Hamlin vs. Johnson

[Steve]

Interesting answer on Quora Digest regarding whether or not things would have been different during Reconstruction if Hamlin had been kept on Lincoln's ticket in 1864:

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As John C. Breckinridge said when he heard of Lincoln’s assassination, “the South has lost its best friend.”

That's a spurious Breckinridge quote. It's an abbreviated form of the last line of the sketch of Lincoln's life from page 8 of the April 16, 1865 edition of the New York Herald, which reads:

In Mr. Lincoln the Southern people have lost their best friend, and the rebel leaders one of their wisest bitterest enemies.

You can read the full article here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/...d-1/seq-8/

It was probably written by the editor and publisher of the Herald, James Gordon Bennett Sr. Different forms of the first half of the quote were reprinted in various newspapers. The earliest version of the exact quote, which I can find so far, comes from a sub-title given to a wire article reprinted on page 6 of the 23 April 1865 edition of the New Orleans Times:

   

The attribution of the quote to Breckinridge comes from Louisiana socialite Eliza Ripley's 1912 book Social Life in Old New Orleans: Being Recollections of My Girlhood:

https://books.google.com/books?id=Xa0UAA...22&f=false

Eliza claimed she heard Breckinridge say that to a crowd of Confederates in Cuba after word of the assassination reached them. However, Breckinridge didn't reach Cuba until June 1865.