The Shattered Union: Lincoln's Assassination and the Dawn of Reconstruction
It was a warm spring evening in Washington D.C. when America's path to healing was violently derailed. On April 14, 1865, just days after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, President Abraham Lincoln settled into his seat at Ford's Theatre to enjoy a comedy called "Our American Cousin." Lincoln had been having disturbing dreams about death for weeks, even telling his wife Mary about a particularly haunting vision where he saw himself lying in a coffin at the White House. Despite these dark omens, Lincoln was in an unusually good mood that night. His wife Mary even remarked, "Dear husband, you almost startle me by your great cheerfulness."
Meanwhile, just a few miles away, a British actor and Confederate sympathizer named John Wilkes Booth was busy finalizing the dirty details of a plan to assassinate the president, vice president, and secretary of state. Booth and his three co-conspirators believed that by decapitating the government it would throw the Union into chaos and give the Confederacy a chance to reform.
Booth made his way behind the area the president would be located and actually drilled a hole in the wall so he could watch his victim and then and he waited. His co-conspirators were not successful. A gentleman named Powell was tasked with killing W.H. Seward the Secretary of State. Seward was sick in bed but proved a difficult target and wrestled with Powell until help arrived. Seward was stabbed in the process but survived. Mr. Atzerodt was supposed to kill Andrew Johnson but instead found it much easier to get drunk and never bothered to carry out his part of the scheme.
Booth was not going to miss his mark. When the Lincoln’s arrived, Booth was able to situate himself so he could climb the stairs to the area where Lincoln was seated, unnoticed. He waited until a humorous part in the play filled the house with laughter to make his move, the .44 Derringer pistol in one hand and a knife in the other. He appeared just behind the president before anyone noticed and fired the weapon within inches of the president’s head. The .44 ball entered the skull at approximately 600 fps (409 mph) and lodged itself just on the inside of the president’s eye cavity. He hit the floor never to regain consciousness.
Booth then attacked the stunned bodyguard, Major Henry Rathbone, with his knife. According to witnesses Booth jumped from the balcony, catching his spur on the flag bunting that had been hastily added to the décor. The snagged spur caused Booth to land heavily on his left leg and it broke. He stood up and like the actor he was yelled, “Sic Semper Tyrannis!” And then he “ran” for the getaway horse. This part has always bothered me. He had a broken leg and an empty pistol. Why not tackle him and be a hero? Nope, everyone just sat there.
Lincoln's Reconstruction Plan
Lincoln's death threw the nation's recovery plans into chaos. His carefully crafted vision for Reconstruction balanced forgiveness with real change. Lincoln’s "Ten Percent Plan" offered Confederate states a way back into the Union if they met three key conditions:
1. 10% of their voting population had to swear loyalty to the Union.
2. They had to accept the end of slavery.
3. They had to write new state constitutions.
The plan was already working - Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee had rejoined under these terms. But Lincoln wasn't just handing out free passes. His plan included the Freedmen's Bureau, a government agency designed to help formerly enslaved people transition to freedom. The Bureau provided food, housing, education, and even tried to distribute land to those who had just gained their freedom. Lincoln understood that ending slavery wasn't enough - freed people needed resources and opportunities to build new lives.
Johnson's Reconstruction Plan
In 1862, President Lincoln, a Republican, had chosen a conservative Democrat from Tennessee named Andrew Johnson to be his vice president. This may seem like a weird choice because picking a running mate from the opposing team is almost never done. But Johnson was chosen because of two things: he was from the South and he hated the confederacy. Lincoln was hoping that by picking Johnson he would send a clear message that he really did want to bring the southern states back as peacefully as possible.
Nobody–– and we mean nobody–– could have believed that Andrew Johnson would one day actually be the guy in charge of one of the most crucial chapters in the history of the United States. But a bullet from an assassin’s pistol made the unthinkable a reality. By all accounts Johnson had the personality of a wet blanket: cold, argumentative, and unwilling to compromise. Johnson was so difficult to get along with that he would alienate even his closest supporters. Johnson was not the kind of guy you wanted in charge of rebuilding a broken nation.
At first, Johnson had talked tough about dealing with the traitors. Born poor, he hated the plantation owners with a passion. So too did the Radical Republicans, who wanted to punish them for their rebellion. After years of hearing Lincoln talk about reconciliation and brotherhood, finally there was a guy in office who would take a tough stance on the rebels. Or so they thought.
But as it turns out Johnson's tough talk was just that... talk. In reality, Johnson wanted to bring the southern states back into the Union as quickly as possible and forget about the whole thing.
