Lincoln lives Seward dies.

Exactly as it says on the tin. What if Lincoln had lived and Seward had died. Who would Lincoln had chosen as Secretary of State? How different would Reconstruction be? Would the United States still buy Alaska?
 

Asami

Banned
Umm… Why Exactly? It wasn't like there was anything useful there.

It was useful, strategically. Russia and America were interested in preventing Britain from having such a large Pacific coastline. That's the only reason Russia chose to sell it to the US in the first place.
 
And also, how? If the Anglo-Russian translation was legal and the British were willing to follow up I doubt Congress would go to war over the mildly useless Alaska, especially considering its mineral wealth was almost entirely unknown.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
CF Adams (historically, minister at the Court of St. James) is

But who would replace Seward?

CF Adams (historically, minister at the Court of St. James) is one obvious choice; Sen. Charles Sumner is another.

Both would be as likely as William Seward to pursue the Alaska purchase; the cost was minor, and the strategic point was obvious.

Best,
 
Alaska though famously deemed 'Seward's Folly' was considered an untouched land rich in minerals by State wonks and the like. The 'Folly' angle was a Democratic tabloid angle and not universal just so happened for a century it proved true.

Though not most obvious, Cassius Clay, a keystone of the Republican Party and ambassador to Russia would be a solid choice. He 'inspired' the Emancipation Proclamation and had that rare ability to be a gentleman abroad and a bastard at home, he would be a solid addition to Cabinet.
 
It was useful, strategically. Russia and America were interested in preventing Britain from having such a large Pacific coastline. That's the only reason Russia chose to sell it to the US in the first place.
Russia was interested in cold hard cash and political favors. In fact Russia would have liked Britain to try to purchase Alaska since it meant they could jack up the price on America with a bidding war (or vice versa).

Tho to be fair, the Russian establishment did inexplicably seem to have a soft spot for the Americans. Perhaps because America was one of the few countries around at that point that hadnt invaded Russia.
 
Russia was interested in cold hard cash and political favors. In fact Russia would have liked Britain to try to purchase Alaska since it meant they could jack up the price on America with a bidding war (or vice versa).

Tho to be fair, the Russian establishment did inexplicably seem to have a soft spot for the Americans. Perhaps because America was one of the few countries around at that point that hadnt invaded Russia.
They were actually hoping for that if I remember correctly, but the British wouldn't bite.

Russian-American relations also seem to have been rather cordial around this period, though it might have had more to do with achieving a balance against the United Kingdom rather than any true kinship between the Tsardom and the United States. About a generation later the Republicans and Democrats would be attacking Russia over the pogroms.
 
Lincoln would still benefit from having survived the assassination. There would be a lot of goodwill towards him, and he'd be able to use Seward's martyrdom to advantage.

Reconstruction under Lincoln is always a popular topic. Lincoln would not be as extreme as the Radical Republicans would like, but he has several advantages in dealing with them that Johnson did not. Lincoln is a Republican and leader of the party, unlike Johnson. Lincoln also has very strong abolitionist credentials. And he is the man who won the war.

I think ultimately Lincoln will continue to pursue a moderate course that integrates the South quickly into the union, but doing much more to protect the liberties and interests of freedmen. Some kind of compromise between Lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens will occur.

Another change is that Lincoln, unlike Johnson, also has a vested interest in building up the long term electoral chances of a southern Republican party. I think many decisions will be made on that base. He will do whatever he can to strengthen the alliance between Unionist white Southerners, former Whigs who fought under the Confederacy, and Freedmen.

Because of this, I think some kind of land distribution deal to provide freedman (and perhaps some landless Southern Unionists who fought in the army) a viable economic living will happen. That means most land seized from large plantations by the US government during the war will not be returned to their previous owners, but given to freedmen. IOTL, the Freedman's Bureau had almost one million acres of land that was initially to be given to the freedmen, but Johnson returned it to the previous owners instead. Congress also passed an act which provided three million acres of unoccupied public land in Florida, Mississippi, and Arkansas for freedmen homesteading, but which Johnson vetoed. Lincoln won't. So we have about four million acres to be allotted to freedmen, and this amount of land will likely increase over Lincoln's second term (albeit on more marginal land). I don't know if it'll be exactly "forty acres and a mule", but it'll be close.

I also foresee much greater action taken on by the Federal government to prevent southern states from backsliding on liberties for freedmen once those states finally elect Democrats to the majority. Without the debilitating struggle between Johnson and the Radical Republicans, the public won't be so sick of the issue of Reconstruction, and President Grant will easily continue this support.

