Lincoln was killed after Lee had surrendered and the war was (largely, at least) over. He was thus the man whose presidency had been occupied by the Civil War, who lead us to victory and saved the Union, freed the slaves, and was sacrificed as a martyr after that all. He is basically the American Christ who, as a man, became better and kinder through the course of that war, and whose death was like an operatic climax, and narratively seems to symbolize his dying for the original sin of the nation, slavery. And people, of course (save for the Confederate sympathizer and revisionist, or the misguided Democrat who doesn't get party evolution) love Lincoln. And people read books, write books (I think he is the most biographied person in history), quote him, etc. Even in AH, we still talk about what if Lincoln lived, what he would have done with Reconstruction, and all of that.
So something that interests me as of my writing of this thread is, what if Lincoln was not assassinated at the climax of the Civil War, but was smack dab in the middle of it; the conflict is still raging and Lincoln is killed, but the war continues and will for a year or a couple years more. What then would be his legacy and how he is perceived and treated in history and in America's view of its history?
So something that interests me as of my writing of this thread is, what if Lincoln was not assassinated at the climax of the Civil War, but was smack dab in the middle of it; the conflict is still raging and Lincoln is killed, but the war continues and will for a year or a couple years more. What then would be his legacy and how he is perceived and treated in history and in America's view of its history?