Questions About John Brown

[L Verge]

Over the years, I have asked probably a dozen students of Lincoln what Reconstruction would have been like if he had not been assassinated. No one would give me a straight answer as to what they thought his actions would be. One of the best scholars was asked to give a talk on that topic at a conference years ago. He declined (probably wisely) saying that no one knows, so he was not going to speculate.

My only knowledge, of course, was based on that rather cold response to Stephens of "root hog or die." It was probably honest on Lincoln's part to say that, but I didn't think it was very benevolent of him. I also knew that he had backed out of compensating slave owners in Maryland, so that won him no support. Had he developed contingency plans with anti-slavery leaders? Cabinet and Congress? Even telling Grant to "let them up easy" at the surrender applied to the Southern military, not the general citizen (and freedmen) of the defeated Confederacy, those whose homes, lands, and infrastructure had just been decimated by Union forces. I know that's what war does, but it just seems strange that there were no written plans for what would happen after surrender.

I seldom read military and political books on the Civil War because I do not digest them well. Has any author written a good one on what Lincoln planned or what his options were? Would Lincoln have been able to control the Radical Republicans once the war was over? Would he have stuck to "root hog" policy? Did he really lack plans for Reconstruction -- and thus leave the problems for someone else to clean up? This inquiring mind wants to know, or at least have someone make an educated guess.