150 Years Today: Lincoln Assassinated

So, Lincoln died 150 years ago today. Just speculating (obviously no right answer to this), what would be different in today's America if he doesn't get assassinated (whether it happens and he survives and can function, or it never happened)?

Curious what parts of history members think this might affect, either fact-based or culturally. For example, if Lincoln doesn't get killed, does JFK ~100 years later? Does the American South get crushed and run over in ways that still resonate heavily for resentful descendents, or would there have been a more diplomatic and healing reunion of the country? Do we get 50 states? Does Alaska ever become a state?

Stephen King wrote a speculative novel a couple years ago that JFK doesn't die and creates an alternate reality grown from that one change. This would be a similar train of thought but back a century further.

Interested in your thoughts.

This is going to be good. Not to nitpick but he was shoot today and died tomorrow. He was more magnanimous towards the South than what followed with his loss.

Quote: Greasyjohn

This is going to be good. Not to nitpick but he was shoot today and died tomorrow.

Yes, true.

Babs, you could revise your OP and take out the Alamo and Texas remainig part of Mexico references. Texas becoming a state and the Alamo both happened before Lincoln was president.

Quote: Greasyjohn

Babs, you could revise your OP and take out the Alamo and Texas remainig part of Mexico references. They both happened before Lincoln was president.

Yeah, you're right. That period all runs together for me.

Reconstruction would have been less harsh on the South had Lincoln lived. That's the biggest difference that I can think of off hand. Lincoln was a good, decent and thoughtful man. He could be as witty as Mark Twain.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Interested in your thoughts.

Had a thought he might be one of the cases where he survives the shot but the head injury causes a personality change. Displays of anger. Or he starts speaking fluent German.

For some interesting civil war history look up "with nary a pair in hand". General sherman asked one of his officers what he knew of general hood. His officer told him "he bet $2500 with nary a pair in hand". So he reasoned that general hood was aggressive since he was willing to bluff a large sum of money in poker. Instead of attacking general hood, sherman instead entrenched his troops and sure enough hood attacked him instead. Another interesting story was how the battle of Gettysburg was lost by general Lee for him saying "if practicable". He ordered one of his officers to take cemetery hill but threw in the two words "if practicable" so his officer chose not to take the hill and being able to place artillery on those heights could've been the deciding factor in that battle.

I heard the disastrous Pickett's Charge was actually ordered by General Lee. Lee wa a great general, but not every decision was a great one. Just like Custer. General at 23 during the Civil War. Without a doubt a brave and inspiring man. Had a remarkable record for victory and cunning on the battlefield. But if you fight enough battles you will have disastrous results eventually.

First, reconstruction would have been much, much less harsh. It is this era when the Feds started ignoring the 10th Amendment. So we would have to this day more states rights. Lincoln was about preserving the union. He would never have stood for an occupation that reduced the rebel states to near-territory status.

While slavery would have still been abolished in the Constitution, the treatment of freed slaves might have been different. Lincoln would have been more open to the "return to Africa" movement and encouraged an ex-slave colony there, perhaps with Liberia being more than it was used. There might have been "Black Reservations" same as there would 30 years later be Indian Reservations. On said Black Reservations, freed slaves would gave gotten the infamous 40 acre quarter-quarter section and a mule.

The frontier would have taken 10 more years to close, the Indians would have been treated better though still not good, and with this preoccupation the Spanish-American War might not have happened. If said war had not happened, the USA would not have been in WWII until it was too late to defeat the Germans.

We would not have the famous line, "So, Mrs. Lincoln, otherwise how did you enjoy the play?"

Quote: AZDuffman

While slavery would have still been abolished in the Constitution, the treatment of freed slaves might have been different. Lincoln would have been more open to the "return to Africa" movement and encouraged an ex-slave colony there, perhaps with Liberia being more than it was used. There might have been "Black Reservations" same as there would 30 years later be Indian Reservations. On said Black Reservations, freed slaves would gave gotten the infamous 40 acre quarter-quarter section and a mule.

When the "black power" movement was hot, some of them started reading about what Abe actually wrote and said, and they decided they weren't too crazy about him after all. Early on he certainly was saying he favored that the ex-slaves get shipped to various colonies. He made other statements too about being opposed to equal rights.

What is not clear is how he might have changed. I think it was explained to him that the colonization thing was doomed by the mere fact that the Black population would reproduce faster than it could be shipped out.