I think the worst of the Jim Crow laws will be averted in the Deep South, and there is a very good chance the Republican Party will be competitive, or perhaps even control, several southern states, especially in the Upper South (Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina are good prospects) and perhaps Mississippi as a majority black state. If so, there won't be a veto in Congress on discussion of future civil rights acts for eighty years which means national anti-lynching laws and other measures.
 
I also foresee much greater action taken on by the Federal government to prevent southern states from backsliding on liberties for freedmen once those states finally elect Democrats to the majority. Without the debilitating struggle between Johnson and the Radical Republicans, the public won't be so sick of the issue of Reconstruction, and President Grant will easily continue this support.


"Support" with what?

By the mid 1870s the US Army was down to around 30,000 men, most of whom were needed out west. Only about 3,000 were still available for occupation duties in the South.

Unless you envisage a much larger peacetime army - ASB under any POTUS - I don't see what they use for enforcement.
 

katchen

Banned
Lincoln would still benefit from having survived the assassination. There would be a lot of goodwill towards him, and he'd be able to use Seward's martyrdom to advantage.

Reconstruction under Lincoln is always a popular topic. Lincoln would not be as extreme as the Radical Republicans would like, but he has several advantages in dealing with them that Johnson did not. Lincoln is a Republican and leader of the party, unlike Johnson. Lincoln also has very strong abolitionist credentials. And he is the man who won the war.

I think ultimately Lincoln will continue to pursue a moderate course that integrates the South quickly into the union, but doing much more to protect the liberties and interests of freedmen. Some kind of compromise between Lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens will occur.

Another change is that Lincoln, unlike Johnson, also has a vested interest in building up the long term electoral chances of a southern Republican party. I think many decisions will be made on that base. He will do whatever he can to strengthen the alliance between Unionist white Southerners, former Whigs who fought under the Confederacy, and Freedmen.

Because of this, I think some kind of land distribution deal to provide freedman (and perhaps some landless Southern Unionists who fought in the army) a viable economic living will happen. That means most land seized from large plantations by the US government during the war will not be returned to their previous owners, but given to freedmen. IOTL, the Freedman's Bureau had almost one million acres of land that was initially to be given to the freedmen, but Johnson returned it to the previous owners instead. Congress also passed an act which provided three million acres of unoccupied public land in Florida, Mississippi, and Arkansas for freedmen homesteading, but which Johnson vetoed. Lincoln won't. So we have about four million acres to be allotted to freedmen, and this amount of land will likely increase over Lincoln's second term (albeit on more marginal land). I don't know if it'll be exactly "forty acres and a mule", but it'll be close.

I also foresee much greater action taken on by the Federal government to prevent southern states from backsliding on liberties for freedmen once those states finally elect Democrats to the majority. Without the debilitating struggle between Johnson and the Radical Republicans, the public won't be so sick of the issue of Reconstruction, and President Grant will easily continue this support.

I think the worst of the Jim Crow laws will be averted in the Deep South, and there is a very good chance the Republican Party will be competitive, or perhaps even control, several southern states, especially in the Upper South (Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina are good prospects) and perhaps Mississippi as a majority black state. If so, there won't be a veto in Congress on discussion of future civil rights acts for eighty years which means national anti-lynching laws and other measures.
Now this has possibilities, especially in South Florida. We know that Lincoln favoured some form of Grand Apartheid for freedmen as the only viable way that Freedmen could retain their liberties. And we know that Lincoln knew by wars end that the British were unenthusiastic about resettling freedmen in British Honduras and British Guiana even though doing so would help develop those colonies. So since Southern Florida IS a large area of land largely unoccupied by white people, I could easily see Lincoln pushing for the Florida Peninsula south of a certain parallel being split off from the State of Florida and made a US territory for African-Americans (which very likely means that South Florida in reality turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy of another Haiti due to not so benign neglect later and rule by an African-American oligarchy allied with Northern corporate interests.
But it would stop a lot of Jim Crow except for "off the reservation African-Americans imported short term to work cotton fields ala South Africa and sent home when not needed.
 
A state can't be divided up without its own consent, so Lincoln can't do this unless he takes up the "state suicide" notion - which he won't.

