Man O’ War
The Reconstruction that Might Have Been
Lincoln died 150 years ago today. Some time ago, I visited a jeweler’s shop in Northern Virginia and noticed that all the wall clocks were set at 7:22. The shopkeeper had done this because that was the time of the morning on April 15, 1865 when Lincoln expired.
People honored, and honor, his memory for having saved the Union but also for what he might have done to bind up the nation’s wounds after the war was over. For during the war Lincoln had developed an approach that had the best chance of meeting the challenge of Reconstruction, what he called “the most difficult question of practical statesmanship.”
