Abraham Lincoln and Reconstruction

[LatinKaiser]

What would Presidential Reconstruction under President Lincoln have looked like? Popular history seems to portray him as a magnanimous victor who would have reunited the nation (unlike the Radical Republicans) and pursued civil rights for free blacks (unlike Andrew Johnson). However, these two objectives were, as I understand, mutually exclusive. Even getting the Southern states to accept the 13th Amendment was hard (I mean, the war was fought because the South explicitly wanted to preserve slavery), so I don’t see how the federal government could advance rights for freedmen without alienating former Confederates. Furthermore, wasn’t Lincoln’s initial plan for Reconstruction similar to Johnson’s (minus the inferiority complex)?

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Simply put, Lincoln wanted a civil peace to end the civil war. He wanted the South brought back in like family who had quarreled but were reunited once more.

The Department of War in general, and Stanton specifically, wanted blood for blood.

Lincoln was shot in the back of the head when his Department of War bodyguard went to the bar to get a drink, and the assassin was there waiting for him. There is no doubt who killed Lincoln, there are many odd circumstances surrounding the assassination.

What we do know is the peace was as harsh and as unpleasant as possible, which created push back from the occupied territories, and the people who paid the long-term price for that were the freed Blacks.

Unfortunately, we will never know what Reconstruction would look like under Lincoln's tutelage. I rather expect some clever machinations, and even more clever rhetoric, would have eminated from the tall man from Illinois who bore so much pain and suffering from all sides. Alas.

 

[Eusebio]

What we do know is the peace was as harsh and as unpleasant as possible

lol

 

[JodelDiplom]

What would Presidential Reconstruction under President Lincoln have looked like? Popular history seems to portray him as a magnanimous victor who would have reunited the nation (unlike the Radical Republicans) and pursued civil rights for free blacks (unlike Andrew Johnson). However, these two objectives were, as I understand, mutually exclusive. Even getting the Southern states to accept the 13th Amendment was hard (I mean, the war was fought because the South explicitly wanted to preserve slavery), so I don’t see how the federal government could advance rights for freedmen without alienating former Confederates. Furthermore, wasn’t Lincoln’s initial plan for Reconstruction similar to Johnson’s (minus the inferiority complex)?

Those goals indeed seem contradictory but great statesmen have ways of reconciling even contradictory goals.

Bismarck crushed liberalism and united Germany under the Prussian crown, yet brought the world's first social system as well. He achieved great things by asking a lot from all factions, negotiating a lot, knowing when to apply moderation and even to go all in. The question is always, can he/she bring people who are opposed to him around and find common ground, and can he keep those who profited from him at a distance so he can extricate concessions from them too. Great statesmen know how to do that. Their role is a very lonely one though. But charisma, foresight and most importantly personality go a long way.

The task was obviously monumental and those who followed after Lincoln's death largely failed at it, but Lincoln really had already displayed enormous charisma and personality in his leadership so it may have been possible had the union leadership remained united under him. Who knows.

 

[keynes2.0]

Lincoln understood that the interest of the South and the interest of racist southern oligarchs were not identical. Johnson gave the oligarchs breathing room to convince the public that was the case but it was hardly inevitable that would happen. Lincoln didn't just want 40 acres and a mule for blacks, he also believed in things like the homestead acts and land grants. If he had four years to push his agenda then endorse a successor the southern working class would have four years to associate emancipation with the rapid improvement in their economic status. Historically there were plenty of progressives in the south, they just lost. With an ally in the white house instead of an enemy they might have won.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Lincoln understood that the interest of the South and the interest of racist southern oligarchs were not identical. Johnson gave the oligarchs breathing room to convince the public that was the case but it was hardly inevitable that would happen. Lincoln didn't just want 40 acres and a mule for blacks, he also believed in things like the homestead acts and land grants. If he had four years to push his agenda then endorse a successor the southern working class would have four years to associate emancipation with the rapid improvement in their economic status. Historically there were plenty of progressives in the south, they just lost. With an ally in the white house instead of an enemy they might have won.

This might be the most intelligent observation that I have heard you make about the ACW.

 

[Herbert West]

What we do know is the peace was as harsh and as unpleasant as possible

What? The peace was a slap on the wrist, and it's enforcement was basically non-existent, allowing the South to re-introduce slavery in all but name, and to treat it's black population as third-class citizens for the next hundred years.

 

[The-Doc]

What? The peace was a slap on the wrist, and it's enforcement was basically non-existent, allowing the South to re-introduce slavery in all but name, and to treat it's black population as third-class citizens for the next hundred years.

I'm not sure anything else was possible. What would the point of preserving the Union be if it meant endless military occupation?

 

[keynes2.0]

I'm not sure anything else was possible. What would the point of preserving the Union be if it meant endless military occupation?

Sure there were other things possible. Make sure that the pro-Unionist whites and free blacks are in control of the southern governments rather then handing power off to the ex-confederate "redeemers" as quickly as humanly possible. When you count the black population, there probably wasn't a single state in the south where the confederacy had support of a majority of the population. But with the death of Lincoln, the presidency fell into the hands of a man who *wanted* the redeemers to win.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

What? The peace was a slap on the wrist, and it's enforcement was basically non-existent, allowing the South to re-introduce slavery in all but name, and to treat it's black population as third-class citizens for the next hundred years.

