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What If Abraham Lincoln Hadn't Died? Essay

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If Lincoln hadn’t died, a question that every student has come across while learning about the civil war, but what if he hadn’t died had reconstruction would had been better? Had former slaves gained better civil rights? Although these questions have no real answers and all we can come with are speculations, in Eric Foner’s essay he seems to address these questions with some acceptable reasons that made me come to the conclusion that if Lincoln hadn’t been assassinated the period of reconstruction would have been better than it was under Johnson. President Andrew Jackson opposed Lincoln’s plan of reconstruction, instead of forgiving the south like Lincoln wanted, Jackson wanted the south to suffer and pay for what it had cause, therefore …show more content…

Andrew Jackson, while radical republicans fought for greater civil rights for the new free African Americans, Pres. Jackson, being stubborn and racist, did all he could to suppress this movement, going as far as appointing new governments in the south that gave the newly free African Americans no voice and almost send them back to the way they were before, but the worst part of this is that Pres. Jackson open the way to extremist groups to form such as the Ku Klux Klan, a terrorist group made up of extremely racist southern white males that were working to reestablish white supremacy.
Coming back to our “if Lincoln was alive supposition”, when Lincoln ran for president he had no side on slavery and during the civil war he was not concerned on human equality but as the war went on Lincoln changed his mind about human equality as he realized that he could use former slaves like soldiers for the union, but after the emancipation proclamation and the new free African Americans started to call for civil rights and as the radical Republicans push the same purpose in congress, I can say that President Lincoln would have used his policy of listening to other people’s opinions in order to please the demands of his people. Also the process for civil rights would have been a lot easier, because Lincoln was

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