What You Don’t Know About Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln went to a play and was killed on this date 144 years ago.  The story of Lincoln’s assassination is one of the iconic images in our national memory.  Although Honest Abe was shot on the evening of April 14th, he did not pass away until hours later, on the 15th.  That morning, Vice President Andrew Johnson became the first man to assume the U.S. presidency as a result of an assassination.  Johnson took over the nation during the most divisive time in American history.  Less than three years later he became the first president to be impeached. 

What most people don’t know is that Andrew Johnson was Lincoln’s second vice president, and history would’ve been radically different had a man named Hannibal Hamlin taken over the White House in 1865.

***

Hamlin was born in Maine (before it was a state) in 1809.  His career began as the concept of career politicians became popular.  He served in the House of Representatives and Senate for the Democrats. 

If you know  a little history, you might remember that Lincoln was the first Republican president, and the Republican party’s initial platform was opposition to slavery and the Democrats.  So how did Lincoln and Hamlin become a team?

Hamlin opposed slavery even during his twenty year tenure with the Democrats, the party that pushed through brutal measures against slaves in the 1850s.  When the Kansas-Nebraska Act was endorsed by the Dems in 1856, Hamlin broke from his party to join the newish Republicans.  The switch caused a national sensation.