WI Assassins and Misgivings - The end of the Civil War

I had a question for you all. Had the attempts on Andrew Johnson and Seward were successful along with Lincoln, what would be the impact on history.
 
The reason i wrote misgivings by the way is because I have heard that's why Johnson wasn't killed, that his would be assassin got cold feet.
 
I had a question for you all. Had the attempts on Andrew Johnson and Seward were successful along with Lincoln, what would be the impact on history.

Lafayette S Foster, President of the Senate, becomes Acting POTUS. Under the Act of 1792, he will hold office until March 1866, and there will be a Presidential election in Nov 1865, choosing a new POTUS and VP for a four year term. The POTUS will presumably be General Grant.

Foster seems to have been pretty conservative in his views (OTL he later became a Democrat iirc) but as a Senator (and a Northerner) he is aware of the mood of Congress in a way that Johnson is not. So he probably insists on at least a limited Black suffrage, perhaps enfranchising the literate and those who have served in the Union Army. He also probably signs the Civil Rights and Freedmens Bureau Acts which Johnson vetoed. These, incidentally, may come sooner than OTL, as he will probably call Congress into session, if only so that the HoR may choose a Speaker, in order to secure the succession should anything happen to him. So these acts - and possibly even something resembling the 14th Amendment - may well be passed somewhat earlier than OTL.

Beyond that, it largely depends on whether Foster's version of Presidential Reconstruction is acceptable to Congress. If it is, we could see the South readmitted more quickly, and with only a limited Black suffrage, if any at all. If not, presumably things are deadlocked until Grant is sworn in, and we may then get a Reconstruction broadly similar to OTL's.

One point. As there is no constitutional way of electing a POTUS for a term other than four years, this means that subsequent elections will be held in odd-numbered years, so that all Congressional elections will be "off year" ones, at least unless/until the Constitution is Amended to change this. Alternatively, Congress (if called in time) might get round the problem by postponing the election to Nov 1866, but this requires them to be on much better terms with Foster than they were with Johnson. If this happens, subsequent Presidential races will be in 1870, 1874, et seq.
 
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