Johnson's presidential reconstruction plan required that southern states agree to the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery and that any Ex-confederates take a loyalty oath to the Union. Rather than punish the leaders of the rebellion with prison or execution, Johnson made a special provision that said that anyone with $20,000 in property had to come groveling to him personally to get their pardon. Flattered by the attention, Johnson handed out presidential pardons like candy on Halloween. In just one year he had granted 7,000 pardons to Confederate leaders and wealthy planters.
Johnson believed that because secession was illegal, the South had never technically left the Union. One California man fired back that just because murder is illegal doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen. Johnson removed Confederate leaders from top state offices and replaced them with loyal Unionists now running the state governments. With that done, Johnson wiped his hands and declared that the South was officially restored. The Radical Republicans in Congress were spitting fire at the betrayal.
I am sworn to uphold the Constitution as Andy Johnson understands it and interprets it.
-Andrew Johnson talking about himself in third person
In this cartoon by Thomas Nash, President Johnson kicks Freedman to the curb.
Lincoln and Johnson Compared
While Lincoln balanced forgiveness with progress, Johnson seemed interested only in forgiveness - at least for white Southerners. Here's how their approaches differed:
Land and Property: Lincoln supported giving land to freed people through the Freedmen's Bureau. Johnson did the opposite - he took land that had been given to freed people and returned it to former Confederate owners. This wasn't just about property - land ownership meant economic freedom, and Johnson's policy kept many freed people economically dependent on their former enslavers.
Presidential Pardons: While Lincoln offered pardons to most Confederates, he excluded high-ranking Confederate officials and wealthy planters who owned more than $20,000 in property. Johnson threw these restrictions out the window. In just one year, he pardoned 7,000 former Confederate leaders - including the very wealthy planters Lincoln had specifically excluded.
Rights for Freed People: Lincoln supported basic rights for freed people and wanted to ensure they had opportunities for education and economic advancement. Johnson showed little interest in protecting these rights. When Southern states passed "Black Codes" - laws designed to restrict freed people's rights and force them into unfair labor contracts - Johnson did nothing to stop them.
The key difference was their vision for the future. Lincoln wanted to rebuild the South in a way that created real change - yes, he wanted reconciliation, but he also wanted to ensure that freedom meant something real for formerly enslaved people. Johnson seemed more interested in returning things to how they'd been before the war, minus legal slavery.
The Outcome
The shift from Lincoln to Johnson as president had devastating consequences. The situation in the South was already chaotic - Charleston looked like a ghost town, with one visitor describing "vacant houses, widowed women, rotting wharves, deserted warehouses, weed-wild gardens, miles of grass-grown streets." Confederate soldiers returned home to find their world turned upside down - fields were burned, railroads destroyed, and homeless people, both black and white, wandered the countryside.
Meanwhile, four million formerly enslaved people faced an uncertain future. Most had no education (it had been illegal to teach slaves to read), no property, and no way to make a living except by working in the fields they'd just been freed from. Some fortunate individuals managed to open their own businesses, while others traveled hundreds of miles searching for family members who had been sold away during slavery.
Johnson's weak approach to Reconstruction allowed the old power structure to make a comeback. Southern states quickly passed Black Codes - laws designed to keep formerly enslaved people as close to slavery as possible without technically violating the 13th Amendment. These laws restricted where Black Americans could live and work, required them to sign unfair labor contracts, and even allowed them to be arrested for "loitering" - which basically meant existing in public spaces.
The assassination didn't just take away a president - it derailed a carefully planned approach to rebuilding the nation. While Booth was eventually cornered and killed in a Virginia barn twelve days later, the damage was done. The man who had dreamed of a genuine reconciliation was replaced by someone who would allow the old Southern power structure to reassert itself. Seven million Americans - about 20% of the country's population - lined the railroad tracks to watch Lincoln's funeral train make its thirteen-day journey to Springfield, Illinois. They weren't just mourning a president; they were witnessing the death of a vision for a truly reconstructed America.
Ruins of Richmond, Virginia
A group of Freedmen pose for a picture with the ruins of Richmond, VA in the background.
Why it Matters
Why does this matter to us today? Well, it's like pulling on a thread and watching the whole sweater unravel. Lincoln's untimely exit left a big "what if" in the air, paving the way for a Reconstruction that put old Southern elites back in charge and slammed the brakes on progress towards racial equality. This wasn't just a setback; it was a missed opportunity that still echoes in today’s debates about race, rights, and justice. Understanding this chapter of history helps us see how past decisions shape our present, like how the shaky steps taken (or not taken) during Reconstruction influence the ongoing march for civil rights. So, while Lincoln’s assassination might seem like just another tragic tale from the history books, it’s really a story about how a single moment can bend the arc of history in ways we’re still trying to straighten out.
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