What would America be like if Abraham Lincoln was killed before the war was officially over?

Question

What would America be like if Abraham Lincoln was killed before the war was officially over?

Answer 1

like a nightmare

Answer 2

The political and socio-economic landscape would be pretty much as it is currently.

Answer 3

I don't like to play "What ifs". There would be several events along the alternate parallel to change it. So, my opinion is that it would be impossible to predict what would have come from an event  

Answer 4

I think it depends on how close to the official end you're talking about.  If Lincoln had been killed a few months earlier nothing would have been any different, by that time the Confederates were beaten and it was only a matter of time before that would become official.  In all likelihood if he was assassinated any time after Gettysburg things probably would have unfolded much as they did.

Answer 5

It would almost entirely depend on how long before the end of the war he was killed.

If he was killed before his re-election in 1864, there was a chance that George McClellan might have taken the popular vote and sued for peace with the Confederacy, and the United States and the Confederacy would co-exist simultaneously.

Had Lincoln been killed after his re-election, say, any time in 1865 before Lee's surrender, the odds are the desire for vengeance would be strong enough in the armed forces and the remaining government to cause the end of the war to be brutal, harsh and unforgiving in spirit and terms. The rebel states would not be easily re-assimilated into the nation for generations, and the survivors of the armies of the Confederacy would find no amnesty.  

Answer 6

Although this sounds kind of silly, I would imagine that history would have kind of unfolded pretty close to how it actually did. If you think about, as late as 1864, many northerners wanted the war to be over. However, huge victories starting at Gettysburg and Vicksburg really gave the North a big boost, propelling Linclon to a victory in the election that year. Now say Lincoln gets killed before that, say.. before Gettysburg even, that could have potentially galvanized the north into fighting the south even harder than they had. So really, you would still have the radical reconstructionists, only now they would have an even stronger voice within the Congress. So, if you look at it, a lot of the Reconstruction would have worked out pretty closely to how it really did. I really think that Lincoln would still be looked at today pretty much the same way in which people still do. It was really Lincoln that held the country together, and the driving force behind the war.