Is it possible to destroy everything of Confederate origin?

[Yupster]

116. Johnson did not make a deal to get elected

He never did get elected president. He took over Lincoln's term when Lincoln was killed. He did not run in 1868 as he was impeached (not guilty by one vote) and had no support for a run to keep his job.

Lincoln made many bad decisions, but among the worst were his picks for vice-president.

In the decades before the Civil War there was a tradition that if a presidential nominee was from the north, he would run with a southern VP nominee. If the presidential nominee was from the south, his VP would be from the north. This went back at least as far as 1832 for both Democratic tickets and Whig tickets. The tradition was tested in 1860 when the Democratic Party split and ran two nominees, Stephen Douglas as the Northern Democrat and John Breckinridge as the Southern Democrat. But even then, Douglas from Illinois picked Herschel Johnson of Georgia as his running mate and Breckinridge had to go all the way to Oregon to find Joseph Lane, who was willing to run on the Southern Democrat ticket.

The Republicans broke the tradition, naming Hannibal Hamlin of Maine as Lincoln's running mate. A bad mistake which made southerners distrust him even more. In his reelection, he switched to Andrew Johnson, a disastrous decision. Johnson was the only southern senator who didn't leave the Union when his state left. That made him a good unity choice, but there were problems.

Though quite intelligent, he had no formal education at all. He was uncouth, stubborn and drunk at his own swearing in. He was also a Democrat. This would all be manageable as VP doesn't do much anyway, but once Lincoln died he was in an impossible position. Northern Republicans didn't trust him because he was a southern Democrat who they just fought a war against. Southerners didn't trust him because he was the most famous scalawag (southerner who didn't support the Confederacy - also called hillbillies - Billy Yanks of the hills). Add to that a bad personality and poor people skills and you get a disaster.

When Lincoln was killed,Jefferson Davis was with Joe Johnston's Army in North Carolina. He immediately said Lincoln's death would be a disaster for the south. Davis knew Johnson and they hated each other. Davis was everything Johnson wasn't. He was accepted into Transylvania University in Kentucky at the age of 13 because he could already speak Greek and Latin. He went to West Point, came out an officer, married the daughter of Zachary Taylor. When the Mexican-American War started, Davis resigned his seat in congress and fought in the war as a colonel. As a senator, he was part of the Crittenden Committe which tried to make a last minute compromise to keep the union together. When that failed, he resigned his seat and went home to Mississippi. He didn't campaign for CSA President and thought he'd end up leading an army, but he was elected President. Every bit the stereotypical southern gentleman, Davis was all about duty and honor. When Lincoln offered him compensation for slaves freed at the Hampton Roads Conference, he felt he had no constitutional right to accept the deal as it would be violating his oath of office. This was just three months before Lee surrendered and the Confederacy clearly collapsing. He worked too many hours, micromanaged, and was often sick during his term.

If Johnson thought he could have hanged him, he would have.