The Loyalty Oath during the Civil War

[STS Lincolnite]

(01-19-2015 04:28 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(01-19-2015 04:05 PM)Anita Wrote:  I'm also fuzzy on how far Lincoln's vision for reconstruction was actually documented...

(01-19-2015 04:11 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Lincoln's documented plans for Reconstruction and its implementation was one of the early questions that I asked on this forum, I think. If I remember right, I got practically no response - leaving me to believe that Lincoln did not have a clear plan of action.

(01-19-2015 04:24 PM)Wild Bill Wrote:  Suffice that Lincoln's real Reconstruction will remain an enigma because of his abrupt demise, but do not think him a push over for the South as many do.

Dr. Mark E. Neely, Jr. writes:

"No myth has a stronger hold on the popular mind than the assertion that John Wilkes Booth's bullet killed the best friend the South ever had. Yet the mildness of Lincoln's plans for Reconstruction may well have been a lure to get a warring people back. What he would have done in peacetime remains unknown."

Lincoln's plans for reconstruction...one of the great what ifs in history. I agree with what Bill and Mark Neely (per Roger's post) have stated.

With the start of the war, Lincoln's primary purpose was a restoration of the Union - all the states returning to "their proper place". Slavery, for example, still existing where it already existed. Then the nature and circumstances in the war caused a change in his ideas and philosophy. Soon the war was about more than just restoring the old Union with its same problems. It became about a transformation from that old Union into what Lincoln believed was one that was more consistent with the promise of the Founding Fathers. A Union where "all men are created equal". In hindsight, I think this is really what "reconstruction" was - a process of transformation that began with the start of the war itself.

I don't think we can ever know how Reconstruction would have looked under Lincoln's leadership, and I don't think what his thoughts were April 1865 would give us much of a clue as to how it would have turned out. This is because whatever Lincoln's plans were or were not at the time of his death, they would certainly have changed and evolved as the circumstances regarding the post-war Reconstruction unfolded. This was one of his great gifts. An approach that allowed him to see the bigger picture, to grow in his thoughts and ideas and to effectively adjust the "game plan" as he went along and as circumstances dictated. To pigeonhole Lincoln into a straight forward, unchanging course of action (leniency toward the South or harshness toward the South) is just too simple and it would be wholly inconsistent with his modus operandi.