DBWI: WI Lincoln had been shot?

As any student of history knows, Abraham Lincoln was a titan of politics. He kept the United States from falling apart during it's only Civil War to date. Afterward he put plans in place that saw the smooth and speedy reintegration of the South as fully functioning and contributing members of the Union, without the recriminations/scapegoating/punishments so common in other nations (I'm looking at you Africa and Asia, you too France). It is thanks to him that Blacks have had the vote since 1868.

So what if he had died with his work half finished?

I had a number of assassination attempts to chose from, a leader of his stature inevitably attracts them, and I feel that the timing of John Wilkes Booth's attempt best fits where I want my What If to be. After the Civil War had ended but while Reconstruction was still in it's earliest stages and could go any which way.

So What If John Wilkes Booth's gun hadn't misfired that fateful Friday on April 14, 1865 at Fords Theater?
 
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OOC: It's hard to miss from that range, especially when you have the element of surprise. A more plausible failure may be a misfire - John pulls the trigger, but no boom.

IC:

I'm not sure, to be honest. A second civil war, perhaps?
 
OOC: Noted, and changed.

IC:

I doubt another Civil War would occur. The South had just had the piss kick out of them. They were in no state to start fighting again.
 
OOC: Noted, and changed.

IC:

I doubt another Civil War would occur. The South had just had the piss kick out of them. They were in no state to start fighting again.

I didn't mean two days after the fact. I meant more along the lines of maybe 30 or 40 years down the road - if Reconstruction goes particularly badly (which it just might), they might just try to break away again while we're off fighting the French in the Great War.
 
Well Johnson would become President obviously. As a Southerner and a Conservative, many of the things you saw Lincoln do such as troop occupation of the former Confederacy and use of troops to ensure the states allowed Negro civil rights as ordered by the Constitution, focus on Negro rights and a Reconstruction at all could fade away. While Lincoln was merciful, he led an aggressive kind of Reconstruction in its aims. Johnson, with sympathy to the South and historical accounts in which he seemed not to think the war had changed things and things should just return to how they were, may be merciful and totally laxed and not interested in any type of Reconstruction, leading to the South returning to antebellum ways and the Negroes to little more than a more free slavery as I doubt other opportunities would be open beyond the plantation. Then again, Congress may be able to get things through. And there's another issue too. Lincoln was able to unite the Congress between "Radical" Republicans (who his actions did cater to in many ways in hindsight though I don't think that was his aim), moderate Republicans and many Democrats. Johnson was hard headed so such a thing could easily have been beyond him if he ever got the Presidency. And should the Radicals take over in the power vaccuum left in Lincoln's wake (which I think they could have; they were a flamboyant and attention grabbing bunch), you could see Congress attempt and maybe succeed at making itself more powerful than the Presidency and becoming the focus of governmental action than the Presidential office rather than the reverse.

Lincoln was also a sort of guiding rod or godfather figure for the Republican party until his death, even when he and Mary retired to California. If he's dead, that guidance goes away.
 
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Johnson was a racist and a drunk. He would have been a disaster as a President. His drunken scene at the inauguration has entered political folklore, but less well known is how often he made a fool of himself with his rants and irrational rulings as President of the Senate.
Lincoln did his best to ignore Johnson for his entire second term and froze him out of all cabinet deliberations and all patronage decisions, even those involving Johnson's home state of Tennessee.
Mostly forgotten, and only discussed by some academic historians of the period, is that some Republican Senators were so disgusted with Johnson's antics as presiding officer of the Senate that they discussed with leading House members a possible impeachment of Johnson for gross derelection of his Vice Presidential duties. This idea was abandoned after a few meetings as being too much trouble and the Senate simply tried to ignore Johnson for the remainder of his term.
Some revisionist historians believe that Lincoln has received too much credit for his mangement of Reconstruction. This admitedly minority view is that Lincoln let the Southern states back into the Union too quickly, with the result that former Confederates resumed control of the South and gave only lip service to Black emancipation. I do not agree with Emperor Norton that Lincoln was in charge of an aggressive Reconstruction. The Union troops in the South were generally small detachments and they did little to interfere with Southern control of the electoral process or the ecomomy.
But what could Lincoln really do? Neither the North nor the South was ready for Black equality and Lincoln's policy was probably the best compromise. One shudders to think what Johnson or the Radical Republicans would have done, or tried to do.
I think Lincoln's retirement was somewhat sad. He tried to practice law, first in Springfield and then in San Francisco, but that didn't work out as well as he had hoped. His multi volume memoirs were a commercial failure at the time, but have in the past few years attracted more and more critical respect. His wife became a public sacandal with her over spending and increasingly erratic behavior. About the only bright spot in his later years was the political success of his older son Robert, who became Vice President under Blaine and almost was elected President.
I understand that there is some talk about a memorial or a monument for Lincoln in Washington, D.C. He did, after all save the Union and advance the cause of racial equality. However, the bad memories of the Union Pacific Railroad scandals, the Panic of '68 and his long and sad later years have made this a less than urgent project.
 
