It's stuff like this that really makes me wonder about the great man theory of history.

Without JW Booth, maybe Lincoln would've broken the southern white aristocracy, and maybe Reconstruction would've succeeded. One man could've made the difference and finished the job.

Likewise, it's difficult to imagine any other con man so skilled and beloved (by a certain subset of the population) as Trump, and his singular abilities and predilections have potentially derailed the entire project of American empire - maybe permanently.

Reconstruction ended more than 10 years after Lincoln's assassination, he would not have remained in office forever. I think for most Unionists the war was not about abolition or racial equality and there simply was not the political will to make the changes necessary to prevent Jim Crow in the south.