Lewis, Lloyd. "If Lincoln Had Lived"
Divergence: 1865 CE
What if: John Wilkes Booth had not gone to the theater on Apr. 14, 1865.
Summary: In finishing his second term, Lincoln would have been far more successful than Andrew Johnson in suppressing the agenda of the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction. Speculates that Lincoln would have either driven the Radicals out of the Republican Party or more likely would have formed a new political party uniting conservative western Republicans and pro-union Democrats.
Comments: Text of an address delivered at the University of Chicago in August 1934.
Published: In If Lincoln Had Lived: Addresses (ed. M. Llewllyn Raney), University of Chicago 1935; and Abraham Lincoln: His Life, Work and Character. An Anthology of History and Biography, Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Belles-lettres (ed. Edward Wagenknecht), Creative Age 1947.