Some revisionist historians believe that Lincoln has received too much credit for his mangement of Reconstruction. This admitedly minority view is that Lincoln let the Southern states back into the Union too quickly, with the result that former Confederates resumed control of the South and gave only lip service to Black emancipation. I do not agree with Emperor Norton that Lincoln was in charge of an aggressive Reconstruction. The Union troops in the South were generally small detachments and they did little to interfere with Southern control of the electoral process or the ecomomy.
But what could Lincoln really do? Neither the North nor the South was ready for Black equality and Lincoln's policy was probably the best compromise. One shudders to think what Johnson or the Radical Republicans would have done, or tried to do.
Lincoln did a great lot for Negro rights and probably advanced them decades more than they would have advanced if he had died. Recall the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, use of troops/militias to enforce these rights whenever and wherever the Southern states failed to allow it or openly suppressed it after the short occupation period (OOC: Think of the national guards in the 50's and 60's, that is after a short period of full occupation lasting maybe a year or so), aid in modernizing the South to off set all the Conservative Democratic complaining, Freedmen's Schools to educate the Negroes before they were given the vote (which took only a few years; I think it was in 1867 or so), etc. And because Lincoln was rather kind and benevolent and forgiving to the Southerners after the war, the white's were better accepting of- or at least less aggressive against the enforcement of these laws than they may have been otherwise. While the states were readmitted quickly, and Conservative white's often gained control as a result, and the total troop occupation period only lasted a year or so and before the states were readmitted, the Republicans and often times even Liberal Democrats -and Lincoln- , enforced the Lincoln policy of using troops and the militias to enforce civil rights wherever and whenever the South may have denied them in the ensuing years. We cannot forget or suppress all that Lincoln did for a superficial quick glance at the matter.

OOC: Reconstruction as was was rather lenient and passive. And one of only using troops on a case by case and need by need basis is even more passive. So it's not radical, probably not as likely to irk the white's and even less so with a kind and forgiving Northerner over the Southerners as many would view Lincoln.

I think Lincoln's retirement was somewhat sad. He tried to practice law, first in Springfield and then in San Francisco, but that didn't work out as well as he had hoped. His multi volume memoirs were a commercial failure at the time, but have in the past few years attracted more and more critical respect. His wife became a public sacandal with her over spending and increasingly erratic behavior. About the only bright spot in his later years was the political success of his older son Robert, who became Vice President under Blaine and almost was elected President.
I understand that there is some talk about a memorial or a monument for Lincoln in Washington, D.C. He did, after all save the Union and advance the cause of racial equality. However, the bad memories of the Union Pacific Railroad scandals, the Panic of '68 and his long and sad later years have made this a less than urgent project.
OOC: Lincoln's and Mary's plan was always to retire out to California and explore the west. You could have a lot of that above, but I doubt the law practice part, his memoirs would likely have been well selling, and he'd have likely retired into an average life rather than a sad one with the only downside being Mary's instability mentally. Think of photo-ops with Mark Twain and reporter's recounting the old man's latest venture in wandering the Pacific Northwest and meeting with the French chancellor in Washington at President Garfield's request. That's about as much as I can see. And I don't know where the panic of 1868 would come from.
 
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Johnson would be a horrible president. Think about it. The way things went just seemed right that after his second term as president, Lincoln retires and Ulysses Grant becomes president then, Illinois is praised as a state with good presidents. With Andrew Johnson, things would surely fall apart and blacks wouldn't have gotten Civil Rights until around the 1960's maybe instead of right away. Martin Luther King Jr. wouldn't have been the first black president greatly accepted by the public. The world would be much worse for blacks in this country, that's for sure.

