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Notes -
That is a more interesting one.
The Republican Reconstruction agenda which Johnson opposed mostly made it into law anyway. He stirred up a lot more resentment against it, but I can’t say if it would have been more or less enduring if he had rubber-stamped everything. I suspect that ship had sailed after his first year, by which point several Southern states had reconstituted their old governments and sent their war heroes to Congress.
Maybe you could preempt the Lost Cause by refusing amnesty to Confederate personnel? But then you’ve still got the remnants of the aristocracy trying to hold on to their plantations, putting up statues and moaning about the good ol’ days. Can you avoid that without going full damnatio memoriae?
Also, preventing ex-Confederates from getting into state or national government probably reduces support for black suffrage. That would give voting southerners license to, well, recreate their whole underclass again. That’s an injustice and probably still reinforces the aristocratic myths.
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