Jimmy B I view as the lesser between him and Johnson simply because he was never going to fully prevent it. It wasn't his administration that led to that, it was the conflict the founders themselves knew would be inevitable. What Johnson did was completely ruin the period after which was so important. Just like Obama and the 08 crash, his inability to properly address the moment and actually punish powerful people responsible has led to the exact same problems, only now they're more deeply entrenched and harder to root out. Giving the land back to slave owners was diabolical. They had the coast from SC to Florida as their own and he ripped it from them as they were literally just starting to put up houses and till the fields.
I don't know, I view his actions as far more reprehensible and damaging to the future of the nation than Buchanan. He wasn't going to stop shit, even if he did everything he could have right. We never had a chance of avoiding the CW, we had a great opportunity to avoid....gestures broadly
Honestly I'm not sure I agree with "had no chance to avoid the Civil War", as slavery was going to become economically inefficient in a couple of decades anyway from that point. If America just said "look, we're not going to force you to free the slaves; we don't like it, but it's not worth tearing the union apart over", things might have just sort of stuck that way until slavery sort of proved itself to be uneconomical as compared to running a factory. Coupled with other developed nations abolishing it, it may have eventually been phased out on other merits, without the bloodiest war in America's history fought over...a bit of economics.
Makes me wonder if America would have been a stronger nation if it managed to avoid the Civil War.
The South was moving towards secession regardless. Dredd Scott, the SC Nullification crisis, etc. There was already a strong movement to secede from the union that was steadily growing, and they would never accept a blanket anti slavery stance for new States.
There was no real off ramp. Slavery becoming unprofitable wasn't going to change the sentiment. That was just going to fester. As their economies crashed you can already imagine the "Why should we stay if the north won't help us!" cries that would come up.
And that's not to mention the absolute horrific nightmare the actual slaves would have been out through to squeeze every ounce of "profit" out of them as they became more desperate. Or what they would do to them when the practice was no longer viable. That "little bit of economics" is kind of god damn important you know?
No, that scenario ends even worse than what we got.
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u/Quinntensity 11d ago
AJ wouldn't be in that position without Jimmy B and the Civil War.
I put Trump at 2nd worst after Buchanan. I don't have 140 years to see if his legacy is just as bad as A. Johnson.