What if John Wilkes Booth trips

[GameBawesome]

In a tavern near Ford's Theatre, Booth was having several drinks, prepping himself up for what he was about to do. He then entered Ford's Theater and maneuvered his way to the Presidental Box. Once inside the hallway, after making his way to Lincoln's box, he pulls out his derringer pistol and is about to aim for his head, but before he could get close to the president's head and the actor on stage could say the line: "Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal; you sockdologizing old man-trap!"....

....John Wilkes Booth stumbles and trips at the box's doorway, making him yelp, and alerting President Lincoln, his wife, and Major Henry Rathbone to his presence, and seeing the actor with a gun.

What could potentially happen next? Could Booth be fast enough to shoot the president, but is his aim good enough? Could he just rush Lincoln with his dagger he had? Could Rathbone or even Lincoln himself subdue him before he gets up?

What would be the effects of a failed Lincoln assassination?

 

[Mikestone8]

....John Wilkes Booth stumbles and trips at the box's doorway, making him yelp, and alerting President Lincoln, his wife, and Major Henry Rathbone to his presence, and seeing the actor with a gun.

What could potentially happen next? Could Booth be fast enough to shoot the president, but is his aim good enough? Could he just rush Lincoln with his dagger he had? Could Rathbone or even Lincoln himself subdue him before he gets up?

Well, he only had a small derringer and it only needs someone to be in his way or grab his arm to stop him getting a clear shot. Lincoln very probably survives.

What would be the effects of a failed Lincoln assassination?

Well, if Booth's co-conspirators are caught, most of them will still hang, though Mary Surratt may not. Doctor Mudd won't be arrested as TTL he won't be involved. Henry Wirz may get off with prison. Jefferson Davis will be held at least until the last CS Army has surrendered, but will probably be out a lot sooner than OTL, as Lincoln won't want to turn a has-been into a martyr.

After that it gets much more iffy. At first, Lincoln's Southern policy may not be all that different from Johnson's, though he may insist on the enfranchisement at least of Black Union Army veterans. However, if the South is as defiant as OTL, with Black Codes, attacks on white Unionists, and election of ex-Rebs to Congress, his attitude could harden quite a bit. Expect something like the 14th Amendment,, but probably w/o Section 3, which Lincoln would regard as a gross encroachment on his pardoning power.

After that it depends whether the South accepts the 14A. OTL, Johnson egged them on to reject it, but Lincoln will be pushing the other way - probably holding up pardons and return of land until they have accepted his terms.

There may or may not be a 15th Amendment - that probably depends on how ornery the Southerners are. If not, Sec 2 of the 14th is likely to be enforced, probably reducing the Southern electoral vote enough that Hayes can win with Northern votes alone. Also expect Populists and other such parties to do better than OTL, as they cannot be accused of bringing about "Black rule" by splitting the white vote. Beyond that, who knows?

 

[Red_Galiray]

After that it gets much more iffy. At first, Lincoln's Southern policy may not be all that different from Johnson's, though he may insist on the enfranchisement at least of Black Union Army veterans. However, if the South is as defiant as OTL, with Black Codes, attacks on white Unionists, and election of ex-Rebs to Congress, his attitude could harden quite a bit. Expect something like the 14th Amendment,, but probably w/o Section 3, which Lincoln would regard as a gross encroachment on his pardoning power.

After that it depends whether the South accepts the 14A. OTL, Johnson egged them on to reject it, but Lincoln will be pushing the other way - probably holding up pardons and return of land until they have accepted his terms.

There may or may not be a 15th Amendment - that probably depends on how ornery the Southerners are. If not, Sec 2 of the 14th is likely to be enfaced, probably reducing the Southern electoral vote enough that Hayes can win with Northern votes alone. Also expect Populists and other such parties to do better than OTL, as they cannot be accused of bringing about "Black rule" by splitting the white vote. Beyond that, who knows?

The unraveling of Reconstruction under Johnson started pretty early, and while the official guidelines for the organization, election, and workings of the Constitutional Convention might not differ that much, Lincoln would have done several things quite differently. Just take Louisiana, for example, where after Governor Hahn resigned, the new governor Wells proceeded to give several offices to former rebels and dismiss Union men. Banks, Lincoln's right hand man during the war, proceeded to countermand Wells' order, but after Wells complained to Johnson, Banks was removed and Wells' actions were confirmed. I can't see Lincoln allowing something like this. I can't see him, either, allowing the Southern States to organize militias (mostly formed out of Confederate veterans) or trying to get rid of every Radical in the Army or Bureaus and replace them with Conservatives, as Johnson did. At the very least, Reconstruction under Lincoln sees more meaningful power transferred into the hands of Unionists, Army officers and Bureau agents far more sympathetic to the freedmen in charge, and a more vigorous effort to protect the rights of loyalists and freedmen from violence.

