Imagine

"What does he have to do, go to thier houses and tutor them?"
Bill O'reilly to Charlie Rangel on the President's performance in race related issues.

We seem to be hearing a lot about race these days. Katrina comes to mind as an indictment of our instituitional love of racism. I don't agree, but that's neither here nor there.

It did get me thinking though, what if Lincoln had been allowed to finish what he started after the Civil War? What kind of country would we be living in today?

Lincoln had a peculiar genius for disarming enemies through his empathy and fairness. In almost every other civil war the world round the rebels could expect to be treated harshly, indeed, I would say its to be expected.

Not Lincoln though, he took a different path. He honored the brave men of the Confederacy, allowing them to return home with honor.

What if this compassionate yet strong president had been allowed to oversee the reconstruction?

Instead, we got Andrew Johnson. Johnson fought like the devil to make sure blacks gained no actual ground after the war. Among other things he was against civil rights for the newly freed slaves. He also fought the Freedmen Bureau act, an attempt the protect blacks against the newly enacted "black codes". He also successfully fought the first attempt at reperations, called "Forty Acres and a mule" relief, a bill to provide land and the means to work it to the newly freed slaves.

As my very smart wife has said, "reparations would have been a heck of a lot easier and simpler back then."

Johnson was completely against any gains for the newly freed slaves. So of course, the Republicans are to blame, though they fought like hell against this embarrassing president. Even attempting to impeach him.

The shame to me is that Lincoln was never given a shot. I can only imagine what this country would look like if he had been allowed to try.