Also, he might have been coming around on equal rights. His April 11th speech favored suffrage for blacks; Booth made clear that this was the final straw as far as he was concerned.

I think the key thing to remember when discussing history, is to try and keep a perspective on the times you are discussing. Would Lincoln serving out his full two terms have changed things some. Sure, in lots of ways discussed already. But you have to remember what a radically different time 1865 was as compared to today. Suggesting that black Americans go back to Africa today(as Lincoln proposed) would be a radically racist point of view. At the time, it was radically liberal and progressive. Blacks were considered sub-human by many people, even educated prominent citizens. For the most part, even some places in the north, they had essentially no rights. They couldn't, vote, own land, marry a white person, own a business, etc. etc. Women couldn't vote either. Things we worry about today like domestic violence, and equal treatment under the law were largely non-factors then. If you beat your wife in 1865, chances are the local law would feel she "had it coming". Society was much more rural, probably 85-90% of people were engaged in subsistence living. People lived in small communities went to church and knew everybody in town. On the rare occasion they went to town that is, on a horse. The industrial revolution had just started. There were no antibiotics. If you got an infection, you probably died. I'm not even going to mention the lack of electricity, phones, TV, radio, the internet...etc.etc. Completely different world. Amazing it's only been 150 years when you think about it.

That to me is what's fascinating. Is the societal aspect of history. As, Americans we would probably have been better off had Lincoln not been killed. But the world was such a different place, I think most people would have trouble even recognizing it.

I am of the mind that Reconstruction would have been just as difficult. His assassination turned him into a sympathetic figure, but in his time, Lincoln, in certain parts of this country was probably even more toxic than George W Bush was in certain parts of this country. I think, had he not been assassinated, precisely when he was, Lincoln probably isn't regarded as the hero he is today. It's a funny thing about death, particularly, one that was came about by someone else's hand, is it drowns out the ability to criticize someone. Booth killed Lincoln and thought he was going to be a hero, and was shocked at the reception he was getting in his native South. You see this in many aspects of life. It has only been recent when it has been PC to criticize JFK and by many accounts he was in over his head. But you don't even have to go into the political forum to see this phenomenon. Look at how quickly we forgot about Michael Jackson being a pedophile once he died. For at least 10-15 years it was almost taboo to play his music at parties or weddings for crying out loud, now it's all over the place again.

Quote: odiousgambit

When the "black power" movement was hot, some of them started reading about what Abe actually wrote and said, and they decided they weren't too crazy about him after all. Early on he certainly was saying he favored that the ex-slaves get shipped to various colonies. He made other statements too about being opposed to equal rights.

What is not clear is how he might have changed. I think it was explained to him that the colonization thing was doomed by the mere fact that the Black population would reproduce faster than it could be shipped out.

It might have been a combo of African colonies and resettlement within the USA. In history classes I heard a few professors mention that there was always talk of a "black state." Given resettlement of Indians and later the Japanese camps in WWII this is not that hard to picture. It is also not hard to picture selling the idea that black and white society would not be able to function side by side. But I really see that as a way things might have went.

I have even heard that some Black Power types in the 1960s wanted this even then.

Here's my "what if" question: would Lincoln have accepted Grant's promise to Lee at Appamattox Courthouse that all Confederate soldiers (from Lee on down, IIRC) would be pardoned, the way Andrew Johnson did?

Quote: ThatDonGuy

Here's my "what if" question: would Lincoln have accepted Grant's promise to Lee at Appamattox Courthouse that all Confederate soldiers (from Lee on down, IIRC) would be pardoned, the way Andrew Johnson did?

I vote "yes" for two reasons. Lincoln wanted to preserve the union and end the war, endless treason charges would do neither. Second, Grant proved himself to Lincoln and Lincoln would have taken his suggestion.

I don't think a black state or reservation would have ever come about, irregardless of if there was discussion on the issue. Blacks weren't living in autonomous cultures like the Indians were. And their way of life was too similar to the general American experience to require separation.

I don't think there's any way that a black state would have been carved out for blacks within America, without the administration, policing and governing by the United States. And since blacks already had that without a state, why give them one?

A black state would encourage their sense of unity, self-determination and dissatisfaction. No, the United States didn't want the complications that a black state would set in motion. Keeping blacks from forming groups was more the thinking of the day.

How would the United States be different had Lincoln lived is an interesting question. How the United States would be different if we never had slavery is an interesting question too.