Then, there's Congress. They'd probably still decide to craft a Freedman's Bureau Bill and a Civil Rights Act, which Lincoln would probably sign at once, averting the long fight with Johnson and probably resulting in more radical measures, since OTL the need to keep the Republican coalition united to override Johnson's vetoes often required watering down measures.

 

[Mikestone8]

Then, there's Congress. They'd probably still decide to craft a Freedman's Bureau Bill and a Civil Rights Act, which Lincoln would probably sign at once, averting the long fight with Johnson and probably resulting in more radical measures,

Why would Lincoln want more radical measures? His big job now is to rebuild the Union. He'll do what he can for the Freedmen, but at the end of the day reconciling the South to reunion will have to come first. I quite agree that he'll sign the Civil Rights bill, and one version or the other of the Freedman's Bureau one, but both were repassed over Johnson's veto even OTL, so they would only be brought forward a few months.

 

[Red_Galiray]

Why would Lincoln want more radical measures? His big job now is to rebuild the Union. He'll do what he can for the Freedmen, but at the end of the day reconciling the South to reunion will have to come first. I quite agree that he'll sign the Civil Rights bill, and one version or the other of the Freedman's Bureau one, but both were repassed over Johnson's veto even OTL, so they would only be brought forward a few months.

Just to give you an example, the original Freedman's Bureau bill contemplated making it permanent, declared that the freedmen could hold onto the lands redistributed by General Sherman's orders by three years, and authorized the Bureau to provide land to the dispossessed. Johnson's veto killed the measures, and the act that finally passed over his veto did not go as far as the original version. No Johnson allows the Radicals in Congress to pass much more transformative bills, for Johnson forced a realignment towards a conservative direction. There were the Conservatives who long wished to conciliate him and thus watered down several bills, there were the compromises needed to maintain the veto-proof majority. Without Johnson, more radical measures are almost a given.

 

[raharris1973]

If not, Sec 2 of the 14th is likely to be enfaced, probably reducing the Southern electoral vote enough that Hayes can win with Northern votes alone.

Why would reduction of the southern electoral vote be a factor in this ATL when it was not in OTL. I get that when the Radicals took over Reconstruction policy they temporarily got Republican governments throughout the South by enfranchising Freedmen and excluding those who couldn't take the ironclad oath from the franchise, so they didn't mind state governments elected by that constituency having a full slate of electors. But were not some of the Reconstruction state governments "redeemed" an effectively excluding freedmen from the franchise earlier than others, prior to the compromise of 1877, and thus eligible, based on patterns observed in 72, 73, 74, or 75, to have their electoral vote reduced.

Also expect Populists and other such parties to do better than OTL, as they cannot be accused of bringing about "Black rule" by splitting the white vote.

By what mechanism would this alternate scenario support multiparty-ism in the south. I suppose this is a follow-on from the idea that no southern state has black electorate large enough to ever be at risk of being a majority, plurality or controlling element of the total electorate? Limiting the franchise to Union veterans only plus some educational or property test is something that keeps the black voting demographic very small, even in states like Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, so it is at most a marginal swing factor among white factions. Thus leaving whites with racial fears "free" to indulge in competitive Party politics?

 

[Mikestone8]

Just to give you an example, the original Freedman's Bureau bill contemplated making it permanent, declared that the freedmen could hold onto the lands redistributed by General Sherman's orders by three years, and authorized the Bureau to provide land to the dispossessed. Johnson's veto killed the measures, and the act that finally passed over his veto did not go as far as the original version.

That's why I said one or other version. I think it distinctly possible that the original one would have gone too far for Lincoln as well as Johnson. But Lincoln, unlike Johnson, almost certainly *would* have signed the later version.

Incidentally, how much land would be involved? There's an article at https://www.blackpast.org/african-a...ugees-freedmen-and-abandoned-lands-1865-1872/ stating that the Bureau never held more than 0.2% of Southern land, even *before* Andrew Johnson started dishing out pardons. So even in the doubtful event that this amount increases fivefold, that's still only 1% - hardly enough to cause a social revolution.

BTW, in Feb 1866 Thaddeus Stevens had proposed a more drastic land reform, but it garnered just 37 votes out of 163 cast. Only one-fourth even of the *Republican* membership was prepared to vote for it. And Lincoln, always in the mainstream of his party, would for a near-certainty side with the other three-fourths.

 

[Mikestone8]

Why would reduction of the southern electoral vote be a factor in this ATL when it was not in OTL.

Probably because the Republicans saw this idea as having been superseded by the 15th Amendment, and, later, that falling back on it would be too embarrassing a confession that the 15A was unenforceable.

Such a proposal *was* included in their 1904 platform, but the Democratic landslide of 1910 made this impossible, and the 1920 redistricting was never made. So the whole idea just faded away.

