Hannibal Hamlin

[AussieMick]

David Donald covers the choice of Johnson over Hamlin with quite a lot of words (pages 505-506). Those words are interesting (with a few guesses on the part of Donald I think) but it seems that theres a lot of intrigue and politicking. I wonder how hard Hamlin fought for the office of VP ... did he really want it? Lincoln seems to have been deliberately vague. "seems" being the operative word ... maybe his failure to press for Hamlin was more than just leaving it up to the Convention, maybe he wanted very much to have someone like Johnson with a view to 'peaceful' (my opinion) reconstruction and a more acceptable reconstruction to Southern States (my guess). Donald says that Hamlin may have been too 'radical' on slavery for Lincoln. What that means I am not sure nor the basis for Donald's assessment. Donald does say that Lincoln joked he wouldnt be assassinated because the Confederates knew what Hamlin was like ( I guess even more anti-slavery Lincoln).