Can someone come up with a timeline on what would happen if Booth missed when he shot Lincoln? I want to see what others think. I know it's a cheesy topic for Alternate History, but I just want to see what others come up with.
John Wilkes Booth Misses
- Thread starter Pearlshire19
- Start date
Could be- Lincoln moves, and bumps Booth so he misses.Was that a suggestion on how it would happen.
We'd have a very different Reconstruction due to the different Presidents. Lincoln would serve until 1868, but I dont know who his successor would be. We may have a Grant-Johnson election- or perhaps Johnson doesn't get nominated.
Lincoln was pretty muscular, So Booth probably would no have gotten a second shot before he had two black eyes and no teeth, it could become a complete reverse of the assassination, Lincoln kills Booth, Lincoln throws Booth of the balcony, and then shouts "Take that you Dixie son of a bitch!"
Doubt Johnson gets the nom. with his southern sympathies. He really only got the veep slot to balance the original ticket IIRC. My $$ is on Grant.
Reconstruction is likely easier on the South. Whether this is better or worse for the South, Blacks, and/or the USA as a whole is a source of contentious debate.
There have been several scenarios and TL's about Lincoln living past April 1865. I suggest that you search this forum to see what others has thought about this in the past.
Lincoln and Mary's plan was to go out to California and explore the west. Cute really. Just an old couple lounging around the western country as they travel to a fro, seeing San Francisco and the Pacific Northwest, photo-ops with Mark Twain and Abe living out the rest of his days quietly and peacefully compared to two terms which aged him decades by deep melancholy. Sad how it didn't happen. So term 3 is a no go unless Abe somehow feels the nation really desperately needs him.
Reconstruction may be somewhat easier on the south with less of a revenge factor, but I can still see Abe sending in troops to occupy the south to make sure it recovers and puts in place civil liberties for the freed Negroes, at least after they prove unwilling to do so themselves (which is likely). I also think his plan was to educate the Negroes via freedmen schools and then give them citizenship and the vote so he may have educated and then given that, or given that while educating them, or maybe events may have pushed him to deal with it some other way such as how the "Radical Republicans" did it. Perhaps you'll see
Grant still; I'm not sure who any contenders could be since wikipedia says the GOP rallied around him unanimously.
Who runs in 1868, I don't know. But its not going to be Johnson for the GOP. Johnson was a Democrat and the Republicans only ran him on the temporary coalition party of the "Union Party". Post 1868, there will be no such coalition. I do think Lincoln could coax the GOP not to wave the bloody shirt against the Democrats, though. Or at least he'd try.
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Anywho, how would this affect political realignment? Would the Republican party remain the progressive most party and the Democrats the conservative most of the two if Lincoln lives? Or would history find a way and the Republicans would still go into the conservative camp and the Democrats the progressive/liberal one (that also leaves the issue of "factions" (liberal, moderate and conservative, which had existed in both of the two parties and only faded in the last few decades of our history; I think Reagan hit that death nail.) and whether they'd still exist or fade away as they did in the OTL leaving only a conservative party (Republicans) or liberal one (Democrats), but that may be too complex to gauge.)?
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