Within the realm of not veering into ASB territory what is the most successful outcome you can envision for the reconstruction period as compared to OTL?
What are ASB and OTL?
(new to this forum)
What are ASB and OTL?
(new to this forum)
The human beings newly freed from slavery should be provided with a good, solid middle-class acreage of land,
which they have more than earned through years of physical labor.
"40 acres and a mule" I believe was the phrase for what the freed slaves should have received. You can do a lot of things to break the planter class (and a good PoD is likely anyone other than Andrew Johnson as VP) the real problem, is making it stick. It'll take a generation of protecting black rights to get a critical fraction of the South used to respecting those rights as "normal" and by 1876 OTL, the North had had it's fill of policing the South.
Within the realm of not veering into ASB territory what is the most successful outcome you can envision for the reconstruction period as compared to OTL?
Reconfigure the states so some states are black majority. Those states would be unlikely to fall to Jim Crow, and eventually that would spread.
No forgiveness for Confederate politicians and destroying the planter class as needed.
First, avoid the assassination of Lincoln.
No one can be precisely clear about how Lincoln would have conducted Reconstruction; he had not stated any general plan he intended to follow, and his views on what sort of things should happen seemed to be in flux when he was killed.
But it is certain that he would not have followed the policy of Andrew Johnson in supporting "Conservative Reconstruction" in 1865-1866.
For one thing, CR was a project of the Democratic Party in the South. With the collapse of the national Whig Party, Southern Whigs had turned to the "American" Party in 1856 and then the "Constitutional Union" Party in 1860. The CUP drew 40% of the vote in the future Confederate states, and 35% in the Deep South, so the ex-Whig vote was significant, but had no institutional substance.
The goal of CR was to entrench white supremacy in state and local government, and also control by pretty much the same crowd that had led the secession movement and the Confederacy - predominantly Democrats. This turned out to be OK with Johnson, who was a Democrat, even though it also meant exclusion of wartime Unionists. Lincoln, a Whig turned Republican, would have had a different view.
IMO, Lincoln would have started to work immediately to establish the Republican Party in the South. He would have looked among the former Whigs of the region for men to appoint to Federal offices as well as among Unionists. I think he would have proposed some Federally sponsored efforts toward physical "Reconstruction" - of railroads, bridges, roads, canals, and other infrastructure damaged in the war, with perhaps some new infrastructure that was most obviously a good idea.
These two patronage tools would enable him to recruit respectable Southerners to join the Republican Party, as well as provide an electoral program with appeal to many white Southerners. OTL, Johnson opposed such efforts to the end of his term in 1869 His successor, Grant, was utterly inexperienced in politics and made little of Federal to promote Republican Party in the South.
Where does this lead? IMHO, to Republican competion for white Southerners' allegiance almost as soon as the shooting stopped.
This would also lead Lincoln to address the other big issue - the white supremacist element of CR. Lincoln had said that he thought at least some blacks should be voters. OTL, the race issue split Southern Republicans between "Lily Whites" who echoed the Democrat position on white supremacy, which was far more popular with whites, and "Black and Tans" who favored black enfranchisement, which brought the Republicans large numbers of black votes. In the Deep South, black votes alone could win elections.
The question is whether Lincoln could find some middle ground for the Republicans. He suggested limited enfranchisement of blacks, but never got around to addressing what the limits could be, or whether they would be considered intrinsically temporary. Because anything more than a minimal token black vote meant eventual black control of many local governments and even of some states. This would be offensive to most whites' sensibilities, but not universally intolerable - if it was made very gradual, and was sweetened with the Federal patronage goodies noted above.
OTL saw a wild seesaw: Conservative Reconstruction in 1865-68, Congressionally mandated "Radical Reconstruction" in 1868-1874 (with immediate full enfrachisement of blacks), and white supremacist takeover of state governments by "Redeemers" backed by Klan terror in 1875-1877.
Could Lincoln have started a gradual process of black enfranchisement? That's what gets really hard, because it would require establishing a process that would continue for decades. Slow-boiling a frog is a lot harder when the frog knows he's being boiled, and even has some control over the fire.
So - best possible outcome? Lincoln succeeds in recruiting a lot of Southern Republicans, and also insists on an initial token black vote. This vote is solidly Republican, and useful to white Southern Republicans while not threatening to white Southerners in general. Only white candidates are allowed at first.
Over the next generation, Southern Republicans find they have an interest in expanding black voting. This would not necessarily provoke white outrage; OTL Memphis political boss E. H. Crump used black votes in the early 1900s.
Black votes for Republicans are also more acceptable because the Republicans have won more white support through patronage and public works. Thus there are more white Republican voters who appreciate black votes for their candidates.
By 1880 or so, a few token blacks have been elected to harmless offices - a few seats in state legislatures or on county commissions, and minor executive offices. (But never any position with authority over whites.)
Also (as in OTL) blacks are included in law enforcement, but only over other blacks. There are counties that are 80% and 90% black, and so in these counties, black LEOs form most of the force. By 1900, it becomes acceptable to have an occasional black head of law enforcement in these counties, with the tacit understanding that only white LEOs have authority over whites, a rule that is gradually relaxed regarding "white trash".
I see I have gone far beyond the scope of the OP's query, so I'm cutting off here.