With Malice Towards None, and Charity Towards All: Abraham Lincoln's Seperate Term

We've talked about this somewhat, but having read about life in Reconstruction South, I thought its' worth talking about.

What would be Lincoln's policies? One thing that's particularly interesting, to me, is how he would treat voting rights for African Americans. We've talked about this before, and the consensus seems to be "Probably little or none." Yet Lincoln's own views on the topic had been changing; shortly before his death, he was advocating giving the vote to the "More intelligent' of them, and veterans of the Union Army. Yet what's also forgotten is that Soutehrn views on black voting rights underwent a rapid change in 1865 and 1866, based on a few factors:

1) All blacks are going to be firm Republican voters, and are the only way to ensure a feasible Republican Party in those states.

2) The Black codes and a host of other legislation from whites that basically tried to leave slavery in place. Plus a lot of systemic violence against the newly freed blacks, tolerated by Johnson's "reconstructed" governments.

3) An astonishing outburst of activism on the part of the newly freed blacks, including a firm drive to get the right to vote.

And given that Johnson was actively pushed towards the constitutional amendments, tis not clear to me that Lincoln wouldn't end up going in the same direction.

Where Lincoln would be a major difference, I think, would be his views of the Freedman's Bureau and education in general. Hrmm.

Thoughts?
 
It's an interesting question, but I'm not really qualified to make any specific guesses. One thing I'm going to disagree about is the amendments. IMO the main driving force of the amendments was getting revenge on the south, in particular the death of Lincoln. I could easily see Lincoln backing a slightly watered down version of it, but I'm not sure they could drive through the 14th Amendment without the martyring of Lincoln.

Again, I'm no expert though.
 
It's an interesting question, but I'm not really qualified to make any specific guesses. One thing I'm going to disagree about is the amendments. IMO the main driving force of the amendments was getting revenge on the south, in particular the death of Lincoln. I could easily see Lincoln backing a slightly watered down version of it, but I'm not sure they could drive through the 14th Amendment without the martyring of Lincoln.

Again, I'm no expert though.

I think the idea that granting equality to blacks was a way to punish the South is a bit, umm. I don't want to say outdated, but it fits into the "Giving equal rights to our former property was purely done out of spite" mantra that tended to apply to Reconstruction for a while. A lot of th emore recent research has shown that people were frankly outraged and horrified at the way the South acted after the war ended, and felt that they'd violated the Spirit of the amiable Reconstruction imposed.
 
Top