Russia, rolling tanks down the main streets of Budapest, made the Hungarians more or less willing to embrace Soviet Communism?

It is hard to create positive momentum for an idea when an area is under military occupation.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Sure there were other things possible. Make sure that the pro-Unionist whites and free blacks are in control of the southern governments rather then handing power off to the ex-confederate "redeemers" as quickly as humanly possible. When you count the black population, there probably wasn't a single state in the south where the confederacy had support of a majority of the population. But with the death of Lincoln, the presidency fell into the hands of a man who *wanted* the redeemers to win.

This is not exactly true. Johnson wanted to break the planter class, he wanted power to pass to the common White man. Allowing Blacks to vote unrestrained, his belief was that the Blacks would remain loyal to their ex-masters, and thus would outnumber the Free Whites of the Plebeian class would never gain the ascendancy. Having said that, Johnson was incredibly ineffectual even before he was made the great Scapegoat for all that went wrong with Reconstruction.

Reconstruction is very involved and complicated because there are many, many different factions with their hands in the pie. You have the outright Abolitionists who truly want free and equal Negroes by passing the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. Then, you have Roscoe Conkling.

Roscoe Conkling helped frame the Fourteenth Amendment. A professional politician, he becomes a lawyer and goes to work for the railroads. In a landmark Supreme Court Case - 'Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad' - Conkling argues, successfully, the word 'person' in the Fourteenth Amendment was phrased specifically to endow corporations with all the rights and privileges of a human being. With the blessing of SCOTUS, the 'corporation' becomes a very very powerful tool for the bankers to play with.

This is the hidden reality of the War of the Rebellion and Reconstruction: what are you reconstructing? The life and role of the Black man in America, anywhere in America? No. Federal power? Absolutely.

 

[LatinKaiser]

Roscoe Conkling helped frame the Fourteenth Amendment. A professional politician, he becomes a lawyer and goes to work for the railroads. In a landmark Supreme Court Case - 'Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad' - Conkling argues, successfully, the word 'person' in the Fourteenth Amendment was phrased specifically to endow corporations with all the rights and privileges of a human being. With the blessing of SCOTUS, the 'corporation' becomes a very very powerful tool for the bankers to play with.

Ah, so now we know who to blame for Citizens United.

Thanks for the illuminating responses, everyone! It's definitely easy (as a carpetbagging Yankee, at least) to think of postbellum Southern politics as just blacks vs. whites, forgetting the socio-economic divides that existed before, during, and after slavery.

 

[bz249]

Russia, rolling tanks down the main streets of Budapest, made the Hungarians more or less willing to embrace Soviet Communism?

It is hard to create positive momentum for an idea when an area is under military occupation.

OFF
Note that Hungarians did embrace Communism, because the new leader realized that he had to apply the "carrots" component of the "carrots and sticks" too not just the "sticks" part. And so has born Goulash Communism. ;-)
/OFF

 

[The Balbinater]

Lincoln didn't just want 40 acres and a mule for blacks

You must mean "40 acres and a mule for blacks" IN LIBERIA-->

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

"Early in his presidency, Abraham Lincoln tried repeatedly to arrange resettlement of the kind the ACS supported, but each arrangement failed."

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_and_slavery#Colonization

"President Lincoln supported colonization during the Civil War as a practical response to newly freed slaves."

Just where are they going?

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

 

[keynes2.0]

"Early in his presidency,

Found your problem. Lincoln was a politician and a man of the world. He changed, frequently. Cherry picking his life will create a distorted picture.

 

[The-Doc]

Found your problem. Lincoln was a politician and a man of the world. He changed, frequently. Cherry picking his life will create a distorted picture.

It is interesting to look at how the moderate and reasonable tack on how to deal with the slave issue in America shifted so much between pre-and post war. From what I gather by way of letters and editorials full out abolitionism was viewed as a pesky minority view, a bunch of trouble makers really that were mucking up the process of delicate compromise and compensation that would be needed. Then you can read some of the same writers being down right abolitionist and for full and equal rights later on.

A useful object lesson in how crisis can shift the prospects of minority views and how general commonsense is altered.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Found your problem. Lincoln was a politician and a man of the world. He changed, frequently. Cherry picking his life will create a distorted picture.

It is more that he introduced the idea to the leaders of the African American communities; who told him point blank America was their home. He felt it would be hard for them if they stayed, but understood the logic behind the decision.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

It is interesting to look at how the moderate and reasonable tack on how to deal with the slave issue in America shifted so much between pre-and post war. From what I gather by way of letters and editorials full out abolitionism was viewed as a pesky minority view, a bunch of trouble makers really that were mucking up the process of delicate compromise and compensation that would be needed. Then you can read some of the same writers being down right abolitionist and for full and equal rights later on.

A useful object lesson in how crisis can shift the prospects of minority views and how general commonsense is altered.

The point you omit is the amount of blood spilled in between. And the amount of hypocrisy surrounding this issue is tremendous.

 

[Eusebio]

On Lincoln and slavery, I think Frederick Douglass said it best:

I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.

 

[The Balbinater]

Way too many people here in the United States get their information about our 16th President from the movies-->

Too much TV. Not enough books.