“As mentioned above, I realize troops under Lincoln’s authority burned towns and districts, although they seldom, if ever, massacred civilians.”
You are wrong.
“After the War, the federal government returned (mostly) to its previous limited role for several decades. The rapid and continuous expansion of federal power we all know and love began only in the 1890s as the Progressives gained influence.”
Once they recovered from the wounds of war and got back to their previous objectives.
You are clearly intelligent and obviously well studied on this issue however you certainly reflect a bent to only believe one side.
If you believe in limited fed gov you would have been on the Confederates side.
I don’t put the blame only on Lincoln although he clearly was a progressive.
So the “rapid and continuous expansion of federal power we all know and love began only in the 1890s” - long after Lincoln was dead yet you consider him a progressive? How does that work?
Ya know, a statement such as this is generally not considered to be a very effective argument.
Nobody in 1860s America fit very well into the political world on 1900. So it's more than a little silly to try to force them in.
For instance, were the Democrats the conservative party in 1860? Well, that more or less depends on what you're trying to conserve.
The ideals of the Founders, or American society as it had developed by 1860?