James Swanson in the Wall Street Journal

[Rsmyth]

James Swanson and Michael Bishop had an article in the Wall Street Journal titled "A President Who Lived and Died for Liberty." The story was obviously about Lincoln but in it they refer to VP Johnson as coarse and inept. Later as president they say he was a racist, eager to usher the Confederate states back in the Union and caledl him crude, inflexible and the president that botched Reconstruction. I wonder what others on this board think of this analysis?

[RJNorton]

Thanks for citing the article, Rich.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-president-...1428967338

Here is the text:

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A President Who Lived and Died for Liberty

Lincoln’s assassination 150 years ago still offers invaluable lessons about the importance of leadership.

By
James L. Swanson And

Michael F. Bishop

April 13, 2015 7:22 p.m. ET

One hundred and fifty years ago, on April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln went to the theater.

The day began as one of the happiest of his life. Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender on April 9 had elated him, and he had been more buoyant than at any other time during his presidency. Three-quarters of a million men had fallen in the Civil War over which he had presided, and the conflict had almost consumed him.

“This war is eating my life out,” he once said to abolitionist Illinois congressman Owen Lovejoy. “I have a strong impression that I shall not live to see the end.”

On the afternoon of the 14th, during a carriage ride with his wife, he said, “Mary, I consider this day, the war has come to a close. We must both be more cheerful in the future. Between the war and the loss of our darling Willie we have both been very miserable.” Freed from the vexations of war and death—no more would he have to send armies of young men to die—Lincoln dreamed of the future.

It was not to be. On what Walt Whitman would soon call that “moody, tearful night” Lincoln became the war’s final casualty.

We know what happened next: Lincoln’s triumphant arrival at Ford’s Theatre; the cheering audience; the strains of “Hail to the Chief”; a single gunshot; the gleaming knife flourished by the murderer; the leap to the stage; the assassin’s exultant cry of “Sic Semper Tyrannis”; his escape into the wings; a galloping horse; and a dying president lying on the floor in a playhouse gone mad. Lincoln was carried across the street to the cramped back bedroom of a boarding house, where began the long deathbed vigil from midnight to dawn that transformed him from mortal man to secular saint.

One reporter for the New York Times wrote that “a stroke from Heaven laying the whole of the city in instant ruins could not have startled us as did word from Ford’s Theatre a half hour ago.” The country’s mood changed overnight from inexpressible joy to unimaginable sorrow.

One million Americans viewed his corpse when it was placed on public display in the 12 great cities of the North, including Philadelphia, New York and Chicago. More than seven million watched his funeral train pass as it chugged from Washington westward to Illinois. Whitman immortalized that journey in “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”: “Here, coffin that slowly passes, I give you my sprig of Lilac.”

Clanging bells, fragrant flowers and black bunting and crepe—these were the sounds, symbols and scents of the spring of 1865. One hundred and fifty years later, what does the death of Abraham Lincoln mean?

It is obvious but too often overlooked that Lincoln died a martyr for civil rights. Already the prime instrument of the abolition of slavery, through the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment he masterfully maneuvered through Congress, Lincoln in the last speech of his life called for voting rights for black Americans. Among the crowd at the White House, as the president spoke from a second-floor window, was John Wilkes Booth. Incandescent with rage and spewing racial hatred, he resolved to assassinate Lincoln. Seventy-two hours later, he fired the fatal shot.

The first presidential assassination affirmed the enduring strength of our form of government. By April 1865 American institutions had survived their severest trial, but the constitutional fabric of the nation was further frayed in the aftermath of Lincoln’s murder. The Union, though, would endure; the United States would assume its place as the dominant world power. American democracy transcended any one man, even one as great as Lincoln.

And yet, the death of Lincoln did grave harm to the Union he had given his life to save. Not least of the tragedies to befall the nation that day was the accession to power of the coarse and inept Vice President Andrew Johnson, who himself might have died had the assassin dispatched to murder him not lost his nerve. Crude and inflexible, Johnson botched the reconstruction of the nation. Lincoln had rightly considered Reconstruction “the greatest question ever presented to practical statesmanship,” but his successor lacked his principled pragmatism.

Eager to usher Confederate states back into the Union, and himself a racist, Johnson was indifferent to the callous treatment of newly freed slaves. The eventual reconciliation of North and South came at the expense of civil rights for black Americans, which poisoned race relations for a century.

The death of Lincoln reminds us that leadership matters, and that much depends on the occupant of the White House. Lincoln lived and died for liberty, union and equal rights for all people. With every fiber of his being, Abraham Lincoln believed in American greatness and exceptionalism.

As we mourn him on the anniversary of his death, we must do more than yearn for great leaders like Lincoln. We must cultivate and elect them.

Mr. Swanson, senior legal scholar at the Heritage Foundation, is the author of “Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer” (William Morrow, 2006). Mr. Bishop has held several posts on Capitol Hill and in the White House, and is the former executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

[Jim Garrett]

While I don't pretend to know much about the inner politics of the republican party in 1864, I always found the choice of Andrew Johnson as the VP running mate beyond my comprehension. Johnson was a Southern Democrat who stayed in the Union, and the only thing I can see that AL would want him as a running mate in 1864 was that he was from Tennessee and was loyal to the Union. Am I missing something? Otherwise, I think James Swanson's assessment is pretty much on the mark.

