I don’t think it would have made any difference. Lincoln would have been lenient during Reconstruction, which would have resulted in all the former Democrats coming back into the government even sooner than they eventually did. The country was going to stay unreconstructed for over 100 years regardless of who was President.
Agreed. I think Lincoln was a great President, but he wasn’t going to be able to integrate the South. Not in 4 years, or 40 years. He was hated in the South.
Sam ‘Bam’ Cunningham integrated the South one hundred years later.