What if Abraham Lincoln had not been Assassinated?

History is Now Magazine ^ | Terra Bailey

[CondoleezzaProtege]

To ponder such a scenario is to delve into the realm of historical conjecture. However, by examining the political landscape of the time and Lincoln's own aspirations, it is possible to glean insight into what might have transpired had his life not been cut short by events.

Firstly, it's essential to consider Lincoln's vision for post-Civil War America. He was deeply committed to the principles of reconciliation and reconstruction, aiming to heal the nation's wounds and forge a path towards unity. In the aftermath of the Civil War, Lincoln sought to reintegrate the Southern states into the Union with leniency and compassion, prioritizing national healing over punitive measures.

Had Lincoln survived, it's plausible that his approach to reconstruction would have been markedly different from that of his successor, Andrew Johnson. Lincoln's conciliatory stance toward the South may have led to a smoother and more inclusive reconstruction process, potentially mitigating some of the deep-seated animosities that lingered in the aftermath of the war and potentially still do today.

Moreover, Lincoln's leadership style and political acumen would likely have played a pivotal role in shaping the post-Civil War era. His ability to navigate complex political terrain and build consensus across ideological divides could have paved the way for a more stable and harmonious transition from war to peace.

One of the most intriguing questions surrounding a hypothetical continuation of Lincoln's presidency is its impact on the trajectory of race relations in America. As a staunch advocate for the abolition of slavery, Lincoln recognized the need for fundamental changes in the status of African Americans in society. While his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 marked a significant step forward, Lincoln understood that true equality would require sustained effort and political will.

[DiogenesLamp]

The majority of our Founders voted to abolish slavery (however gradually)

So it's morally wrong, but not morally wrong enough to end immediately?

BroJoeK, you seem to want your cake and to eat it too.

[DiogenesLamp]

and all the historical facts in the world will not phase him.

Historical facts are fine, provided they are relevant to the matter at hand.

So how about you tell me, is slavery so bad that it should be ended immediately, or is it ok for it to linger another 50 years or so?

[Ditto]

So how about you tell me, is slavery so bad that it should be ended immediately, or is it ok for it to linger another 50 years or so?

You asking me in 2025, or are you asking an early American, 250 years ago?

But I suppose your Lost Cause Mythology does not recognize the difference.

[x]

The article basically admits that colonization had failed and documents that failure. See here:

On February 1, 1864, the President ordered his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, to commission a naval vessel to rescue the Île à Vache group. A month later, the Navy’s Marcia C. Day carried the 350 surviving emigrants back to America, arriving in Alexandria, Virginia on March 20. Also in March, Lincoln signed a bill withdrawing the $600,000 appropriated for colonization, of which the administration had spent only about $38,000.

According to Welch, Lincoln’s signing of the bill signaled that he was finally abandoning colonization as a viable option for those freed from slavery. “Following his reversal of the Île à Vache venture, Lincoln not only remained silent on the failed Haitian colony, but also never issued another public statement concerning colonization,” Welch wrote. Instead, Lincoln began exploring ways to integrate those he had freed into a post-emancipation society.

While Île à Vache was a disastrous failure that led to the deaths of many African Americans, the end of colonization as government policy with the affair heartened many African Americans who had opposed emigrating to another country. “This turn to assimilation, rather than displacement,” Welch wrote, “found support within Black communities, particularly those who saw enlistment as an avenue to support the nation and president that had granted them freedom.”

That may be a little too strong. Liberia was still an option for those who wished to go there. But the article doesn't support the idea that Lincoln was wishing, hoping, and planning to the end to get rid of African-Americans.

[DiogenesLamp]

You asking me in 2025, or are you asking an early American, 250 years ago?

Whichever it is, you clearly don't want to answer the question.

So apparently slavery isn't a big enough deal that you feel the need to clarify your position on it.

[DiogenesLamp]

The article basically admits that colonization had failed and documents that failure.

I knew the attempt had failed. I even said so earlier in this thread (I think. Not sure if it was this thread or one of the other threads.)

Yes, it was a disaster. It was ill thought out.

But like the Corwin Amendment, the point is that he tried it, not that it worked or failed.

It illustrates the mindset of that era, and Lincoln's in particular.

That may be a little too strong. Liberia was still an option for those who wished to go there. But the article doesn't support the idea that Lincoln was wishing, hoping, and planning to the end to get rid of African-Americans.