[LincolnToddFan]

Jim, you are not the only one who feels that way. The choice to dump Hannibal Hamlin and replace him with someone like Johnson was an example of crafty political pragmatism on the part of Lincoln. It was Lincoln being what he was-in addition to his "better angels" qualities...a hard nosed politico. It reminds me of JFK's decision to pick another Southerner named Johnson as his running mate in 1960.

[L Verge]

(04-24-2015 09:48 AM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  Jim, you are not the only one who feels that way. The choice to dump Hannibal Hamlin and replace him with someone like Johnson was an example of crafty political pragmatism on the part of Lincoln. It was Lincoln being what he was-in addition to his "better angels" qualities...a hard nosed politico. It reminds me of JFK's decision to pick another Southerner named Johnson as his running mate in 1960.

I agree about the questionable choice of Johnson. I don't want to be the one to have to do the research on why this choice was agreed to OR whether or not Johnson was as miserable as some authors have suggested. However, I have had at least one author, Gene Smith, tell me that the hatchet-job that historians have done was not entirely justified.

My question has always been whether or not Reconstruction would have really gone so smoothly as we anticipate under Lincoln. Would the Radical Republicans (and others) have cooperated once the war was over? Weren't they the ones hell-bent for leather to punish the South? Has Johnson become a scape-goat? I just can't believe that Lincoln would have allowed Johnson on the ticket if he was such a loser - politics aside.

[LincolnToddFan]

To answer one of your questions Laurie, no...I do not believe Reconstruction would have gone smoothly under Lincoln despite his consummate political skills and personal gifts. There was already tension in his friendship with Radical Republican Charles Sumner at the time of the assassination. Ben Wade, another Radical, was openly contemptuous of him.I've read somewhere that he considered the president's murder as serendipity, a sign from God.

Author Gore Vidal once said in an interview that he did not believe Lincoln's close relationship with Edwin Stanton would have survived Reconstruction, either.

"Masterfully, he threaded his way through both camps(conservative and Radical), taking a moderate stand that looked extreme only from either end." ...emphasis mine, American Brutus, Kauffman, pg#143

Thank goodness that he had the talent and wisdom for what was called for when the very survival of the country was at stake. But how can we ever be 100% certain of how he might have exercised those same skills after the war's end, when he had been vindicated and was holding the cards? The pressure on him from both sides would have been as impossible as it was during the war, but would he have finally been able to "pick a side"? Critic Lerone Bennett believes he would have indeed cast his lot with the conservatives, and history would have judged him vastly different.

He was tired and ill. Who knows?

[Gene C]

Johnson was a pro union democrat in a southern state. His selection was pure politics.
IMO Lincoln was hoping he would be useful in easing the southern states back into the union. While dissapointed at Johnson's behavior at the inauguration,
it appears Lincoln was able to move on, but Johnson seems to have never been a part of Lincoln's inner circle of political friends.

[L Verge]

(04-24-2015 11:09 AM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  To answer one of your questions Laurie, no...I do not believe Reconstruction would have gone smoothly under Lincoln despite his consummate political skills and personal gifts. There was already tension in his friendship with Radical Republican Charles Sumner at the time of the assassination. Ben Wade, another Radical, was openly contemptuous of him.I've read somewhere that he considered the president's murder as serendipity, a sign from God.

Author Gore Vidal once said in an interview that he did not believe Lincoln's close relationship with Edwin Stanton would have survived Reconstruction, either.

"Masterfully, he threaded his way through both camps(conservative and Radical), taking a moderate stand that looked extreme only from either end." ...emphasis mine, American Brutus, Kauffman, pg#143

Thank goodness that he had the talent and wisdom for what was called for when the very survival of the country was at stake. But how can we ever be 100% certain of how he might have exercised those same skills after the war's end, when he had been vindicated and was holding the cards? The pressure on him from both sides would have been as impossible as it was during the war, but would he have finally been able to "pick a side"? Critic Lerone Bennett believes he would have indeed cast his lot with the conservatives, and history would have judged him vastly different.

He was tired and ill. Who knows?

This is not the Southerner in me speaking, but I tend to agree with Mr. Bennett's opinion on Lincoln having to change policies if he had lived to contend with Reconstruction. I also think that his redeeming features have been refined and polished extensively because of his assassination. Had he lived to go out of office naturally, I suspect he would be far less adored than he is today -- and I also think that Reconstruction would still have been miserable.

[LincolnToddFan]

I don't believe Reconstruction would have been quite as harsh for the freedmen or the former Confederates if Lincoln had been president...but yes. It would still have been a difficult pill to swallow for both sides.

And just like during the war, extremists on both ends would have been bitterly disappointed with Abraham Lincoln.

There is probably no way he could have navigated it with his reputation unscathed...in other words there would probably be no Lincoln Memorial on the Mall today.