Lincoln and Hamlin?

[Wild Bill]

I wonder if there is not more to the dropping of Hamlin than what the usual historians say. I believe that it concerns Lincoln and Reconstruction, a theme cut short by his assassination. Hamlin was a Radical Republican.

In 1864, the Radicals challenged Lincoln and his "soft" Reconstruction of the South 3 ways: Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase ran independently; the radicals also split off rom Lincoln with their so-called Radical Democracy, running John Charles Fremont, the 1865 party standard bearer; and then the Radicals sent the much harsher Reconstruction program, the Wade Davis Bill. Lincoln was saved by Sherman taking Atlanta and then Sheridan's fall victories in the Shenandoah.

Andrew Johnson was a Reconstructor of Tennessee under the Lincoln Ten Percent Plan and a loyal Democrat who appealed to all such "War" Democrats, across party lines. So Lincoln ran as a National Union Party man. This left out Hamlin, a confirmed Radical throughout the war. This is not to say that Lincoln would be the South's best friend after the war had he lived. This is to say that Johnson showed that Lincoln's Reconstruction, no matter what it was, was achievable, and he did not yet want to be pinned down to any particular plan, nor even his own.

I have a paper on Lincoln's Reconstruction that looks into his real ideas, and they do not necessarily mean that he would have had a easy Reconstruction that might have pleased the South after the war. Remember, whatever problems Johnson had with the Radical Republicans, he was a Democrat. Lincoln was a Republican and he would not have had Johnson's disadvantages with Congress in the long run.

Typed without my glasses, so bear with me!