Lincoln Wins! – The Story According to Fergus

Presidential wannabe George McClellan

Buried on the bottom of a back page in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, a fairly amazing story worth retelling. The author is historical Fergus Bordewich. The place is the United States, right around this time of year, 150 years ago. You may remember the name George McClellan. “Handsome and self-confident,” he had utterly failed in his role as the General in charge of President Lincoln’s Union Army. At the time, the charismatic McClellan was running against Lincoln in the 1864 election, and everyone (including Lincoln) was certain that McClellan would become the next president (Lincoln’s Republicans considered re-election “an impossibility”). According to Bordewich, “In practical terms McClellan’s victory would likely have led to European recognition of the Confederacy, Southern Independence and the forcible return to slavery of hundreds of thousands of former slaves who had fled to the Union armies for safety.” To make matters worse, the current Union General, Ulysses Grant, was making a habit of losing battle after battle.

Vice President Hannibal Hamlin

So here’s the staunch abolitionist Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, then-current Vice President of the United States, a man who would have been President (after Lincoln’s passing) if history had played out differently. The party decides that what Lincoln really needs is a “deep-dyed racist” as his replacement running mate, and they choose a Democrat, the Governor of Tennessee (which was controlled by the Union), Andrew Johnson. Lincoln hoped that Johnson would swing some Democrats over to his side. Then, Lincoln got lucky. The North started winning his battles, and Union Admiral Farragut took over Mobile, Alabama (and said, “damn the torpedoes—full speed ahead!). Sherman captured Atlanta. (Grant was still struggling, but generally heading in a positive direction).

Lincoln wins. He carries every state except Kentucky (makes sense, right?), Delaware (kind of southern), and New Jersey (huh?).

President Andrew Johnson, whose extensive political career included time as a Senator and Congressman from Tennessee, and its governor. He also reached the rank of Brigadier General in the Union Army.

The aftermath: Lincoln in April, 1865. If Hamlin had remained on the ticket, he would have become President and, according to Bordewich, he would have gotten reconstruction underway in a thorough and meaningful way, and probably would have ignited the Civil Rights movement some eighty years before it finally came together. Instead, we had the unexpected President Johnson, in place for purely political reasons—without him, McClellan would have won. Johnson did his job for his Southern friends—he did everything he could to restore the pre-war status quo, and “tolerated horrific reprisals against blacks to attempted to exercise their newly run freedoms.” Congress was so unhappy with Johnson’s defiant ways, they did something they had never done before: they impeached the President of the United States.

Here’s the original WSJ article written by Fergus Bordewich.