Posted on 04/23/2015 8:10:28 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
Would the Civil Rights movement have taken place if Abraham Lincoln survived the assassin’s bullet by John Wilkes Booth? Allen Guelzo, a civil war era professor at Gettysburg College, posed this question in a recent lecture at Hillsdale’s Kirby Center.
Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, failed to bring the Union together after the end of the Civil War and “barely survived impeachment” from his own Republican Party. Guelzo wondered, “Could Lincoln have found…some practical system” to reconcile the South and North when the war ended. Lincoln had already tried at least one Reconstruction proposal in 1863, which was “bitterly criticized” by Congress for executive overreach.
Lincoln’s proposal was to “reconstruct the Union” while integrating universal suffrage (i.e. voting rights) for freed slaves. Congress proposed a different framework for the unified country, which Lincoln vetoed. As Guelzo noted, Lincoln saw “Reconstruction as a process of subduing the South and returning its states” to the Union and the control of the federal government. He had already begun the Reconstruction process in Southern territories seized by the Union army, such as in Tennessee and pockets in Louisiana. There, Union loyalists began “temporary military government” with state conventions, but the loyalist governments did not follow Lincoln’s instructions to push for universal suffrage. This, in Lincoln’s view, “would be as though the Union had never been disrupted.” Again, Congress “balked” at this move and went on to reject universal suffrage as well.
But, we may never know what Lincoln’s post-war plans were for the Union. In an 1865 address, Lincoln “had some new announcement” regarding the South, but had “nothing more specific to offer” at that time to avoid blowback like in his previous proposals. As one of Lincoln’s judges (who he later appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court) David Davis said, “[Lincoln] was the most reticent, secretive man I ever saw.” Guelzo felt that Lincoln aimed to give freed slaves, many of whom served in Union armies, a reward of “full civil liberties, voting rights, especially.” Also, it could have had large implications in politics, as it would have changed the existing three-fifths rule, where slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person. With universal suffrage, that requirement would be eliminated and could have led to a “long term Republican hegemony” in the South.
I think if Lincoln had lived, the South would have been treated much better in the aftermath of the war. And it would have recovered faster.
"Help me get out of this coffin!"
Sounds like Sheldon and Amy’s game of counterfactuals.
Four observations:
1. Lincoln has roughly three years of rebuilding and coaching congress through a difficult path.
2. The Lincoln legacy is probably half of what it is today...with serious negatives over the period after the war.
3. Since he had a strong relationship to the railroad folks....I suspect they would have gone on like gang-busters in growth after the war.
4. Lincoln pardons for various southern leaders? Very likely and could have been a major step forward for the rebuilding.
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RE: your #3
The railroads did go gangbusters during reconstruction, replacing much of the preexisting (approx) 11,000 miles of track (of various gauge) and (by 1890) adding 19,000 additional miles of track. Of course it was all paid for by heavy taxes.
Or... “I can’t believe I lived to be 206 years old!!!”
I don't understand this point. Universal suffrage would in theory have helped Republican prospects in the South, if freed slaves voted Republican. But would they have constituted a majority in any Southern State or congressional district? In the two Southern States where Lincoln was on the ballot in 1860, he got only 1% of the vote. Even in Maryland he only got 2.5%.
Moreover how would eliminating the 3/5th clause help Republicans in the South, other than making them even more popular with freed slaves? The mechanical effect of that change would just have increased Souther representation in Congress, rather than helping either Republicans or Democrats in the South. Unless the author is projecting the impact of redistricting?
I think John F. Kennedy also shares an unearned Legacy of Acclaim.
If he had survived the assassination attempt, he would still be dead today.
It is hard to say. Lincoln definitely seemed inclined to keep the radical reconstructionists (future progressives) in check and by his statements and writing certainly wanted to bring the south back into the fold quickly. Despite this he was singularly reviled personality in the South (for obvious reasons) which may have hampered his efforts no matter how reasonable.
[ I think if Lincoln had lived, the South would have been treated much better in the aftermath of the war. And it would have recovered faster. ]
According to Quantum theory, in some universe this did occur and i would love to visit and compare notes.
“Do you know what Abraham Lincoln would say if he were alive today?”
“I thought we were going to send them all back to Africa”
Certainly, Lincoln’s voice would have been the dominant one in Reconstruction matters, as he was clearly the most visible symbol of Unionist victory and leadership.
Johnson had no ability to overcome the “Radical Republicans” who dominated after 1866. Indeed, he was impeached for it. Maybe Lincoln would have done differently.
As a history teacher, I have often thought about this. First of all, his assassination led to his deification in the people’s minds. (To a lesser extent, the same thing happened to JFK). Although Lincoln had huge power to fight the war as Commander-in-Chief, I believe that Congress was not going to be willing to cede that power when it came to rebuilding the country in the aftermath of the war. I think he and Congress would have had lots of fights over Reconstruction and he would have lost some or many of them. And that would have diminished his reputation the the history books. I do not think his stated idea to pretty much forgive and forget “the late unpleasantness” would have been accepted by Congress.
And then there is this line from the article...
“Also, it could have had large implications in politics, as it would have changed the existing three-fifths rule, where slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person. With universal suffrage, that requirement would be eliminated and could have led to a “long term Republican hegemony” in the South.”
Suffrage didn’t eliminate the three-fifths rule—emancipation did. There was Republican hegemony in the South as long as whites were not allowed to vote. Whites not being allowed to vote wasn’t Lincoln’s plan, it was Congress’s.
What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub?
The 14th amendment tried to force the Southern states to grant voting rights by penalizing them if they did not let black men vote--if there was a large number of black people, the state could lose some of its seats. The Northern states had such small numbers of black people that even if they didn't let black men vote (which was still true in 1866 in some cases) they wouldn't lose any seats (according to Gary Gallagher in 1860 the non-slaveholding states were 98.8% white).
Harry Turtledove approves of this thread “How Few Remain”
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