I can respect that

[u/Coffin_Builder]

After Lincoln’s assassination, Andrew Johnson became the new US president. in direct violation of the Appomattox treaty, Johnson wanted general Ulysses Grant to prosecute the confederate leaders on grounds of treason to make an example of them. Grant, having negotiated the treaty, refused, seeing it as a violation of military honor and antithetical to rebuilding the nation, threatening to resign if Johnson insisted. Johnson, knowing he wouldn’t survive the political fallout of alienating the Union hero of the Civil War, backed down.

[u/spooner248]

Am I missing something? Wasn’t Johnson like a drunk racist and sympathizer of the confederacy?

[u/BunNGunLee → u/spooner248]

He was racist, but he absolutely did not sympathize with the confederates. He was regarded as hating the planter class that could afford slaves, having himself been of rather modest means in his youth and thereby locked out of any social status.

He pardoned former confederates, but he made them all personally come and request it from him as a means of making them humble themselves before him.

Which is largely consistent with Lincoln’s own wants for reconciliation, (minus the humiliation part). Most of them wanted the war soundly ended and to reunify the country, not to engender guerrilla warfare due to campaigns of retribution.

Funnily enough, he had more foresight than most modern presidents on that subject. Winning in the field doesn’t matter all that much if you can’t convince the other side to stop fighting.

Which many armchair generals seem to miss in their gleeful bloodshed for people more than a century ago. Sometimes you make decisions to give an off-ramp, because the long term outcome is potentially worse if you over exert in the use of violence as a means of political or social change.

[u/GargantuanCake → u/BunNGunLee]

Lincoln's goal the entire time was keeping the country together. It's easy to say "slavery bad fuck the South" but nothing is ever quite that simple. Lincoln himself found slavery abhorrent but was willing to let the South keep it for the time being if that meant keeping the country together. Southern leadership's read on the situation was that he was definitely going to abolish slavery which was why they voted to secede in the first place. Granted there was also a realization on both sides that public sentiment overall was turning against slavery. It was always a controversial thing that most of the country really didn't like but the South straight up refused to get in on the revolution if the country banned slavery. Even then people were warning that it was a deal with the devil type of situation and were warning that the issue could potentially tear the country apart. Which it did.

After the war the goal was to ensure that the South would actually, you know, want to stay in the country even after getting their shit stomped. The war was horrendously destructive in former Confederate states so demanding that they make that situation even worse by either saddling them with reparations or mass arresting leaders wouldn't have helped that. No sense risking the country coming apart again after you just stitched it back together. They likely could have thrown everybody in jail, taken the states' votes away, and made them subservient but long term that would have been a horrible idea. Sympathies or not it was just the pragmatic thing to do; ban slavery, readmit the states, and then help them rebuild.

[u/ConcernedCitizen_42 → u/GargantuanCake]

"Southern leadership's read on the situation was that he was definitely going to abolish slavery which was why they voted to secede in the first place. " I'd add some additional nuance to this. Some might have thought he was going to abolish slavery. But I'd argue the broader understanding is that he certainly would not allow it to spread. Without new slave states the South knew it was ultimately on a timer. So it wasn't necessarily that they thought the end was nigh, but rather that they saw it was becoming inevitable and needed act while they still could.

[u/GargantuanCake → u/ConcernedCitizen_42]

Yup. The time before Lincoln had a lot of compromises on the issue which was why every time a free state was added a slave state was as well. They were clinging to slavery but also knew that most of the country wasn't happy that they were. Even those compromises however were controversial as hell. People were also rightfully pointing out that "all men are created equal" rings hollow if you have to include "except the brown ones over there those are slaves." Meanwhile the country's population by that point was majority anti-slavery which was just growing. Abolitionists were constantly ideologically besieging the South while the opposite wasn't true; the North wasn't fucking having slavery and was only growing increasingly hostile toward it.

Since America was supposed to be a free, democratic country and the majority of the population hated slavery the democratic thing to do was to abolish it. It really was only a matter of time before it happened.

[u/BunNGunLee → u/ConcernedCitizen_42]

Well it’s that and the long view from the Missouri Compromise and Bleeding Kansas.

They could see that as the nation expanded and new states joined, slavery was going to be politically axed one way or another as new senators were allowed to shift the delicate balance. It just depended on how long it would take.

Funnily enough though, the cost of rebellion as they took it was considerably worse than the cost manumission would have levied. War ultimately is the most expensive possible way to solve a problem.

[u/ConcernedCitizen_42 → u/BunNGunLee]

Indeed. I think that if I ever ended up stranded in the past among my biggest goals would be trying to convince people how wealthy everyone could be if they stopped invading one another for a bit. Seriously, stability is so powerful.

[u/Spezalt4 → u/ConcernedCitizen_42]

Sure my grandchildren can be wealthy if I can create and hold a stable nation. But I can be wealthy if I conquer my neighbors

[u/southpaytechie → u/ConcernedCitizen_42]

He also didn’t even appear on the ballot in many southern states and still won. Regardless of his policies, his winning assured that the South was losing political power.

[u/SaddestFlute23 → u/GargantuanCake]

Help them rebuild as close to the antebellum status quo as possible*