 

[Mikestone8]

Expect something like the 14th Amendment,, but probably w/o Section 3, which Lincoln would regard as a gross encroachment on his pardoning power.

Further thought. He might also have pushed for Section 2 to include a proviso that anyone over 21 who had served in the Union Army or Navy should be entitled to vote regardless of race or colour. This would probably have satisfied most Republicans, before their battles with Johnson radicalised them.

I suspect he would have pressed for a very different Section 3, providing a universal amnesty for participation in the war, whilst at the same time he declared a moratorium on individual pardons until the Amendment had been ratified. So he would be telling the Southerners "If you want a pardon, you must ratify this to get it."

 

[Red_Galiray]

That's why I said one or other version. I think it distinctly possible that the original one would have gone too far for Lincoln as well as Johnson. But Lincoln, unlike Johnson, almost certainly *would* have signed the later version.

Incidentally, how much land would be involved? There's an article at https://www.blackpast.org/african-a...ugees-freedmen-and-abandoned-lands-1865-1872/ stating that the Bureau never held more than 0.2% of Southern land, even *before* Andrew Johnson started dishing out pardons. So even in the doubtful event that this amount increases fivefold, that's still only 1% - hardly enough to cause a social revolution.

BTW, in Feb 1866 Thaddeus Stevens had proposed a more drastic land reform, but it garnered just 37 votes out of 163 cast. Only one-fourth even of the *Republican* membership was prepared to vote for it. And Lincoln, always in the mainstream of his party, would for a near-certainty side with the other three-fourths.

If limited land redistribution would have been too far for Lincoln, he would have certainly overruled Sherman's orders. He did not. So I fully believe he would have signed the original bill too. As for Bureau land, while it's true that as things stood in 1865 OTL there was little hope for a complete economic transformation, even a few families getting land to live in is worthwhile, don't you think? Moreover, the low figures are in part thanks to Johnson as well - at the end of the war the Bureau prepared to take over more lands, and generals in the field also prepared orders to further at least a measure of land redistribution, but Johnson stopped them. Finally, Stevens' bill was the most radical measure, so opposition to it should not be extrapolated to imagine opposition to all possible measures of land reform. As shown by the original Freedman's Bureau Bill and the Confiscation Acts, Republicans did broadly support some limited land reform - very limited, unfortunately, but it wasn't the completely out-there, ASB idea you're trying to portray it as.

 

[Mikestone8]

If limited land redistribution would have been too far for Lincoln, he would have certainly overruled Sherman's orders. He did not. So I fully believe he would have signed the original bill too. As for Bureau land, while it's true that as things stood in 1865 OTL there was little hope for a complete economic transformation, even a few families getting land to live in is worthwhile, don't you think? Moreover, the low figures are in part thanks to Johnson as well - at the end of the war the Bureau prepared to take over more lands, and generals in the field also prepared orders to further at least a measure of land redistribution, but Johnson stopped them. Finally, Stevens' bill was the most radical measure, so opposition to it should not be extrapolated to imagine opposition to all possible measures of land reform. As shown by the original Freedman's Bureau Bill and the Confiscation Acts, Republicans did broadly support some limited land reform - very limited, unfortunately, but it wasn't the completely out-there, ASB idea you're trying to portray it as.

Fair enough. But can we then agree that any such measures are going to be pretty limited, and that, as OTL, the vast majority of freedmen will still be farm labourers or at best sharecroppers, rather than owning land, and that any massive redistribution, such as Stevens wanted, almost certainly *is* ASB? . After all this is what Lincoln seems to have assumed in the EP, where he advises them "when allowed, to labour faithfully for reasonable wages".

Regarding Sherman's order, what would have been the alternative had Lincoln reversed it? Thousands of slaves had arrived at the coast in the train of his army, and unless they were to follow him right through the Carolinas, Sherman has to leave them somewhere. Would it have been practical to ship them all north, or was there anywhere else locally that they could have been left?

 

[jacob ningen]

Well, he only had a small derringer and it only needs someone to be in his way or grab his arm to stop him getting a clear shot. Lincoln very probably survives.



Well, if Booth's co-conspirators are caught, most of them will still hang, though Mary Surratt may not. Doctor Mudd won't be arrested as TTL he won't be involved. Henry Wirz may get off with prison. Jefferson Davis will be held at least until the last CS Army has surrendered, but will probably be out a lot sooner than OTL, as Lincoln won't want to turn a has-been into a martyr.

what if the man sent after Johnson doesnt lose his nerve. Then, with Seward and Lincoln strengthened you get even better results.

 

[Tiro]

Well I’m sure we’d all like to think that even the Worst Booth would chill out a little after a little ‘pharmaceutical intervention’, but sadly he never even seems to have heard of peyote and I don’t think easy access to drugs was part of the Star Treatment, back in the day.

