That’s a very fair point. Johnson was drunk and obnoxious. But would Lincoln have supported the “radical reconstruction” agenda? I don’t think there is much evidence for that. Would we have had some sort of watered down 14th Amendment?
It’s all speculation, obviously. But probably the most defining characteristic of Lincoln as a politician was his adaptability. As Radical Republicans came to dominate the party, I’m sure he would have adjusted his positions on reconstruction to recognize this reality while working to temper what he saw as impractical impulses.
I think it’s also difficult to say how his own experiences with freedmen would have impacted him. His visit to Richmond, where he was mobbed by freed slaves who hailed him as their liberator, seems to have affected him. He may well have felt a personal responsibility for the wellbeing of those whose freedom he had helped secure.
Again, all speculation. I do know that Johnson almost pathologically couldn’t stop stepping on his own dick with Congress and left himself almost uniquely friendless on impeachment.
Sure, it is speculation, but I enjoy this sort of thing. It could be argued that had Lincoln lived, several things would not have happened. As the southern states believed correctly that Johnson was their friend and was more or less going to permit the status quo ante, minus actual slavery, they felt empowered to enact the Black Codes. And when Johnson didn’t push back, that outraged and radicalized the Republican party. And without the Black Codes, I doubt you get the Civil Rights Act of 1866 or the Tenure of Office Act or the several others which tried to undercut Johnson.
Remember that even after the Radical Republicans were swept into office in 1866 there still weren’t enough votes for a 15th Amendment for black suffrage. I think without an almost cartoonish president like Johnson, who as you said, couldn’t help but keep screwing up everything, you don’t get the voters to agree to such “radical” policies. Wouldn’t it be something if the best thing that ever happened to blacks in this country was that Lincoln was killed when he was?
The Radical Republicans did pass some important measures to safeguard freedmen’s rights – only to have them functionally ignored for nearly 100 years.
Was there another way? It seems to me that the only way to build an enduring new power structure in the South was through a coalition of freedmen and poor Southern whites. Such a coalition was unlikely in any circumstances, but if there was one politician who could have pulled it off it was probably Lincoln. As I’ve said, he had a talent for bringing together disparate factions and getting them to work together in pursuit of a common goal. To undermine my own speculation, however, Lincoln was also a lifelong supporter of business interests (he cut his teeth as a railroad lawyer, not splitting rails) and might have been leery about the lessons that empowering downtrodden Southerners might have for the Northern working classes.
Anyway, I would have been fascinated to see what Lincoln would have made of Reconstruction.
It is a very interesting thought process. Lincoln could have gained a grand bargain that might have made things better earlier.
Imagine if he said that you can have the Black Codes, but dial it back by about 75%. And they only last for five years. Ten years from then, black males get the right to vote. Ten years from then, desegregated schools. Ten years after that, no discrimination in public accommodations.
No Ku Klux Klan gets formed. No grand federal intrusion on state law. No Lost Cause. No lynchings. It’s really something that could have happened.
So, yes, my opinion is that had Lincoln lived we could either be living in a paradise or a dystopia. 