We learn about the Reconstruction era, so called because the country was being put back together, or “reconstructed,” after it was torn apart during the Civil War. We read about the first presidential assassination in American history—that of Abraham Lincoln, widely acknowledged by most historians as our greatest president ever. Having guided the North so expertly during the war, Lincoln was cut down right at the start of Reconstruction by a disgruntled Confederate sympathizer by the name of John Wilkes Booth. “There lies the most perfect ruler of men the world has ever seen,” Secretary of War Edwin Stanton famously put it as he stood by Lincoln’s deathbed during the president’s final hours of life. Reconstruction turned out to be a deeply problematic era for the United States. The goal was to reunite the North and the South with as little animosity and resentment as possible, but the end result was far from that ideal. Northerners set out to punish Southerners, whom they considered traitors, and Southerners took out much of their frustrations over losing the war on blacks. The country could have used a talented, humane leader like Lincoln. But by now, Lincoln belonged “to the ages,” as Secretary Stanton said.

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What do you think? Would Reconstruction have turned out much differently if Lincoln had not been assassinated, or were the problems between the North and the South too much for any one leader to overcome?