By the way, was Johnson a Democrat under a Republican president, or part of a different political party?
 
Johnson would be a horrible president. Think about it. The way things went just seemed right that after his second term as president, Lincoln retires and Ulysses Grant becomes president then, Illinois is praised as a state with good presidents. With Andrew Johnson, things would surely fall apart and blacks wouldn't have gotten Civil Rights until around the 1960's maybe instead of right away. Martin Luther King Jr. wouldn't have been the first black president greatly accepted by the public. The world would be much worse for blacks in this country, that's for sure.

OOC: I don't think racial equality would have been that advanced as you may be trying to paint them. More advanced than they were, sure. But I'd frankly think they would have been continuing up a hill as they did OTL -though with less of a slope- and wouldn't have magically changed all the South into a multiracial loving region by 1866. And blacks did have Civil rights, it's just that they were lesser than modern times and their Civil Rights weren't enforced after Reconstruction and the Court's did a racist "screw you" to blacks by ruling seperate but equal was legal and ignoring the intent of the civil rights amendments for its own political and social desires.

By the way, was Johnson a Democrat under a Republican president, or part of a different political party?
The Republicans and War Democrats ran a coalition ticket in 1864 called the "Union party". Johnson was a Democrat who ran as the VP of that ticket with the Republican Lincoln as the President on the ticket. Afterward, that party (which had only been one of necessity for the time and with limited goals for said union) disbanded.
 
Emperor Norton,
I few OOC comments:
1. I believe that you are assuming a much more rigourous Reconstruction from Lincoln than might have ocurred. Lincoln was in favor of "letting the South up easy" and was in favor of readmitting the Southern states under the 10% rule. I think that this would have resulted in less protection of freedman's rights than the Reconstruction under the Radical Republicans. Of course, Lincoln could have changed course if he saw former Confederates returnign to power too quickly. We will never know for sure.
2. I am aware that Lincoln had expressed an interest in retiring to California. But keep in mind he was not a rich man and there were no Presidential pensions in those days. Lincoln had lived off his income as a lawyer before 1860 and I think he would have had to do so again, especially if Mary kept spending money like she did in the White House.
3. I moved up the Panic of 1873 a few years and changed the name of the Credit Mobilier scandal to the Union Pacific scandal. If he had lived, Lincoln might have had a hard time explaining how he bought those lots in Iowa for such a low price near where the railroad was going to be built.
4. I took the liberty of having Lincoln's memoirs being a commercial failure because Lincolon was too far ahead of his time as a writer. His
Gettysburg Address was widely panned and his Second Inaugural got mixed reviews. Only recently have we understood what Lincoln was attempting to do with words. I think any Lincoln memoirs might have been above too many people's heads. Of course, if Mark Twain had had a hand in them like he is supposed to have had with Grant's, perhaps they would have been more popular. But Twain and Grant were friends and I do not think the same can be said about Lincoln and Twain. Twain alwys said that the words of Grant's memoirs were his own and his (Twain's) only contribution was his very successful scheme for selling them which made a lot of money for Twain and Grant's family.
5. My point, perhaps poorly made, was that Lincoln died a martyr at the very height of his success. If he had lived to complete his second term, he mikght have been seen as more of a normal man. A good Predident, but not the semi mythical figure he has become. Many two term Presidents have had disappointing second terms ( Jefferson with the misguided and harmfull Embargo, Wilson with the disapointments of Versailles and the League of Nations campaign, Eisenhower with the U-2 debacle, Johnson with Viet Nam and Clinton with the Lewinski scandal) Lincln could have had a disappointing second term also.

Your humble servant
AH
 
Well if Lincoln had died, I'm sure he would be revered as a martyr, not as the war criminal and dictator the Supreme Court decided he was IOTL. It was a great day for liberty when the Court concluded that the rejection of Habeas Corpus was unconstitutional.

OOC: Not in the spirit of the thread. This definitly didn't happen in this TL.
 
OOC:
Emperor Norton,
I few OOC comments:
1. I believe that you are assuming a much more rigourous Reconstruction from Lincoln than might have ocurred. Lincoln was in favor of "letting the South up easy" and was in favor of readmitting the Southern states under the 10% rule. I think that this would have resulted in less protection of freedman's rights than the Reconstruction under the Radical Republicans. Of course, Lincoln could have changed course if he saw former Confederates returnign to power too quickly. We will never know for sure.

