The Loyalty Oath during the Civil War

[RJNorton]

(01-19-2015 03:05 PM)Anita Wrote:  I'm also fuzzy on how far Lincoln's vision for reconstruction was actually documented...

(01-19-2015 03:11 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 03:24 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."