If Abraham Lincoln survives, do we still see the 14th and 15th Amendments get passed?

CaliGuy

Banned
If Abraham Lincoln survives, do we still see the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution get passed?

For the record, the reason that I am asking this question is because I know that the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution was a close-run thing as it was. Thus, would having Lincoln survive result in some butterflies which would have prevented these amendments from being passed?

Any thoughts on this?
 
I would imagine that its not a '64 Civil Rights Act, which needed Kennedy's death to happen, but instead would probably happen anyway. Otherwise, there is no assurance of sustained rights and I don't imagine that most of the Republicans would stand for that. Who knows, maybe since Lincoln would have been in favor of it far more than Johnson, it manages to pass by a larger margin thanks to his political clout.
 

Wallet

Banned
I think so. I don't know how much Lincoln would push for them but he would gladly support them once they passed
 
I think you still get the 14th in some form. At the very least, an Amendment repudiating the Confederate debt is a near certainty. And once that is in committee, something to protect the rights of the Freedmen is at any rate highly probable.

What you might not get is Section 3. Lincoln, I'm pretty sure, would object to this as an encroachment on his pardoning power. He might have gone for a clause giving universal amnesty for participation in the War, thus giving the South an incentive to ratify, saying "It guarantees your rights as well as the negroes'. "

I'm not so sure about the 15th, though he might have supported one which specifically gave the vote to all males over 21 who had served in the Union forces.
 
I think you still get the 14th in some form. At the very least, an Amendment repudiating the Confederate debt is a near certainty. And once that is in committee, something to protect the rights of the Freedmen is at any rate highly probable.

What you might not get is Section 3. Lincoln, I'm pretty sure, would object to this as an encroachment on his pardoning power. He might have gone for a clause giving universal amnesty for participation in the War, thus giving the South an incentive to ratify, saying "It guarantees your rights as well as the negroes'. "

I'm not so sure about the 15th, though he might have supported one which specifically gave the vote to all males over 21 who had served in the Union forces.


Further thought on this.

If Lincoln secures the passage of a 14th Amendment which the South can be persuaded to ratify - and presumably be then readmitted - there probably wouldn't be a 15th, as the Republicans, though still comtrolling both Houses by comfortable margins, would no longer have a two-thirds majority in either. So further Amendment would be almost certainly impossible.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Further thought on this.

If Lincoln secures the passage of a 14th Amendment which the South can be persuaded to ratify - and presumably be then readmitted - there probably wouldn't be a 15th, as the Republicans, though still comtrolling both Houses by comfortable margins, would no longer have a two-thirds majority in either. So further Amendment would be almost certainly impossible.
Wouldn't Republicans control some of the legislatures in the South after readmission during this time, though?
 
Wouldn't Republicans control some of the legislatures in the South after readmission during this time, though?

Not if the South had ratified the 14th Amendment in 1866 and been readmitted then. At that point the only Southern State which could be said to have a Republican government was Tennessee. Virginia, Louisiana and Arkansas had "Union" governments, and LA did attempt to cast an Electoral vote for Lincoln in 1864, but all these three rejected the 14th Amendment and had to be subjected to Radical Reconstruction along with the rest of the South, so would be better counted as Democrat. In 1866 I think they were calling themselves "Conservative".

This situation only changed from 1867, when Southern rejection of the 14A finally broke the opposition to full Black suffrage among moderate Republicans, and cleared the way for the Reconstruction Acts. Had the South "held its nose" and ratified, this step would in all likelihood never have been taken.
 
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CaliGuy

Banned
Not if the South had ratified the 14th Amendment in 1866 and been readmitted then. At that point the only Southern State which could be said to have a Republican government was Tennessee. Virginia, Louisiana and Arkansas had "Union" governments, and LA did attempt to cast an Electoral vote for Lincoln in 1864, but all these three rejected the 14th Amendment and had to be subjected to Radical Reconstruction along with the rest of the South, so would be better counted as Democrat. In 1866 I think they were calling themselves "Conservative".

This situation only changed from 1867, when Southern rejection of the 14A finally broke the opposition to full Black suffrage among moderate Republicans, and cleared the way for the Reconstruction Acts. Had the South "held its nose" and ratified, this step would in all likelihood never have been taken.
So, Southern opposition to the 14th Amendment radicalized the Republicans and caused them to support Black suffrage?
 
Yep, it was the same pattern that caused the civil war. Instead of admitting that a Free Soil president was on its way in and simply accepting there would be no more Slave States and slavery would almost certainly have to be phased out over the next few decades with planters being paid off in some way they started a war, ending slavery quicker with no money to compensate them.
 
So, Southern opposition to the 14th Amendment radicalized the Republicans and caused them to support Black suffrage?

Pretty much. They were distinctly leery of the subject, leaving it out of the 14A, which was their "platform" for the 1866 midterms. Indeed, even after imposing it in the South they still left it out of their 1868 platform, saying that in the loyal states it was a question for the states to decide.But Southern recalcitrance, and Andrew Johnson's refusal to do anything about it, created an impasse which could not be broken any other way.

The 15th Amendment was introduced only in the lame duck session, when the election was safely over.
 
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