My own guess is that he adopts a "carrot and stick" approach, promoting a Constitutional Amendment combining parts of OTL's 14th and 15th, repudiating the Confederate debt (there would have to be a 14A for that purpose alone) and laying down that disfranchised persons could not be counted for the purpose of Congressional representation. It would also require "impartial suffrage" ie that any literacy or other tests for voters must apply to whites as well as blacks. OTOH, in place of the political disabilities of OTL's Article 3, it would provide a complete and universal pardon for participation in the Civil War, so that there could be no confiscations [1] or disfranchisements. The ex-Rebs would get a clean slate. This, hopefully, would be a big enough incentive to persuade Southern States to ratify it.

For Lincoln's ideas on Reconstruction, could I insert a plug for William C Harris With Charity For All, which covers the steps he had already taken prior to his death. In addition to the much written-about Louisiana experiment, it gives equal coverage to Arkansas and Tennessee, and also has interesting chapters on less well-known attempts to set up Unionist governments in parts of Florida and NC. Harris' other book, Lincoln's Last Months, covering the period from the 1864 election to Ford's Theatre, is also well worth a read.


[1] Given the impoverished condition of the South, quite a bit of land would still come on the market due to tax defaults and the like. But given that southern state governments, of whatever political stripe, would be desperate for money, I can't see it being given away. It would have to be auctioned.
 
"Support" with what?

By the mid 1870s the US Army was down to around 30,000 men, most of whom were needed out west. Only about 3,000 were still available for occupation duties in the South.

Unless you envisage a much larger peacetime army - ASB under any POTUS - I don't see what they use for enforcement.

President Grant won't need an army that is of greater size. He'll be able to do it the law enforcement means he has at hand because 1) Congress will have passed more laws to protect freedmen with Lincoln as president than Johnson, 2) there will be stronger local Republican parties who retain control of multiple states to assist in law enforcement, 3) the federal government will be more active in shutting down discriminatory Southern laws in any "redeemed" states, and 4) more freedmen being economically independent will strengthen the ability of their own communities to defend their life and property legally and by force.

If Southern white paramilitary groups attempt to seize power like they did IOTL by murder and intimidation, a combination of the federal army, militia, police and unionist veterans will likely beat back many of these attempts, although I'm sure several states in the Deep South will turn out similarly to our timeline.

Even in our timeline, the KKK and other militant groups did not succeed until the 1890s. They needed many decades of weak enforcement to decisively remove blacks from holding any power. In a world where the first decade where the federal government (executive and legislative) is united in building a strong freedmen society and strong local Republican parties, the Southern militants will be much weaker when Reconstruction ends.

There will be a much stronger tradition of the federal government protecting violations of civil rights than IOTL, and in many states, the state government won't abandon its protection once the Federal government withdraws the troops.

Bullies thrive when they know the strong won't protect the weak. In an era when they don't have Andrew Johnson to protect them initially, and where the northern public isn't as tired of fights between the executive and legislative, there is a lot more reason to believe violence against freedmen will be responded to forcefully. That will depress a lot of the support given to militant movements IOTL.

I am not saying everything will be rosy for freedman in the South, just that it's going to be a lot better ITTL especially in several states where a Republican majority is able to be sustained, and the federal government will intervene against the grossest attempts by "Redeemers" to disenfranchise them by the most dubious legal moves.
 
Bullies thrive when they know the strong won't protect the weak. In an era when they don't have Andrew Johnson to protect them initially [

The bullies did just fine without Andrew Johnson. Within two years of his leaving the White House they had Redeemed VA, NC GA and TN, as well as all the Border States. OK, Without him it may take them a year or two longer to get their breath back, but after that, why should it go all that differently from OTL? Most White Unionists share the racial views of their "secesh" neighbours, and their quickest way to mend fences with the latter (who will still be living next door long after the Carpetbaggers have gone back north) is to join with them in opposition to Radical Reconstruction.

In any case, without Andrew Johnson would there ever be a Radical Reconstruction? Even OTL, it took over a year of fighting with him before Congress was ready to impose Freedman Suffrage in the South, and they didn't risk passing the 15th Amendment until the 1868 election was safely out of the way. Lincoln is pretty certain to have insisted on the enfranchisement of Black Union veterans, so the Republicans' main political debt to the Negro will have been paid, and most of them will see little reason to go further. He will have signed the Civil Rights and Freedmens Bureau Bills, and probably accepted an Amendment to write the Civil Rights Act into the Constitution. If this omits the political disabilities of OTL's 14th Amt, and instead provides for a total amnesty, the Southerners will most likely hold their noses and ratify it. So they get readmitted with only a limited Black Suffrage which doesn't threaten White control.
 
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