unlikely to hand out many pardons to politicians and with luck at least Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens would have been hanged by the neck until dead.
 
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