The root cause of the Civil Was was slavery. Some will say it was because the South wanted to secede from the Union. But why did they want to secede? The root cause was slavery, an issue that cost about 600,000 lives on the battlefields.

I hope everyone has remembered to lower their American flags to half-mast today. Are the state flags being lowered as well? I know Connecticut's are.

Here's a thing. If Lincoln had not been assassinated, how do we know he would have survived until 1868 anyway? There are some who theorize he was suffering from thyroid cancer when he was killed, among other diseases.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/general/1354040/was_lincoln_already_dying_when_he_got_shot/

Quote: AZDuffman

I vote "yes" for two reasons. Lincoln wanted to preserve the union and end the war, endless treason charges would do neither. Second, Grant proved himself to Lincoln and Lincoln would have taken his suggestion.

Well said... the North wanted the surrender of the South as fast as possible. The South wanted the North to stop and let them cede from the Union.... after Gettysburg that was unlikely to happen, but they kept trying to wear down the North's resolve.

Once the siege lines around Petersburg were complete, the city fell and the war was effectively over. No need to keep fighting.

As for Pickett's Charge, it was Longstreet's division that charged, Pickett was only one of three leaders involved. Lee ordered it, but without really being present, and Longstreet didn't really agree with the plan. As he should, as Lee's game plan on the Maryland invasion was to get the Union to attach his entrenched positions. Gettysburg was the complete opposite. The Confederates had done very well on the defensive, and very well when bringing themselves into a position where the Union had to attack or retreat.

IF the south had take Cemetry Hill on day one or little round top on Day two, the North had plenty of room to fall back and regroup along a new line. Though losing Little Round top and rolling up the line so it couldn't retreat from the fish-hook it had created might have been a bigger blow. The lack of Confederacy Cavalry would have made that hard, though... JEB Stuart was around somewhere else.

I do wonder if Jefferson Davies would have been released as easily by Lincoln? Probably, I guess.

Quote: thecesspit

Well said... the North wanted the surrender of the South as fast as possible. The South wanted the North to stop and let them cede from the Union.... after Gettysburg that was unlikely to happen, but they kept trying to wear down the North's resolve.

The South really needed to do two things. Drag the war as much as possible and invade the North to the extent that is hassled the population. As I have said before, the South needed the population to start saying, "why are we spilling good Irish blood over a bunch of darkeis? If they want to leave, let them!"

If that was said in Boston. Chicago, and Pittsburgh there would be a significant part of the population no longer supporting the war. In a free country you can only drag an unpopular war so long. But Lee had the issue that one big loss and he would find it hard to recover. Plus if he had won a Gettysburgesque battle the Brits would probably have thrown in.

Instead Gettysburg showed the North hope yet broke the back of the Rebs.

If the South had pressed their advantage at First Bull Run the war might have ended right there and then.

Most people do not realize how different the US Civil War is from almost all others. To have a rebel army with uniforms and a real military structure and fight in conventional battles is not what usually happens. The USA is IIRC the only country to have a presidential election during a civil war.

I heard somewhere before that if the confederates won the battle of Gettysburg then the British were going to invade the union from Canada dividing the union forces into two fronts.

Quote: rudeboyoi

I heard somewhere before that if the confederates won the battle of Gettysburg then the British were going to invade the union from Canada dividing the union forces into two fronts.

And what a story THAT would have been! Rebels on one side and British on the other, there's a good chance that would have been the end of the US as we know it.

Quote: beachbumbabs

... Interested in your thoughts.

Time is another measure of stability. Nothing happens beyond the quantum level of things until a meaningful sense of time has been reaffirmed.

As in a shoe of cards with some cards taken out or tampered with early on, and with the entire shoe cut beforehand, the global order of the cards will reassert itself in short order. Local interruptions have little effect over the longer run. Eg, in a baccarat shoe, there is already an underlying stable chain of 4, 5, or 6-card outcomes.

Similarly, time "heals" itself rather quickly.

Quote: rudeboyoi

I heard somewhere before that if the confederates won the battle of Gettysburg then the British were going to invade the union from Canada dividing the union forces into two fronts.

I doubt Britain would have sided with the Confederates, if for no other reason that Queen Victoria was staunchly anti-slavery. Okay, she has about as much control over her government as Queen Elizabeth II has over the current one, but still, they have to take that into account when deciding what to do.

I "also heard somewhere" that most of the north didn't take the war seriously - in New York, for example - but that would have changed had the Confederates captured Washington, the way USA's dealing with World War II changed after Pearl Harbor. I assume a victory at Gettysburg might have had a similar effect.