This article is about the Caribbean. If I remember corretly, Lincoln also tried a colony in Central America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linconia

[ProgressingAmerica]

I think the question is watching-the-grass-grow boring. “What if Abraham Lincoln had not been Assassinated?” Gag me with a spoon.

A much more interesting and enlightening question to me is “What if The Founding Fathers had successfully abolished slavery prior to declaring Independence as they had been trying to do and the king would not have issued any veto of the efforts?” Stated a different way the question is: “What if the U.S. had been born in 1776 with one to three free-soil states because the king did not blockade slavery abolitionism?”

It has been stated that the U.S. was founded as thirteen slave states. This fact is resoundingly and undeniably the Empire’s fault and I appreciate any and every time someone makes it a point of theirs to indict the Empire using this phrase that the U.S. was founded as thirteen slave states. Please, say it again. No really, please, say it again. The U.S. was founded as thirteen slave states. King’s fault.

Now, one of two outcomes is true if there never was any veto during colonial days:

First: The entire Civil War never happens at all. Without the crown issuing those veto proclamations, there is no war; there is no Emancipation Proclamation, there is no Appomattox, no Gettysburg, and Custer does not have his last stand. Abolitionism has a 20 year head start and by the time you get to 1865 the free-soil states have many more in their ranks - 3 more states, 9 more states, who knows. By receiving veto from the crown, slavery received a 20 year head start in the actual timeline that we all know and read about in high school.

Heck, without the veto from the crown during the colonies the U.S. likely abolishes slavery prior to 1833 - beating out Britain and William Wilberforce. Yes, I do think it is plausible enough.

Second: The U.S. fails as a country; either to come into existence at all due to many deeply loyalist(meaning deeply pro-slavery) sentiments in pockets of both the North and the South. This makes union impossible at the outset. Or if the Founders did manage to still keep their eye on mistreatment from the Empire, then the U.S. Constitution fails in 1787 with many more abolitionists at the Convention than what had been present as it actually occurred.

Thanks (I mean NO THANKS) to the king and his veto, the abolitionist sentiment at the Convention was very lacking.

If there had been much closer to a majority of abolitionists at the Convention likely there would be no 3/5ths compromise at all. The U.S. would have split apart during the lifetimes of the Founders and very likely Pennsylvania would’ve been the southern boundary of the country while still under the Articles of Confederation. Maryland would have been the northern-most state/region of whatever that country would have come name itself, and West Virginia never exists.

Personally, I think the Southern states in this scenario re-align themselves in a very laudatory way toward the slaving colonies in the West Indies. Jamaica excitedly becomes a Southern state - it declares independence of the Empire and joins the South. The Bahamas and Bermuda become Southern states. Barbados becomes a Southern state. Any other remaining West Indies British slave colonies becomes a former colony as they start leaving Britain with its rising abolitionism, and they are welcome in this government after the disastrous failure of the 1787 Constitutional Convention. This Southern government that failed during the lifetime of the Founders spans from Maryland to Trinidad and Tobago.

If the king does not issue his pro-slavery veto, I am hard pressed to find any scenario at all where Lincoln gets assassinated. He would be the President of 8 states and the South is already its own separate country - the South has already been independent for decades. Nobody would bother to attempt to kill him. His presidency would actually probably be pretty bland and boring.

Yep. I said it. All of this, because of a handful of actions either a direct veto from the crown, or disregarding legislative laws as an example: Massachusetts and its royalist loyalist crown governors.

Ponder this one for a while.

[ProgressingAmerica]

"The majority of our Founders voted to abolish slavery (however gradually)"

Just wanted to re-affirm this. Gradual abolition was the better method, even Britain used it in 1833. That 1833 bill did not immediately abolish slavery, it set up apprenticeships and all sorts of things and took years to accomplish. And that 1833 bill didn't even apply to the entire Empire either, additional legislation was needed to move the gradual bar again, in the very gradualist fashion. I think it was 1843 that India saw slavery abolitionism. And other abolitionism in the empire was still in years later.

So British gradualism was two ways. And I mean this positively, this was a good thing. They did it the right way because it was completed. Again, I am complimenting Britain here. The highest praises.

The idea that gradual abolition of slavery was somehow bad is one of the pillars of left wing indoctrination that every last person in this forum was inculcated with. We have all received it for decades and generations in government schools and even private schools have pushed this BS. I am just being frank and honest with this paragraph. In any context the sooner we can identify the problem the sooner we can fix it - that's problem management 101. The indoctrinating teachers have shoveled this filth on all of us and the amount of power it grants to the left is ridiculous. Gradually abolishing slavery is a good thing and it is historical malpractice that brought us the narratives we labor under today.

