If Lincoln hadn't died, a question every student has come across while learning about the Civil War, but would Reconstruction have been better if he hadn't died? Had former slaves obtained better civil rights? While these questions have no real answers and all we can come to is speculation, in Eric Foner's essay he seems to address these questions with some acceptable reasons which led me to the conclusion that if Lincoln had not been assassinated the Reconstruction period would have been been better than they were under Johnson. President Andrew Jackson opposed Lincoln's Reconstruction plan, instead of forgiving the South as Lincoln wanted, Jackson wanted the South to suffer and pay for what he had caused, thus making the South a victim of the North the ambition of the drug traffickers carpets of making easy money by risking the horrible conditions that the South had brought upon itself, and the Scalawags, Southern whites who turned their backs on the South to join the Republicans (the hypocrites, probably did it to save themselves). there is a great possibility that carpetbaggers would have found a way to make money in the South if Lincoln had lived, but with Lincoln alive his 10% plan would have been used, thus allowing the North and South to have an easy reconciliation between them. Lincoln's Reconstruction plan was simple indeed: It required only that 10 percent of the white male population of any Southern state sign an oath stating that they were loyal to the Union and that the Southern state abolish slavery, after which the state was allowed to do so. create a new government and start sending its new representatives to congress. Although the South did not like Lincoln; the South had to deal with the… middle of the paper… more easily, because Lincoln was a moderate and liked to work things out with his political party, regardless of their moderate or radical views. However, we can say that Lincoln was already willing to take the first step towards equality between whites and African Americans, since he had already said he was in favor of limited black suffrage, perhaps with the combined forces of the President and Congress; people would see that blacks were equal, by doing so they could take the first steps towards interracial government and perhaps save themselves some time instead of leaving this civil rights movement for later. Overall, if Lincoln hadn't died, Reconstruction would have been better, perhaps the United States would be a little more open and democratic than it is now, since it accepted differences earlier, thus learning to live better with each other with others.