I'm sure we've all heard that Lincoln is the best president ever from many sources. We also know that Lincoln was hated and ridiculed in his day. Is his popularity due to his assaination?

Other questions: Would Reconstruction have gone smoother if he did survive? Would Southern blacks have suffered less? Did Lincoln's death have any rammifications for the development of the doughnut? Where is my missing sock?

Originally posted by Octavian X
I'm sure we've all heard that Lincoln is the best president ever from many sources. We also know that Lincoln was hated and ridiculed in his day. Is his popularity due to his assaination?

I think that most leaders who have been assassinated tend to have a certain mystique form around them. This should not, however, diminish any of Lincoln's accomplishments. Nobody but Abe could have kept the Union together.

As to his being hated and ridiculed, this was certainly the case before the beginning of the war, when most of the Southern states refused to even put his name on the ballot. But by the time of his assassination, he had earned the respect and admiration of most Northerners, as his overwhelming victory in the 1864 elections proves. Even the south mourned his death, because they knew that with him died the best chance for a peaceful reconstruction of the country.

Well said, napoleon.

Originally posted by Octavian X
Did Lincoln's death have any rammifications for the development of the doughnut?

No one will ever could answer that.

Originally posted by napoleon526

I think that most leaders who have been assassinated tend to have a certain mystique form around them. This should not, however, diminish any of Lincoln's accomplishments. Nobody but Abe could have kept the Union together.

As to his being hated and ridiculed, this was certainly the case before the beginning of the war, when most of the Southern states refused to even put his name on the ballot. But by the time of his assassination, he had earned the respect and admiration of most Northerners, as his overwhelming victory in the 1864 elections proves. Even the south mourned his death, because they knew that with him died the best chance for a peaceful reconstruction of the country.


Most Certaintly with the mystique argument. Usually when leaders are killed, their successors have a easier time with congress, look what happened when LBJ first got into office.

Originally posted by napoleon526
. . . Even the south mourned his death, because they knew that with him died the best chance for a peaceful reconstruction of the country.

It is amazing how these legends get embedded in the public consciousness, and despite decades of more accurate historiography, still remain.

Lincoln was according to the academic sources I know moving more towards the so-called "Radical" Republicans before his assassination. But that didn't matter. Why??

Military Reconstruction began in MARCH of 1867 - 23 months after the war ended. In those two years the South was given every chance to be reasonable, but they were seeking to re-establish the status quo ante-bellum.

Even after March of 1867, Military Reconstruction was not nearly as tough as it should have been as Pres. Johnson opposed it thwarting the actions of various U.S. military governors. That is the same Johnson who pardoned Nathan Forrest for his war crimes at Fort Pillow. Ten years after Appomatox white racist gangs ruled most of the South terrorizing freed blacks, and Republican whites. The notorious Compromise of 1877 abandoned the entire South.

So, your history is about forty years out of date. (No offense meant).

Originally posted by REIEMDIS
It is amazing how these legends get embedded in the public consciousness, and despite decades of more accurate historiography, still remain.

Lincoln was according to the academic sources I know moving more towards the so-called "Radical" Republicans before his assassination. But that didn't matter.
Really? :rolleyes:

And what would these so called "academic sources" be? Throughout the last months of the war. Lincoln had stressed the the importance of accepting the south back into the Union quickly and painlessly in order to get past the hatred and let the country move forward. You sound like one of these 'fad historians' who advocate dubious controversial ideas about famous people in order to sound smart. To find out Lincoln's views on reconstruction, you don't have to look any further than his second innaugural address:

With malice toward none, with charity for all,
with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the
right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in,
to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who
shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his
orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a
just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all
nations.

I know moving more towards the so-called "Radical" Republicans before his assassination.
I thought he was moving in the opposite direction to the radicals. Or at least there were moving and he was remaining still.
I think that most leaders who have been assassinated tend to have a certain mystique form around them.
Yeah, we all remember the great achievements of James Garfield.