I read in What Lincoln Believed, by Michael Lind, that Lincoln remained a colonizationist almost to the end of his life – that is, like all white Americans of his time except the most radical wing of the Abolitionists, he believed that blacks were not really equal to whites by heredity, and that they were just too different to share the same republican society with whites on an equal basis. Therefore, on emancipation, they (and the already-free blacks) should be deported en masse to a new homeland in Africa or the Caribbean or Latin America, like Liberia on a larger scale, where Lincoln fully expected them to set up a free and flourishing and civilized republican state. Late in the war he assigned General McClellan to study this problem; McClellan reported that not all the naval and merchant-marine resources of the U.S. could possibly deport the blacks “half so fast as Negro children shall be born here.” After that Lincoln lost interest in the idea and began to think of on what terms blacks should be accommodated as permanent residents. He proposed giving the vote to the “more intelligent” of them (without suggesting any intelligence or knowledge tests for white voters); that was as far as he thought of going. The plan he apparently intended for Reconstruction involved readmitting the Southern states to the Union and Congress quickly and on easy terms.
Now, in view of all that, how do you think Reconstruction would have gone if Lincoln had run it? That is, if he had not been assassinated? And what would have been the long-term effects on the South and on race relations?
In our timeline, Reconstruction was run by the Radical Republicans (who were limited in what they could do as they still had to deal with Andrew Johnson, who did not think like them). They never pursued the “40 acres and a mule” idea, but they insisted on full political equality for African-Americans right away, and the blacks voted (as did many newly enfranchised whites), and many blacks got into state government, and it is a myth that they were extraordinarily ignorant, incompetent or (by the standards of the time) corrupt there. Reconstruction failed only because there was a white-supremacist political backlash that ultimately succeeded (finally getting the federal government’s nose out in the Compromise of 1877).
One thing I’ll put on the Lincoln-would-have-done-it-better side: From the beginning of his political life in the Whigs, Lincoln was a big “internal improvements” man – he saw transportation infrastructure as the thing America needed most and he favored massive government funding to develop it. If he ran Reconstruction, he might have made sure the South got a new-and-improved system of highways, railroads and canals, which could only have helped its economic recovery and prospects for long-term prosperity.
I think Reconstruction wouldn’t have been as strict as it was. He would have fought with Congress…that’s clear from the Wade-Davis veto. You probably should read this, which includes some of Lincoln’s actual reconstruction comments:
From what I’ve read Lincoln was a pragmatist: he wouldn’t have committed to any ideological “grand plan” for Reconstruction. He would have been in favor of whatever seemed to work. What is often overlooked due to Lincoln’s subsequent assassination is that while in office he was one of the most disliked presidents in history, bitterly criticized by both sides of the political spectrum. His second administration would have been as bad or worse.
Lincoln would have had to face the same Radical Republican congress that Johnson faced. My guess is that as the victorious Commander-In-Chief and as a fellow Republican* Lincoln would have had more political capital than Johnson, and would have been less racist than Johnson (though that’s not saying a lot). He probably would have been politically savvy enough to realize that every enfranchised freedman was going to be a guaranteed Republican vote, and supported passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. My guess is that he would have pushed for a somewhat more conciliatory attitude towards the South; Lincoln would probably have gone in expecting the southern states to be quickly restored to full standing in the Union (which was what he’d struggled for for four years), but what he would have done when that didn’t seem likely to happen is anyone’s guess.
*although Lincoln’s splitting from the radicals to form the Union ticket in 1864 would probably not be soon forgotten.
I think you can look at his second Inaugural address for an idea of his thoughts on it. It seems pretty clear to me that Lincoln wasn’t particularly interested in punishing the former Confederate states, and wanted to get them back into the Union and rebuild them.
As to whether or not it would have gone down as he hoped, I don’t know. But I suspect that Lincoln would have had enough political clout and enough personal charisma to pull it off.
Nitpick: the Union ticket wasn’t Lincoln splitting from the Radicals. Lots of Republicans ran on it to make thigns easier for pro-War Democrats. The Radicals didn’t like Lincoln for a lot of reasons, but that wasn’t one of them.
It’s important to remember that Lincoln was an absolute political genius. He was able to keep in touch with people from around the country from every political stripe, all the while ably guaging the public opinion. He tended to lead it slightly on racial issues, never so far away that he lost credibility.
Some people think that makes him racist or a hypocrite, but he was simply achieving what was possible. That’s what made him so great as a leader. The radicals were cranks - the same class went for every damn intellectual-masturbatory fad which came down the line. To a certain degree they may have cared more about slavery and racism, but they also would have failed to help any actual slaves.
Now whether that would have fixed the ultimate problem is unknown. Grant tried (hard) and marshalled every resource of the United States, but he ultimately couldn’t change the attitudes of southern whites, who were partly racist and partly terrified of losing their economic place.
I suspect Lincoln would have been more circumspect in introducing blacks to the nation’s political life. While I think the Radicals had the better idea in theory, Lincoln was successful in building a place for black Americans in Missouri and Louisiana. It wasn’t ideal, but a similar program could have done more long-term good.
With Lincoln at the helm, I suspect we would have skipped directly to a not-quite-as-bad Jim Crow without going through the false dawn of Reconstruction. IOW, Lincoln would have arrived sooner at what state of civil rights for African-Americans was realistically achievable given southern opposition.