Vice President Andrew Johnson would not automatically have taken charge had Lincoln lived because the 25th Amendment, which deals with the transfer of power when a president is incapacitated, was not in place until after the Kennedy assassination. The decision as to who took charge was handled on a case-by-case basis until then, Carson said.
For example, Woodrow Wilson's wife essentially took over when her husband fell ill, Carson said.
Johnson, who took office after Lincoln's death, was the only Southern senator not to leave office upon secession. Lincoln had put him on the presidential ticket as a symbol of unity, but Johnson was a southern Democrat who was not sympathetic to Lincoln's Republican party or to helping the newly freed slaves, said Carson, who will also speak at the conference.
If Stanton had continued in Lincoln's place, the country "would have been a better and more just nation, especially on race matters, in a far quicker fashion," Carson said.
Johnson eventually tried to replace Stanton, an abolitionist and a close friend of Lincoln, which led to the attempt by Republicans to remove Johnson from office by impeachment.
Previous conferences have examined the deaths of Alexander the Great, Mozart, Beethoven, Edgar Allan Poe and others. This year's event is part of the School of Medicine's bicentennial celebration and the annual reunion of its Medical Alumni Association.
