In the closing days of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln was planning to graciously welcome the defeated Confederate states back into the Union. After Lincoln was assassinated, however, the 'Radical Republicans' in Congress imposed martial law in the South, creating resenment that caused problems well into this century. Had Lincoln lived, the history of regional conflict in 20th-centL11),' America would have been considerably different.
All of the following assumptions underlie the argument above EXCEPT