WI: Lincoln assassination conspiracy fully successful

A succession crisis it is not. The real question is, will this delay the end of Reconstruction. Or will the North become generally tired of policing the south around the same time, even if the murders are compounded?

Wouldn't the MURDERS of three VERY important government officials kinda piss off a nation just getting back into a groove of peace?
 
Wouldn't the MURDERS of three VERY important government officials kinda piss off a nation just getting back into a groove of peace?


The murder of Lincoln (and near murder of Seward) did precisely that.

Such attitudes didn't last though. People were tired and wanted to get back to normal. Interest in punishing the Rebels faded fast and almost certainly still would.

Most interesting point is how US Grant handles Reconstruction if he is elected in 1865. Iirc he wasn't so close to the Radicals then as he became later.

One small point. The 1792 Act provided for the new President to take office on March 4 - the normal date at that time. But if Congress chose, this could provide an opportunity to move the inauguration date forward, without needing an Amendment. Any chance that they would?
 
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Edit: Upon reading Wikipedia according to the Presidential Succession Act of 1792 if the President and the VP are both killed then the President Pro Tem of the Senate becomes the PotUS and there would have been another election in Dec 1865, I dont know however if the new President's term would have been for four years or just to finish out Lincolns term.


It would be a full blown election of President and Vice President, so it would be for a full four years.

As the law stood, the new term would have commenced on March 4, 1866, but Congress could have amended the Act to let the Pres-Elect (presumably Grant) take office earlier than that. If so, future Presdients would alos have taken office on the new date.
 
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What if, however, Powell had managed to kill Seward and Atzerodt had killed Johnson?

ISTM that the biggest effect is Johnson's removal. He greatly assisted the Conservative Reconstruction of 1865-1866, which empowered ex-Confederates and allowed them to reinstate slavery in all but name through the "Black Codes". Democratic party organization in the South also benefited from Johnson's influence, while the start-up of the Republican party there got no support or leadership from the President.

Senator Lafayette Foster would have become President; his exact policies can't be determined, but at least he was an actual Republican.

Foster would have been succeeded in 1866 by a new President elected in November 1865, probably a Radical Republican.

So the course of Reconstruction would be substantially altered.
 
Senator Lafayette Foster would have become President; his exact policies can't be determined, but at least he was an actual Republican.
He was reckoned to be on the more conservative wing of the party, so there won't be anything really radical, but he will probably support measures like the Freedman's Bureau and Civil Rights Acts, which Johnson vetoed.

Foster would have been succeeded in 1866 by a new President elected in November 1865, probably a Radical Republican.

So the course of Reconstruction would be substantially altered.

The successor would almost certainly have been General Grant, who wasn't as close to the Radicals in 1866 as he became later.

There will be some change to Reconstruction, but probably only in the short term. The basic problem was that most northern voters did not care deeply about promoting the rights on negroes, while southern ones did care about limiting them. That difficulty remains, whoever is POTUS.
 
Likely the narrow 1876 election which helped end reconstruction is butterflied away, along with the lienient Andrew Johnson dead and the more carnage on that day, which means stronger radical republicans, likely reconstruction does last longer and amnesty for southern leaders less likely to be granted.

10 extra years of reconstruction might have helped the lots of southern blacks quite a bit. And a few southern leaders, dragged into the light and shown the rope might change the sentimentality which some have for the confederacy and its poor causes today. It might just be something everyone wants to forget.

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if fully successful means Booth doesn't break his leg and Powell escapes from the Seward house with Herold (they both flee Washington together).

1) It could be the bridge patrol out of Washington doesn't allow both Herold and Powell to go across the bridge out of town, so Booth is alone, and the livery owner was in hot pursuit of his rented horses, so likely Powell and Herold are rounded up early.

2) A healthy Booth alone, could be much more mobile and get deeper into Virginia sooner, much was luck so its hard to tell, Booth getting a little further south sooner makes it harder for Union investigators to catch him so he could escape.
 
I was hoping Lafayette Foster would show every sign of being a wild-eyed radical Republican, with long slavering fangs and murderous intent in every step, yearning to personally crucify each and every person showing a twitch of resistance against the notion of former slaves becoming full-fledged citizens.

Well... He doesn't seem to have been super-radical. He was apparently pretty close to the Lincoln administration, fwiw.

http://famousamericans.net/lafayettesabinefoster/

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/DCEmancipationAct.htm

http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/u-s-civil-war-senator-lafayette-s-foster

In otl, Foster was no longer on the senate when Johnson's impeachment came up. (Foster was in the US Senate 1855-1867, and the impeachment was in 1868, thank you wikipedia.)
 
I suspect that the Northern mood would have been sympathetic to radicals. Indeed expropriating the planter class might have looked moderate

It would likely have been lawful to have hanged 10s of thousands (though wicked and stupid)
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
We'd see more Radical Republican stuff to be sure. Probably some ironclad thing disenfranchising Confederate veterans. A serious Reconstruction (unlike OTL's relative slap on the wrist) is certainly conceivable.
 
Likely the narrow 1876 election which helped end reconstruction is butterflied away, along with the lienient Andrew Johnson dead and the more carnage on that day, which means stronger radical republicans, likely reconstruction does last longer and amnesty for southern leaders less likely to be granted.

But, does it come 3 years early instead?

It's unlikely that it'll be quite the same, but judging by strict economic cycles, there's bound to be a Panic of 1873 sometimes. How close tot he election was it? Would it have made a difference?

So, Grant 1866-1874, but probably not Hayes in the 1873 election becasue he wasn't Governor of Ohio for very long yet. Although maybe...none of the others mentioned were that old or experienced either.

One thought is Grant 2nd VP of OTL, Henry Wilson. In TTL Colfax isn't as touched by the corruption and might serve into his 2nd term before that comes to light. This means Wilson stays unconnected; ironically, he might die in 1875 anyway, so whoever his VP is might win the 1877 election anyway as the economy would have recovered some. (Hayes might be int here yet.)

Or, could the Democrats win in 1873? I think it'd still be a bit hard for them to pull it off, even if the economy has tanked just a few months earlier. Although another possibility is that they win and scale back Reconstruction, only to hve the Republicans resurgent the next time around.
 
Or, could the Democrats win in 1873? I think it'd still be a bit hard for them to pull it off, even if the economy has tanked just a few months earlier. Although another possibility is that they win and scale back Reconstruction, only to hve the Republicans resurgent the next time around.


Of ciouse they don't need the Presidency in order to scale back Reconstruction - just one house of Congress. Once they have that, they can block Army appropriations, which, given that most of the Army is needed out west, condemns Reconstruction to the death of a thousand cuts.
 
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