The Lincoln-Johnson administration’s policy of conciliation toward the defeated south was certainly understandable, even praiseworthy in some respects. In retrospect though it was one of the most disastrous errors in history. The federal government had every right to hang the traitors and confiscate their property. The fetish for “national reconciliation” created Jim Crow, delayed civil rights for a hundred years, and permitted the institutionalized spread of the false “Lost Cause” mythology. The soft treatment of the captured rebel ringleaders was unprecedented at the time, and would be considered exceptional and unwise even today.
And what thanks does Lincoln get from the Confederates for his forbearance? He is vilified as a dictator and tyrant who deserved to be shot.

RWNjs are determined to launch another civil war. The outcome will be the same too. Don’t make the same mistake again when it’s over.