Favorite Line of the Week So Far

From David Blight, summing up Andrew Johnson, as a states' rights Unionist from Tennessee, hates black people, total white supremacist, festering resentment of the planter class, self-made success and politician:

"He was a complicated guy.

[Meditative Pause] 

 He could have been interesting."

Yah.  This was one of the times Lincoln politically screwed the pooch.  Maybe if there wasn't a white supremacist as vp, assassinating Lincoln may not have been seen as such a good idea, then Reconstruction would have gone the path Lincoln had planned, and so on and so forth.  But that's 100% counterfactual, which has no place in writing history.