[DiogenesLamp]

A much more interesting and enlightening question to me is “What if The Founding Fathers had successfully abolished slavery prior to declaring Independence as they had been trying to do and the king would not have issued any veto of the efforts?”

Something I have noticed about people is this:

People want to talk about what *THEY* want to talk about, and not what *YOU* want to talk about.

You think talking about Abe Lincoln being assassinated is like watching-the-grass-grow boring, well I think trying to pretend there was any possibility of the nation not being a collection of slave owning states at the beginning is also watching-the-grass-grow boring!

Wasn't going to happen, couldn't happen, and it is flirting with un-reality to think it could have happened.

No, it couldn't have happened.

The Northern states could not survive the British by themselves, and the Southern states were not going to give up slavery easily.

It is fantasy dreaming.

[x]

Of course it was the mindset of the era. But it failed and was given up. You seem to be stuck on the fact that Lincoln tried it. The people you attacked as experts have known that for a long time and aren’t shocked or surprised by it (unless they are — like many professors — Lincoln haters). The more significant thing is if Lincoln learned from those failures and wasn’t going to pursue that strategy further.

In other words, stop blaming 19th century people for having a 19th century mindset and values and take it into account if they manage to outgrow that way of thinking in whole or in part. If you don’t understand that, talking to you is a waste of time.

[DiogenesLamp]

You seem to be stuck on the fact that Lincoln tried it.

I consider "motive" to be the true window to their soul.

A lot of people want to see the good in people, while I generally look for the bad. I generally find it too.

I was always taught that are all sinners who are only saved by the grace of God, but we are inherently evil. We have to work at being good.

In other words, stop blaming 19th century people for having a 19th century mindset and values and take it into account if they manage to outgrow that way of thinking in whole or in part.

I get that "the past is a different country", but so many people who argue on the issue of the civil war and "slavery" *DO NOT* get it.

They keep trying to judge the motives of 19th century people with 20th century beliefs. Take "Progressing America" for example. He can't seem to grasp that yes, the founders founded a nation of slave holding states.

Yes, they thought better of it later, but the fact is, at the time they did it, there was no other choice.

And all who want to divert any discussion of the Civil War to slavery and nothing but slavery, are also trying to judge the 19th century by 20th century views.

[Ditto]

So apparently slavery isn't a big enough deal that you feel the need to clarify your position on it.

Apparently, you are the moron here. Today, it's easy as hell to say end it right now. 250 years ago for many it was not that easy. Some saw absolutely nothing wrong with it. It had always existed and they were just doing what every other civilization in history had done. Others while growing uncomfortable with it saw it as an economic necessity.

Everyone understood it was an economic factor to one degree or another. There was very little of the mercantile economy then to offer alternatives and even those at the lower end of the economic scale did not live much different lives than slaves of a gentile master.

But you don't care to consider those nuances. I don’t think you are even capable of it Professor. You are just looking to damn the hell out of those damn Yankees who kicked the shit out of your ancestors. Like I said at the start, you're just a moron.

[StAnDeliver]

He would have f’d up Reconstruction, frankly they would have fought another brief but ugly war at the end of Lincoln’s term, and gotten better terms from Johnson on a second treaty.

[DiogenesLamp]

Apparently, you are the moron here. Today, it's easy as hell to say end it right now. 250 years ago for many it was not that easy. Some saw absolutely nothing wrong with it. It had always existed and they were just doing what every other civilization in history had done. Others while growing uncomfortable with it saw it as an economic necessity.

You seem to understand this, but you will likely forget all about what you seem to understand here, if we start talking about the Civil War.

You are just looking to damn the hell out of those damn Yankees who kicked the shit out of your ancestors.

And this is how I can tell you don't listen. Over and over I have explained this, but you must have missed it. Here I go again.

Grandpa was born in Copenhagen Denmark in 1880. He immigrated to the US around 1900. He fought and was badly wounded in World War I. He married an Indiana woman. He never settled in a Southern state. I have no relatives in any Southern states. I have no connection whatsoever to the Southern states. Neither on my Father's side, nor my Mother's side.

So no, it's not *MY* ancestors. And I wouldn't brag about it. Your side outnumbered the Southerners 5 to 1, and that doesn't even include the Irish dragooned into the war, or the black soldiers added to the ranks.

The Southerners got a raw deal. They were screwed in taxes, and when they wanted independence, they were invaded and killed to reestablish corrupt Washington DC's control over them, and the relationship between the Federal government and the states was never the same.

