Lincoln Kills Booth

[Carl Schwamberger]

This one was raised by someone else, but I thought it refreshing over another 'Hitler does' variant.

Booth misses with his Derrenger pistol or it misfires. He attempts to attack with his knife & in the struggle with Major Rathbone & Lincoln Booth is either killed by a fist blow, or goes off the balcony on to his head, dying from a broken neck or concussion. How does this affect perceptions of Lincoln in the short and long term, and how would it affect him personally?

[Futurist]

Wouldn't there be extremely large sympathy and support for President Lincoln in the Northern and Western U.S. for killing a would-be assassin of his?

[Carl Schwamberger]

Among many people. The defend yourself philosophy. The frontier paradigm. A lot of other PoV, would encourage support.

[Gorque]

This one was raised by someone else, but I thought it refreshing over another 'Hitler does' variant.

Booth misses with his Derrenger pistol or it misfires. He attempts to attack with his knife & in the struggle with Major Rathbone & Lincoln Booth is either killed by a fist blow, or goes off the balcony on to his head, dying from a broken neck or concussion. How does this affect perceptions of Lincoln in the short and long term, and how would it affect him personally?

After Lincoln's 2nd term expires, he tours the nation as a pugilist?

[stg 44]

Reconstruction just got tougher. I highly doubt Lincoln would be too happy about a Southerner trying to assassinate him.

[Christian Ankerstjerne]

It is unlikely that Lincoln's image would have been damaged by him having defended himself and killed someone in self-defense. Several American presidents had killed other people in war, and Andrew Jackson killed a man during a duel, so bloodshed was definitely not a hinderence for a succesful presidency.

The real question is whether Lincoln would have been a good peace-time president. The post-war leadership of both Churchill and de Gaulle is certainly not as impressive as their wartime achievements. From a slightly different angle, the same can be said of Wilson and Grant. Of course, Eisenhower was truly a presidential president, so it's not entirely one-sided.

From a cynical point of view, it can be argued that Booth may have been the best thing that could happen to Lincoln's legacy.

[South]

Good morning Carl,

Public opinion and related political positions were solidly in place. Both short and long-term perceptions were indelible enough.

The attempted assignation ? President Reagan had the feeling. I cannot comment from experience.

With Lincoln still in life, the Pacific Railroad Act of 1 July 1862 fully progressing. The slaves, indentured servants, immigrant laborers and a demobilized Army reallocated to railroad construction. Prosperity, relatively speaking, follows.

The French in Mexico and the Nicaraguans in newly-named area called "Panama", relocate and more prosperity follows.

Booth, who avoided military service with the Confederate States Army is hauled throughout the Eastern Establishment media as evil. No public perceptions change.


Warm regards,

Bob

[maltesefalcon]

This one was raised by someone else, but I thought it refreshing over another 'Hitler does' variant.

Booth misses with his Derrenger pistol or it misfires. He attempts to attack with his knife & in the struggle with Major Rathbone & Lincoln Booth is either killed by a fist blow, or goes off the balcony on to his head, dying from a broken neck or concussion. How does this affect perceptions of Lincoln in the short and long term, and how would it affect him personally?

After Lincoln's 2nd term expires, he tours the nation as a pugilist?

At the time there was no legal impediment to a third term. (Grant tried but failed to win the nomination on his third run.)

Provided Lincoln remained in good health, he may well have won.

[Cantankerous]

This one was raised by someone else, but I thought it refreshing over another 'Hitler does' variant.

Booth misses with his Derrenger pistol or it misfires. He attempts to attack with his knife & in the struggle with Major Rathbone & Lincoln Booth is either killed by a fist blow, or goes off the balcony on to his head, dying from a broken neck or concussion. How does this affect perceptions of Lincoln in the short and long term, and how would it affect him personally?

After Lincoln's 2nd term expires, he tours the nation as a pugilist?

At the time there was no legal impediment to a third term. (Grant tried but failed to win the nomination on his third run.)

Provided Lincoln remained in good health, he may well have won.

I always thought that FDR was the only incumbent US president to run for a third term. Why did Ulysses S. Grant choose to run for president for a third time in the 1880 GOP presidential primaries.

If Abraham Lincoln had gotten up from the chair where he sat when he was assassinated and karate chopped John Wilkes Booth, then his image would have remained unaltered given that Booth didn't like Lincoln's talk of racial reconciliation in the Deep South and wanted revenge for the Confederacy's defeat in the American Civil War and Andrew Johnson might have chosen not to fire Abe Lincoln's Secretary of War.

[NSpencer]

This one was raised by someone else, but I thought it refreshing over another 'Hitler does' variant.

Booth misses with his Derrenger pistol or it misfires. He attempts to attack with his knife & in the struggle with Major Rathbone & Lincoln Booth is either killed by a fist blow, or goes off the balcony on to his head, dying from a broken neck or concussion. How does this affect perceptions of Lincoln in the short and long term, and how would it affect him personally?

Booths brother, Edwin, earlier had saved lincolns fav child Tod, from death of serious injury, Lincoln distraught over accidentally killing the brother of the man who saved his fav son, wracked with grief, gives up politics becomes a vampire hunter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmexgVvm4o8

[daveshoup2MarDiv]

This one was raised by someone else, but I thought it refreshing over another 'Hitler does' variant.

Booth misses with his Derrenger pistol or it misfires. He attempts to attack with his knife & in the struggle with Major Rathbone & Lincoln Booth is either killed by a fist blow, or goes off the balcony on to his head, dying from a broken neck or concussion. How does this affect perceptions of Lincoln in the short and long term, and how would it affect him personally?

Lincoln was - along with being an exceptionally gifted political leader, strategist, and writer/orator, was a fairly tough individual, physically, despite his apparent illnesses.

Lincoln was 6'4'' and was known as being a capable athlete as a young man; Booth was 5'8'' and 20 years younger, but 2-1 odds (4-1 if one includes Mrs. Lincoln and Miss Harris) is pretty significant, as is the reality that Rathbone was a combat veteran. If Booth's pistol misfires, or he is heard entering the box, etc., it seems a fair bet he ends up dead or in custody.

Lincoln gets the sort of "rally around" effect that such incidents tend to prompt, and he has a successful second term, with a strong commitment to the freedmen, reconstruction of the South, and economic expansion and development in the South and West, and ending in 1868; he could try for a third term, but it is also entirely possible he hands the Republican nomination to Grant and Grant serves as president 1869-77, following Lincoln's policies and presumably successfully.

Lincoln's post-presidency plans included travel to Europe and (presumably) writing his memoirs; his father Thomas Lincoln died at 73, which if Abraham matches it (notwithstanding, presumably, significantly better medical care) President Lincoln could have lived until 1882.