17th President of the United States of America Hannibal Hamlin (1863-1869). Hamlin, who was elected Vice President in 1860 on the Republican ticket. assumed the office of the United States when, only two days after making his legendary Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by a southern sympathiser while in D.C, shot in the back of the head and later dying in bed. Hamlin, assuming control over a nation in civil war, would use this opportunity to push the Radical Republican’s agenda, while comforting a nation which had just witnessed its first presidential assassination during a civil war, he would command the nation against the South, winning several successful battles against the Confederate forces, he would go on to win the election of 1864 against General McClellan, picking the highly controversial running partner of Thaddeus Stevens, which terrified the south, as now it was basically confirmed that not only would they have their slaves taken away from them, that there would also be no compromise made with the radicals in power. In 1865 the civil war would come to an end, with General Lee of Virginia surrendering to General Grant of Ohio on a March morning. Most of the Confederate leadership, fearing retribution, fled to parts of South America, with only a few of the least egregious agitators staying behind to face trial, while the more zealous would go on to form the Klu Klux Klan and other hate terror groups. Hamlin’s administration would oversee the begging of Reconstruction, which continued under the Grant Administration (1869-1877), then the Hayes Administration (1877-1881), and came to an end with the Garfield Administration (1881-1881), when he was assassinated in September of 1881 by a crazed gunman, to which his successor of Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885), would lax down on the reconstruction, and then finally officially came to an end with the election of Democrat Grover Cleveland (1885-1889, 1893-1897) in 1884, who would officially end Reconstruction in his first year in office, believing enough time had past for bygones to be bygones, or something like that, although the following 80 years of US History would show that not everything had been done yet, as racist laws, lost cause revisionism, and just general white supremacy, reaching its peak between the 1890s and 1920s. Hamlin would pass away on July 4th, 1891 in his home state of Maine in the town of Bangor. Hamlin is ranked highly amongst US Presidents, being credited alongside Lincoln as the man who saved and mended the Union back together again, while guaranteeing the rights of the newly freed slaves of the south. Fredrick Douglass would praise Hamlin and the radical Republicans as the black man’s party.
36th President of the United States of America Lyndon B. Johnson (1965-1969). As the Vice President to Democrat John F. Kennedy (1961-1965), upon JFK’s assassination on April 14th, 1965, while visiting LBJ’s homestate of Texas by a Marxist, communist and Soviet and Cuban sympathiser, he assumed office right afterwards inside of Air Force One, an hour or so after the assassination. As president Johnson oversaw the civil rights movement, which President Kennedy was a mix of ambivalent to supportive of, with Johnson, while having some opinions of the day that have not aged well today, still met and allied with many civil rights leaders, to strengthen and coordinate the civil rights movement, which was going stronger than ever before in the 1960s. Alongside this, Johnson oversaw his Great Society plan, which was to eliminate poverty and racism in America. Where Johnson faltered however was in conflict, as while JFK was no dove, he did manage to somewhat bring events in Vietnam to an uncertain standstill, hoping at the very least to keep South Vietnam alive, but only 5 days after South Vietnam successfully managed to propel a major North Vietnamese attack and secure their independence, Kennedy was assassinated. Johnson used this as an excuse to push further into North Vietnam, while the war was not popular with too many people, especially as the North Vietnamese seemed to be unexpectedly and exceptionally good at fighting the US soldiers inside the jungles, Johnson was still popular enough to be renominated and to win a second term as president in 1968, but his successor, Hubert H. Humphrey would not be so lucky, being defeated by Republican Vice President and 1960 nominee Richard M. Nixon (1973-1977). LBJ, two days after Nixon’s inauguration, would pass away in his home in Texas, a shockingly short amount of time after leaving office, his funeral was held three days later on the 25th. Johnson is ranked highly amongst US Presidents, with his commitment to civil rights and social justice praised, whilst his intervention in Vietnam is often controversial and criticised, especially since North & South Vietnam would remain divided until the 2020s, to which it was reunified under the Southern government, after it became pretty clear to most people that the North was embracing capitalism full force onwards, holding a vote on the 80th anniversary of the founding of North Vietnam whenever to join South Vietnam or not, with 63% of the population voting yes.