If Lincoln had not been shot?

On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth is searched before going into the President's balcony. They arrest him when they find his gun. How would the US be different if he lived on to complete his second term?
 
On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth is searched before going into the President's balcony. They arrest him when they find his gun. How would the US be different if he lived on to complete his second term?
Nothing too different. The reconstruction might happen quicker, and civil rights for black people might come a little sooner, but, IMO, we'd be at a very similar present.
 

Keenir

Banned
Lincoln, like Nixon, would be remembered just as much (if not more) for his abuses of power, as for his political successes.
 
Lincoln was much more lenient than Johnson and the Republican Congress in regards to Reconstruction. Had he avoided assassination, Reconstruction would have been over by the 1868 election, with the southern states back in the Union and with former Confederate politicians and military officers governing those states. There is a very strong possibility that Jefferson Davis would have been elected to the US Senate!

Lincoln would have run again in 1868, dumping Johnson off the ticket. Johnson was only chosen to run as VP in '64 because Lincoln needed a Democratic Southerner to balance the ticket. Not so in '68, when Lincoln would replace Johnson with Ulysses Grant, the hero of the Civil War. Doesn't matter who ran against them, with that combination, they would easily have won.

With political reconstruction over in the south, the former Confederates would have to focus on economic reconstruction. The Southern economy had been devastated by the war and the freeing of the slaves, and was in serious need of rebuilding. Rather than return to a purely agriculture-based economy, the few southern urban centers became industrial centers.

Despite what most believe, Lincoln was not a sympathizer with the former slaves, and freed them for purely political and startegic reasons. Lincoln supported deporting all the former slaves to Liberia, but would not have been able to completely implement his plan due to financial constraints. However, had he survived, he would certainly have attempted deportation. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments would not have been written, and the blacks would not have gained any temporary political clout. They would have been even worse off than when slaves, for noone would be obligated to support them. By the mid-1880's millions would have die of starvation, disease, and exposure.

Lincoln would probably have declined to run for a fourth term in 1872, being 64 years old and having a mentally ill wife, but would have supported Grant in his bid for the presidency. Of course, Vice President Grant would have won the election with a landslide and set the course for another decade of moderate Republican rule.

After retirement, Lincoln returned to Springfield, IL with his wife and settled in their old home. Not wishing to stay at home long due to Mary Todd's increasing dementia, he would attempt to practice law again, but would most likely settle into a lecturing position at a local college. After Mary Todd's death in 1882, Lincoln, now a widower with only one son still living, would move to Manchester, Vermont to be near his grandchildren.

When Robert ran for President in 1884, Lincoln supported his son by giving campaign speeches and interviews across the nation. Lincoln moved into the White House with Robert's family in March 1885, playing the part of elder statesman. When Robert lost his campaign for re-election, Lincoln returned to Vermont with the family, settling into Robert's Hildene Mansion. As he grew older, Lincoln grew more morose and stopped granting interviews in 1893. His health began to decline as he neared ninety, but his mind remained sharp and alert. In June 1899, at the age of 90, former President Abraham Lincoln passed away after suffering a stroke.
 
Despite what most believe, Lincoln was not a sympathizer with the former slaves, and freed them for purely political and startegic reasons. Lincoln supported deporting all the former slaves to Liberia, but would not have been able to completely implement his plan due to financial constraints. However, had he survived, he would certainly have attempted deportation. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments would not have been written, and the blacks would not have gained any temporary political clout. They would have been even worse off than when slaves, for noone would be obligated to support them. By the mid-1880's millions would have die of starvation, disease, and exposure.

I do not accept this. It is true that in theory the Emancipation Proclamation was very narrow. I submit that was because it could only be LEGALLY justified as a war measure and that was how it was put.

In the summer of 1864 the advice given to Lincoln was that he would be likely to lose the Presidential election but that he could win it by canceling emancipation he refused.


I am sure that by our standards he would have been seen as a racist but I submit that this would be less true of him that of most Northern whites including most Republicans.

Remember too that in OTL the radical measures were agreed essentially by the whole of the Republican party.

And of course the claim that the South was harshly treated is simply not true.
 
I think Lincoln would have had it easier than Johnson. Congress had given Lincoln more power to deal with Reconstruction. They trusted Lincoln with the power, but not Johnson. I agree that events would have played out much differently and for the better if Lincoln had lived.
 
I do not accept this. It is true that in theory the Emancipation Proclamation was very narrow. I submit that was because it could only be LEGALLY justified as a war measure and that was how it was put.

Lincoln was sympathetic to the slaves and supported emancipation on moral reasons. He said before he was elected "just as I would not be a slave, I would not be a master."

For Lincoln, slavery was an important issue, but preserving the Union was far more important. He would do anything to preserve the Union, including keeping slavery legal. Before the war nobody in power would advocate ending slavery immediatly. What Lincoln and others were advocating was compensated emancipation. A slow process of gradually freeing the slaves and paying the slave owners off. Another issue is what to do with the freed slaves since Southern whites would not tolerate living amongst them. The sensible thing to do, alot of people thought, was to repatriate them to Africa and establish a US colony with freed slaves. Note this could only be done if slaves were freed gradually. There's no way they could move 4 million plus slaves to Africa at once.

Lincoln called for these measures because this was the only way the South might go for it. To calm Southern nerves he said the federal government had no authority to change slavery because it is constitutionally a state matter. After the war started the rules changed. Lincoln pushed for the Emancipation Proclaimation on the grounds that it was now justifiable in time of war. No one made Lincoln free the slaves. Some in his cabinet were against it for fear it would upset the border states, even though it didn't free the slaves there.

With the war won the North had no obligation to compromise on the slave issue. Lincoln is highly unlikely to deport the slaves. He had no obligation to the South, and he couldn't transport that many people if he wanted to.
 
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