Lincoln How would Lincoln have handled Reconstruction?

[brass napoleon]

Isn't this an opinion the poster is allowed to have without threats? What modern day political agenda?

I don't recall any threat.

If Mr. Griffith would like to discuss tariffs and Northern business interests, he can start a thread about it, or respond to one of the umphundred threads that exist already. Then he will have ample opportunity to defend his position with facts and evidence, if he can. However, continuing to deliberately take one thread after another off topic can be considered trolling.

 

[kevikens]

I recall reading something many years ago on this topic and it really set me back and made me think. The author suggested that Lincoln died at precisely the moment that was going to turn him into a national (or at least a Northern) icon. Had he died a bit earlier, before the fall of Richmond and the surrender of Lee, some other president would have garnered some of the laurels that were placed on Lincoln's head. Getting shot on that Good Friday, 1865, assured him some kind of apotheosis.

But then that person went on to say that if he had lived out his second term, that his reputation would have foundered on the shoals of Reconstruction, that the task was so difficult, so impossible to satisfy an angry North, a sullen South and an expectant African American population, that his presidency would have been forever tainted by this failure and his stature forever diminished. That person concluded that the timing of Lincoln's death was absolutely the best possible time for him to ascend into the Elysian Fields. We probably consider such a thesis with much distaste but I think that author just may have been right.

 

[Rebforever]

I don't recall any threat.

If Mr. Griffith would like to discuss tariffs and Northern business interests, he can start a thread about it, or respond to one of the umphundred threads that exist already. Then he will have ample opportunity to defend his position with facts and evidence, if he can. However, continuing to deliberately take one thread after another off topic can be considered trolling.

Horse feathers, Brass.
Shucks, lighten up, man for goodness sakes!! Go back and read what you posted if you thing there was no threat?

 

[frontrank2]

I recall reading something many years ago on this topic and it really set me back and made me think. The author suggested that Lincoln died at precisely the moment that was going to turn him into a national (or at least a Northern) icon. Had he died a bit earlier, before the fall of Richmond and the surrender of Lee, some other president would have garnered some of the laurels that were placed on Lincoln's head. Getting shot on that Good Friday, 1865, assured him some kind of apotheosis.

But then that person went on to say that if he had lived out his second term, that his reputation would have foundered on the shoals of Reconstruction, that the task was so difficult, so impossible to satisfy an angry North, a sullen South and an expectant African American population, that his presidency would have been forever tainted by this failure and his stature forever diminished. That person concluded that the timing of Lincoln's death was absolutely the best possible time for him to ascend into the Elysian Fields. We probably consider such a thesis with much distaste but I think that author just may have been right.

There is some logic to that theory, but I would like to think that Mr Lincoln would've continued to be an American icon.

 

[brass napoleon]

There is some logic to that theory, but I would like to think that Mr Lincoln would've continued to be an American icon.

I agree with you, frontrank. Unless Lincoln really screwed up on Reconstruction, he would still be an American icon. But I think kevikens is also right that he was murdered at the point where he would be frozen at the pinnacle of iconity (OK, I admit, I just made that term up.) George Washington lived long enough to be brought down a few pegs from his pinnacle, but he's still considered an icon too.

 

[kevikens]

I think the point that the author was trying to get across was that Reconstruction was going to be the kind of Herculean task that any president, even Lincoln, was likely to screw up.