I would say that admiration for Lincoln will continue to grow, but the fact is that it is more or less universal now. I have seen his image all over the world.
And, of course, the vast majority of Confederate soldiers did not think of themselves as fighting to perpetuate slavery. They were told that they were fighting to defend their "home" and their neighbors.
It was a relative handful of bigshots, many of them slaveholders, who concocted this whole theory about "secession" and a God-given right to own people. Of course, the whole theory is preposterous when we think about it now.
But, you know, even those people, the people who had become dependent upon slaves to take care of them, were victims of their history. For generations, their families had been cared for cradle to grave by slaves. Quite naturally, they had lost confidence in their ability to take care of themselves. They even confess their dependency in Mississippi's declaration of "secession." They talk about how they could no longer work outdoors like those of the "black race." Slavery for them was "not a matter of choice, but of necessity." We can see a similar "culture of dependency" developing today in neighborhoods where generation after generation of families live on the dole and have (they believe) lost the ability to work or to take care of themselves. Lincoln freed them of all that. The descendants of these slaveholders have rediscovered the ability to care for themselves. Humans are remarkably flexible and resourceful.
I hope that someday, more people will learn to be more sympathetic to the memory of these Southern slaveholders. They didn't choose to be born into a system which led to such dependency. It was a culture that developed naturally and over a long period of time.
As you point out, though, it would have all gone much more smoothly had Lincoln not been murdered. Thanks again for sharing.
Howsoever, in my prior post I had quoted a certain "Goodrich". Apparently he has written a book, "Darkest Dawn Lincoln, Booth, and the Great American Tragedy" By Thomas Goodrich
See below, from a review:
"Goodrich tells the well-worn story of Booth's assassination of Lincoln, and his subsequent capture and death. He also traces the response of major political leaders like Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, on whose authority hundreds of citizens-many of whom had nothing to do with the assassination-were arrested and imprisoned in a climate of anger and suspicion. But what makes the book particularly valuable and interesting is the author's focus upon the emotional and often violent reactions of ordinary people. In locales North and South, citizens expressing sympathy with Booth or satisfaction with Lincoln's assassination were likely to find their lives quickly ended by griefstricken, angry fellow citizens. Among the many acts of summary retribution were shootings and bayonettings by aggrieved Federal soldiers. But ordinary citizens were no slower to shoot, hang, drown, or even butcher those who lacked the proper attitude of respect and mourning. In some locales, mobs descended on the homes of those not exhibiting sufficient ccoutrements of mourning in their windows."
Not so much for blacks. The Lincoln plan was to send blacks to Liberia, Haiti and Panama.