Ok, If Lincoln would have lived, reconstruction would not have been as punitive nor harsh as it was by the Johnson Administration simply as there would not have been a Martyr to get revenge for.

But that is as far as the nice stuff goes. Lincoln was for benefiting businesses, his thought were to tax the working people while allowing businesses to prosper and not carry the tax burden as the working people do. That is still going on today. His policy was that if you reward business for providing jobs then the jobs provided would provide the tax base. Thus he made the Statement, "if you work for an employer for a year, then you can then start your own business and hire your own employees".

Now as we all know that is not the way things happen, and neither did they back then, the person went to work, became dependent on the income he was making and got stuck right there. If you look at the J.C. Pennys and Andrew Carnegies of the world, they worked for themselves all their life. Why? So they did not get ensnared by the Lincoln Proganda machine.

I try not to get into politics as you can lose friends like that, same as religion. But if you look at the parties today, the South is a product of Lincoln's Republican reconstruction program. None of the States were allowed to reenter the Union unless they garunteed that they would promise to provide a Republican type of Government. It wasn't conservatist they were talking about, it was a government to reward business.

Our Southern forefathers were not Republicans they cared not for benefitting business. They cared for providing for their family. They were farmers and artisians, very few business men like bankers and such lived in the South per se. They lived up North in the Summer and Wintered in the South.

Would we still dislike Lincoln? Probably so. As a young Lawyer of 28 years of age. Lincoln proposed doing away with the Consitution, had he lived he may have done just that,,,,