 

[Mikestone8]

what if the man sent after Johnson doesnt lose his nerve. Then, with Seward and Lincoln strengthened you get even better results.

If Lincoln lives, the VP's opinions won't make a diddlysquat of difference - especially in his case, given his embarrassing performance at the inaugural. Lincoln will pay no attention to them unless they happen to coincide with his own.

One amusing thought. Could Johnson actually be taken up by the *Radicals?* IIRC that initially some of them privately expressed the view that, given his talk about how traitors must be impoverished, he might actually be *better* than Lincoln, because now the rebels would get what they deserved, whereas Lincoln had had too much "milk of human kindness" in him. Might WIers now be writing TLs where Johnson becomes POTUS and imposes a really *harsh* reconstruction in alliance with Thaddeus Stevens?

 

[raharris1973]

Also expect Populists and other such parties to do better than OTL, as they cannot be accused of bringing about "Black rule" by splitting the white vote

By what mechanism would this alternate scenario support multiparty-ism in the south?

 

[Ulahlica-Ulahlica]

Could Rathbone or even Lincoln himself subdue him before he gets up?

Lincoln was in his 50s when Booth shot him-- hardly the oldest president-- and had been a boxer and professional wrestler when he was younger. Had Booth tripped or stumbled or his pistol misfired, observant audience members looking up at the commotion in the box would likely have seen the president tackle one of the most popular actors of the day to the ground and beat him senseless, not dissimilar to what happened when Andrew Jackson was targeted by an assassin in the 1830s.

 

[Mikestone8]

By what mechanism would this alternate scenario support multiparty-ism in the south?

Well, at the very least it removes one major obstacle to it.

AIUI the Dems relied a lot on the "race card" to scupper the Populists.

 

[raharris1973]

Well, at the very least it removes one major obstacle to it.

AIUI the Dems relied a lot on the "race card" to scupper the Populists.

Why can't they use the race card here? Aren't some blacks voting/enfranchised?

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

Lincoln's Southern policy may not be all that different from Johnson's, though he may insist on the enfranchisement at least of Black Union Army veterans.

It will be very different in one respect. Lincoln will immediately move to build up the Republican Party in the South. He has all the federal offices in the South to fill, to begin with, and the presidential pardoning power. There may also be some federal spending for infrastructure (the South certainly needs it), which he can direct to "friends".

The franchise issue will be an interesting one. OT1H, several black suffrage referendums in the North failed in 1866-1867. OTOH, by April 1865, Lincoln was speaking openly of limited suffrage for blacks. Would he push for it in the North as well?

He certainly seemed to want it in the South. But this would not threaten complete political and social revolution, and might therefore be acceptable to enough white Southerners to take effect. I.e. there would be no "Redeemers" violently suppressing blacks and Republicans. Basically, if there is no "Conservative Reconstruction" under Johnson, there will be no "Radical Reconstruction", and no "Redeemers". The Fourteenth Amendment may not even be necessary.

The question is: would black suffrage become entrenched, and gradually expand, or be squeezed out over time? It should be noted that while the Redeemers gained control of all state governments by 1877, black voting persisted in substantial numbers until the 1890s. The Southern states had to change their constitutions to achieve complete suppression.

And in Tennessee, Memphis Democrat boss E. H. Crump had blacks voting (as his machine directed) from the early 1900s. If there are effective Republican state parties in the South, they will rely on black votes and protect or even extend black suffrage. The Democrats may find (as Crump did) that it's more useful to co-opt black voters than to suppress them. And once they have some, they'll want more. The Fifteenth Amendment may not be necessary either.

I will also mention the case of Willie Breckinridge, a scion of the Breckinridge dynasty of Kentucky. Like his cousin John (the ex-Vice President) he "went South" in 1861 to join the Confederate Army. He fought to the end (he commanded Jefferson Davis's escort during the flight from Richmond). But when he went back to Kentucky, he joined the "New Departures" Democrats, who advocated recognizing the changed civil status of blacks, and became a friend and correspondent of W. E. B. Du Bois - while winning five terms in the US House!

I believe there was an opening for initiation of gradual transformation of the US into a racially equal society - and that Lincoln very likely would have found it.

 

[raharris1973]

It will be very different in one respect. Lincoln will immediately move to build up the Republican Party in the South.

Would the *immediateness* of this under Lincoln post-war make *all* that much difference than it being delayed until the onset of military/Congressional Reconstruction led governments, and then the Grant Administration and then their appointments of men aligned to the Republican Party to offices? Why so?



*An immediateness I guess we can assume that Johnson, as a "National Union" ticket man, and a Democrat, not Republican, by experience, did *not* have,