And then they lied and said the war was about slavery when it was really about money.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Butler's account is really immaterial, that Lincoln was trying to export them is well established, and I think even your "experts" agree."

What all experts agree is that:

1. For 40 years, beginning around 1820, the American Colonization Society (ACS) provided an average of three shiploads of emigrants per year, from ports of NY, Baltimore, Norfolk & Savanah to Liberia.
   At around 100 passengers per shipload, circa 13,000 in total.

   IOW, around 325 freedmen & women took the ACS offer to colonize Liberia every year.
   These 325 represented fewer than one tenth of one percent of America's total freedmen population emigrating, year after year after year.

2. The ACS and other colonizers were supported by generous funding from wealthy Americans, from Federal government and several state governments, including:
   • Maryland
   • Virginia
   • Kentucky
   • Illinois
   • Mississippi
   • Louisiana

3. The key point is that all of those ACS emigrations were voluntary, by choice, not forced.
   Yes, perhaps 10% were offered manumission in exchange for accepting emigration, but still, it was their choice -- they were not forced onto those ships.

4. As for "Beast" Butler's claim that Lincoln supported deportations in his final days, it's pure nonsense.
   In fact, after Lincoln's 1863 Haiti colonization disaster, there are no records from anyone showing a renewed Lincoln interest in colonization schemes.

5. "Beast" Butler's claims from 20+ years later, of a meeting one-on-one with Lincoln, nobody else present, and no subject discussed except Butler's (not Lincoln's) plan for colonizing Panama, those are not confirmed by anyone at the time or later.
   Even Butler's alleged quote of Lincoln saying, "There's meat in that" was not present in Butler's original 1884 telling.
   Regardless, such a quote could, at best, suggest Lincoln's polite interest in Butler's fantasies, not a firm endorsement of a real plan.

6. No credible historian takes Butler's alleged memory of his 1865 meeting with Lincoln seriously since, among other reasons, it appears at a time when Butler had broken with the Republicans and was working to endear himself to Southern Democrats.

Butler's Lincoln story was intended to win the hearts of Southern Democrats, and seems to have succeeded in that, even down to this very day.

[DiogenesLamp]

I guess I haven't yet made myself clear on the "I don't give a d@mn what "experts" claim" point yet.

"Experts" say "global warming" and "take your clot shot."

"Experts" say that Trump's tariffs were going to wreck the economy.

Old saying. "Experts aren't."

Here is a better one.

"What all the wise men promised has not happened, but what all the d@mned fools said would happen has come to pass."

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "So it's morally wrong, but not morally wrong enough to end immediately?
BroJoeK, you seem to want your cake and to eat it too."

"Cake"?
No, Union of the United States under its 1787 Constitution.
That's what they wanted most.
Everything else, including abolition, came second.

And they did abolish slavery immediately wherever and whenever they could, including:

1. 1783 Massachusetts
2. 1787 Northwest Territories
3. 1790 Vermont
4. 1808 International slave imports
5. 1820 North of Mason-Dixon Line (Missouri Compromise)

Further, in every Northern state with gradual abolition laws, numbers of slaves did drastically reduce after 1790, while numbers of freed-blacks increased correspondingly.

Of course, since those facts don't match with your Lost Causer mythology, you'll never learn them, will you?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "So how about you tell me, is slavery so bad that it should be ended immediately, or is it ok for it to linger another 50 years or so?"

• All Founders who left records considered slavery morally wrong and wanted it abolished eventually.

• Most Founders were willing to begin gradual abolition wherever and whenever that was possible.

• Some Founders insisted on immediate abolition, as in Massachusetts in 1783.

• No Founder was willing to sacrifice their Union under the 1787 Constitution for the sake of immediate national abolition.

• No Founder in 1788 was willing to wage the kind of Civil War which broke out in 1861.

[DiogenesLamp]

No, Union of the United States under its 1787 Constitution. That's what they wanted most. Everything else, including abolition, came second.

The "Union" is what protected their @$$es from the British. Without the "Union", the British could simply take each state back, one by one.

So, remember when I said their morals could be bought cheap? Well the cost of their @$$es was too high, so they would keep slavery to protect their own @$$es.

The truth is, "slavery" wasn't that big of a deal to them until the South cut off their money.

[DiogenesLamp]

All Founders who left records considered slavery morally wrong and wanted it abolished eventually.

But not right then, while they were still profiting from the slaves themselves?

Isn't it always the tactic of the ruling class to spend today, and let tomorrow pay for it?