Impeach Lincoln

[Bill Richter]

L S Foster was defeated in the election of 1866 (probably too soft for other radical Republicans) and replaced in March of 1867 by Ben Wade as president pro tem of the US senate.

The impeachment of Lincoln is not a far stretch. Lots of his own party thought him too soft on the prosecution of the war and the ending of slavery, and Reconstruction with his 10% plan of readmission.

Although no one knows what his Reconstruction policies might have bee, it is widely believed by historians and buffs alike that he would have been able to stymie Congress more than Johnson did as Lincoln was a Republican and not a War Democrat as Johnson, and slicker and more flexible in his Reconstruction desires than Johnson proved to be.

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One other thing. Assuming that George Atzerodt was correct and that Sgt Harney was sent to blow up the White House during a cabinet meeting, the reason that it was to be done was to kill Lincoln and Johnson and throw the succession to the presidency to the president pro tem of the US senate. The Rebs knew that this was Foster, considered more moderate in his politics, and thus start an argument between him and the Radicals as to how to run the war and reconstruct the South. This would have screwed up communications between the White House and the Army commands long enough to allow Lee to break off from Grant and join Johnston in NC, defeat Sherman in detail and come back to reclaim Richmond by meeting Grant's army strung out along the roads. This is the Campaign of 1865 referred to in Tidwell, Hall and Gaddy, Come Retribution, 25-26, 362-402, and I used in Last Confederate Heroes, I, 356-61, and II, 421-22. See Laurie? Fiction sometimes works, as in the Impeachment of Lincoln.