Thank you for your post.....
I would also say that the great souls of the northern and southern "aristocracies" actually agreed on many points, included the end of slavery: Lincoln being a wise, balanced, merciful and sensible man, before the war planned to end the slavery progressively by giving freedom, an indemnisation and land to the ex slaves and Lee, Davies agreed on this, every wise man in north and south wanted to solve this big problem which had been existing for many years.
"Abolitionists" were very few in the north, limited , restricted groups of fanatic, violent puritans who preached for violent and extreemist solutions. While for the northern society slavery was not a problem at all.
Lincoln was emotionally very sad by the big number of casualties of the war and wanted to welcome back the southern states as a part of the Union. When he was killed, Davies was shocked, and thought, "now it is all finished". And he was right as the "big northern finance" through weak presidents let down the south treating it with the martial law like a colony, not like a part of the Union. Even Sherman was scandalized by the hardness the south was treated.
From a factual and interpretative perspective, there are many inaccuracies in the above.
There was never any agreement between the South and the North on getting rid of slavery. That is the whole point. Had there been, why would there have been a Civil War. The anti slavery adherents and the Republican Party were determined to contain slavery's expansion and keep it bottled up where it existed. On the other hand, the South felt that it needed slavery to expand. This became a significant issue following the acquisition of land from Mexico following the Mexican American War and found its tipping point in the Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854 which convinced many in the North that further compromise with the South was futile. After that it was only a matter of time between war would break out.
To say that for the North slavery was not a problem at all belies logic. Again, why did we have a war? Now, if you want to say that the North was as rascist as the South, that would be correct. Although slavery had been abolished in most Northern states, several states had "black codes" (notably Illinois and Indiana) and many states had taken away whatever right Blacks had. It needs to be pointed that although many, if not most, people were anti slavery, this doesn't mean they were pro black and in favor of giving Blacks rights. They were not. The Republican Party was a successor to a large degree of the Whig Party, which was a pro business party (in a nutshell) and they disliked slavery because slavery was unfair competition to the white labor force. Slavery gave slaveholders too much of an advantage over the white labor whom the Republicans wanted to populate the generally unsettled western part of the United States.
Lincoln has no plan before the beginning of the war other than to contain slavery where it existed as he felt that it would eventually wither away. He actually supported the then 13th Amendment which would have made Constitutional amendments to outlaw slavery impossible. Personally he was anti slavery but felt the Constitution tied his hands.
Lincoln's compensated emancipation plans didn't originate until early 1862 when he proposed his plan, through the payment of bonds, to the border states, which they rejected.
The Confederacy would never have agreed to abolishing slavery because that is one of the reasons they went to war. A reading of the Confederate Constitution and Alexander Stephens' cornerstone speech (slavery is the cornerstone of our system) demonstrates this. The various attempts at a peaceful resolution to the Civil War always foundered on the point of slavery and how could the South go back on it? To say that Davis was in favor of ending slavery is just a total fiction.
It is correct that the Abolitionists were a minority but they were a very influential minority. For example, the Gag rule was a reaction by the South to the various petitions that Abolititionists kept sending to the House of Representatives. Works such as Federick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of an American Slave and Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin were very influential is turning people against slavery and were best sellers at the time. A modern comparison could be the anti war movement during the Vietnam war: a minority but influential.
As far as Davis being upset that Lincoln was assassinated, that really needs no comment. If you have authority for this statement, I would love to see it.
Lastly, you touch on reconstruction. Lincoln, during the Civil War, had put forth a 10 percent plan: roughly, if 10 percent of the population of a Southern swore loyalty to the Union and amended their Constitution, they could be re-admitted. The Congress generally thought the limits needed to be higher. Pre end of the war reconstruction took place in some states or portions but not most.
With respect to the "harsh treatment" the Southern states received, Radical reconstruction was a reaction to the southern states trying to return the situation to the status quo ante: adopting black codes, treating the freedmen essentially the same way when they were slaves and returning un-reconstructed politicians to Congress and otherwise attempting to disregard the results of the War. This was not helped by Johnson's attitude in departing from what Congress wanted or pardoning former Confederate officials. Would things have been different had Lincoln been President? Maybe, he was a master politician, not to mention the leader of the Republican Party; Johnson was a Democrat. That's the imponderable.