One of the key conditions for letting the states be readmitted is if they followed the law of the land in regards to the rights of the freed slaves. Were they to ever suppress those rights (which is likely), it is probable that Lincoln will involve troops at least in some fashion or another, or attempt to coax the South into allowing those rights. But, as I'm sure sectors of the former CSA will not follow this new regard of rights for freedman, Lincoln could very well, and in my opinion would have involved troops in a form similar to that used by the Presidents during the Civil Rights era of the 50's and 60's of employing troops and militias (which in modern times were the National Guards) to enforce legal rights for the black race.

I think a problem of modern perception is that it classifies Lincoln as going to be inactive in defending the Civil Rights of freedmen once the South was back in the country with his plan. However, while he was to be forgiving to the South, he was also very interested in the rights of the freed blacks and made it even a legal condition of readmittance. So if the South violated that condition, he'd have legal warrant to enforce those rights by any means in the range of legal statute.

2. I am aware that Lincoln had expressed an interest in retiring to California. But keep in mind he was not a rich man and there were no Presidential pensions in those days. Lincoln had lived off his income as a lawyer before 1860 and I think he would have had to do so again, especially if Mary kept spending money like she did in the White House.
There's nothing to say he couldn't travel west (which anyone could do even on meager funds), and set up a practice in the west or live off money for giving speeches of things like that which seems likely.

3. I moved up the Panic of 1873 a few years and changed the name of the Credit Mobilier scandal to the Union Pacific scandal. If he had lived, Lincoln might have had a hard time explaining how he bought those lots in Iowa for such a low price near where the railroad was going to be built.
I don't know how you really explain moving said Recession up to 1868.
4. I took the liberty of having Lincoln's memoirs being a commercial failure because Lincolon was too far ahead of his time as a writer. His
Gettysburg Address was widely panned and his Second Inaugural got mixed reviews. Only recently have we understood what Lincoln was attempting to do with words. I think any Lincoln memoirs might have been above too many people's heads. Of course, if Mark Twain had had a hand in them like he is supposed to have had with Grant's, perhaps they would have been more popular. But Twain and Grant were friends and I do not think the same can be said about Lincoln and Twain. Twain alwys said that the words of Grant's memoirs were his own and his (Twain's) only contribution was his very successful scheme for selling them which made a lot of money for Twain and Grant's family.
Actually, much of that can be attributed to partisanship between Democrats and Republicans. People were moved and in awe of the Gettysburg address from accounts for example. And it was the event that reshaped the Civil war from a conflict of reuniting the nation to a sort of divine war against slavery. And that which is not a speech but a memoir seems rather more "real" and perhaps more populist and plainly spoken and fact by fact that I don't believe it would have drawn any poor reaction. And on a side note, there's nothing to say that Lincoln could not have run across Mark Twain in California when Twain achieved his celebrity later.

5. My point, perhaps poorly made, was that Lincoln died a martyr at the very height of his success. If he had lived to complete his second term, he mikght have been seen as more of a normal man. A good Predident, but not the semi mythical figure he has become. Many two term Presidents have had disappointing second terms ( Jefferson with the misguided and harmfull Embargo, Wilson with the disapointments of Versailles and the League of Nations campaign, Eisenhower with the U-2 debacle, Johnson with Viet Nam and Clinton with the Lewinski scandal) Lincln could have had a disappointing second term also.

Your humble servant
AH
Lincoln died a martyr not necessarily because of dying at the height of popularity (he was infact only coming out of troubles with unpopularity) but because he died as sort of the last casualty of the Civil war and the war in which he was sort of the holy figure leading the armies of the Republic against evil, and had basically achieved the great feat of securing the Union. I don't see any disappointment really stemming from Lincoln's second term. It may have been far quieter (which Lincoln sought), but you would still be dealing with the echoes of the Civil war, namely with Reconstruction. And with that, I see Lincoln dealing with it rather well and with retaining his popularity and fading away in his retirement. So I don't believe his legacy in remembrance and popularity comes from how he died or that he died, but how he lived and what he did, which would be retained.
 
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