Quote: ThatDonGuy

I doubt Britain would have sided with the Confederates, if for no other reason that Queen Victoria was staunchly anti-slavery. Okay, she has about as much control over her government as Queen Elizabeth II has over the current one, but still, they have to take that into account when deciding what to do.

That does not mean she would be against the South. The South fed British textile mills. The USA was growing stronger than the Brits economically and don't think the Brits didn't see what happened to Mexico just two decades before. Recolinization wasn't about to happen, but they could have forced some naval bases in the South as a price for ejecting the North.

Slavery would have died out in 20 years or so.

Quote: rudeboyoi

I heard somewhere before that if the confederates won the battle of Gettysburg then the British were going to invade the union from Canada dividing the union forces into two fronts.

Not sure about that.

Maybe around the time Bull Run/Manassas 1 that was a consideration, but by Gettysburg the British weren't going to do anything in the war with their forces. Antietam was the last chance really for the south to get any measure of recognition by European powers. There wasn't the political will, the common folks didn't support it either, just a few elites. And they knew it had to be a negotiated peace by the time of Gettysburg.

The Trent affair did cause some troubles early on, when it looked possible that the British might support the Confederacy, with 11,000 troops in Canada. It blew over in the end. By 1862 or so the Royal Navy was working with the Union in the Atlantic over the slave trade, while British docks built a couple of Rebel raiders. The UK paid reparations in the end.

A win at Gettysburg by Lee wouldn't have stopped the North... Grant had just won Vicksburg as well, splitting the South along the Mississippi. The North had a huge numerical advantage, and troops left to defend the major cities. The South needed to win Gettysburg emphatically AND then follow up with a second victory to threaten a major city, and make the gains in the West seem trivial. Given JEB Stuart's cavalry being present, there was the possibility of enveloping Meade's army on the ridge. This might have changed things.

Quote: AZDuffman

That does not mean she would be against the South. The South fed British textile mills. The USA was growing stronger than the Brits economically and don't think the Brits didn't see what happened to Mexico just two decades before. Recolinization wasn't about to happen, but they could have forced some naval bases in the South as a price for ejecting the North.

Slavery would have died out in 20 years or so.

The North fed British stomachs, will the textile mills were getting cotton from Egypt and India.

Yes, the British would not have been too upset by a divided US. The USA was not getting stronger than the UK economically, not even close until about 40 years later. It was indeed developing rapidly, though. And many of the elites would have liked to see them down a peg or two, and go back to the days when the US was a little back water. 1812-1815 probably still smarted a few of the old guard, who have been at their father's knees when those events happened.

I feel somber when I read or reflect on the American civil war. I'm reminded of the approximately 600,000 soldiers that were killed in battle. And for what? What has this sacrifice achieved? Of course blacks are free from slavery and that's a noble achievement. But look at black culture today, it has allowed itself to be hijacked by an inner-city gang mentality with its ignorant rap music, disrespect for good grammar and civility.

Blacks had a right to be free from slavery, but they themselves did not achieve this goal; they did not make it happen. When was the last time you heard a black person acknowledge thanks for the sacrifices that this country made in fighting a civil war for their freedom? Some may say that they owe no thanks for obtaining a freedom that was their right. But this is a shallow viewpoint for those who's goal is not to acknowledge gratitude. People who were helped by firefighters to escape the burning Twin Towers could say they owe no thanks for their being rescued to safety because they have a right to be safe. It's the same argument.

For the black community, becoming a part of the American fabric, assimilation, respect for education--these things have largely been forsaken in the last 25 years. I don't give the black community high marks for their responsibility in the progress they've made in the last 150 years.

People might complain about racism in this country, but blacks have a better standard of living and more freedom here than in any country in Africa and probably the world.

I like Condoleezza Rice. I wish she were running for president instead of Hillary Clinton. Ms. Rice has integrity, leadership, ability and respect for our country and the ideals it swears to uphold. She speaks eloquently in a non-ghetto style English which to me says she doesn't have the need to represent her blackness. She has evolved into a person that doesn't need to express herself through the prism of her racial identity.

Our nation is composed of individuals each with a capacity for good and evil, reason and folly, but the principals upon which this nation is founded are a testament to the best qualities of the human spirit. Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution set in stone a standard by which our behavior is judged, and any and all are invited to hold our actions accountable to the lofty vows we took as a nation.