Page 42 - All About History - Issue 18-14

What if…

ABRAHAM LINCOLN HADN’T BEEN ASSASSINATED?

John Wilkes Booth
changed the course
of history when he
assassinated Lincoln

The Civil War was fierce and strongeroaththatJohnsonpreferred.Thepartieswouldsurely Andrew Johnson was eventually impeached by
bloody – as this painting of the
Battle of Manassas depicts havesettledonsomepercentagebetween–perhaps25–of Congress – had he lived, would Lincoln have faced a
the eligible voters. similar fate?
What’s harder to predict is what Lincoln would have done Here I want to be crystal clear. Although I have written a novel
about the freedmen. He wound up in a position of largely imagining a world in which Lincoln lived and was impeached,
supporting black suffrage – not at all where he had begun – I do not think it likely that he would have been impeached.
butheinsistedthatitnotbemadeaconditionofreadmission He was, as you suggest, too savvy. I am not sure that, as in
totheUnion.Itisn’tclearwhatsortofcivil-rightslegislation my novel, he would have used various intrigues to battle his
he would have supported. However, even had he supported opponents. But I think he would have found compromise on
the bills that Congress adopted after his assassination, the the big issues.
chances are that the Supreme Court would have held them Moreover, I doubt his opponents would seriously have tried.
unconstitutional anyway, which is what happened. Lincoln enjoyed enormous prestige in the Union, without
regard to the disdain in which he was held by the leadership of
his own party. Breaking down that public support would have
“Duringthewaryears[…]hebecame been an enormous task, and one that I suspect the leaders of
contentwiththeideathatthefreed the radicals would have hesitated to undertake.

slaveswouldstayintheUS” How would the journey toward civil rights for all US
citizens been different under Lincoln’s direction?

Howwoulditbedifferent? O Johnson becomes president
Lincoln’s vice president, Andrew Johnson,
is named the 17th president of the United
States. A Democrat who ran with Lincoln
O Civil War breaks out on the Union Ticket, Johnson begins his
South Carolina, Mississippi, presidency with plans to quickly reintegrate
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, the seceded states. 15 April 1865
Louisiana and Texas, secede
fromtheUnitedStates,forming
the Confederate States of
Realtimeline America and plunging the Realtimeline
country into war. 12 April 1861

1861
Alternatetimeline
O Lincolnisinaugurated
Mere weeks before the main O Emancipation O Lincolnisassassinated
slave states would secede from Proclamation is issued JustsixdaysaftertheConfederateStates
the United States, Republican As part of his crusade surrender to the Union, Lincoln attends Ford’s
Party leader Abraham Lincoln to abolish slavery in the Theatre with his wife Mary Todd Lincoln, O An assassin thwarted
is inaugurated as the 16th US United States, Lincoln diplomatHenryRathboneandRathbone’s Confederate sympathiser John
president. He’s also the first issues a presidential fiancé Clara Harris. John Wilkes Booth, a Wilkes Booth enters Ford’s Theatre in
Republican to hold the highest proclamation that deems Confederate sympathiser, and his conspirators Washington, DC, with the desire to kill
seat of office. alltheslavesintheten decide to kill Lincoln. After barging into president Lincoln, the symbol of the
4March1861 rebellion states of the Lincoln’s box at the theatre Booth shoots South’s undoing. However, the plot is
Confederacy to be free. Lincoln in the head at point-blank range. discovered and Booth is wounded.
1 January 1863 11 April 1865 11 April 1865

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