I agree. His second inaugural address was very good, and very thoughtful, already grasping with the thorny problems of Reconstruction.
BTW, if the comment regarding slavery was referring to me, you'll note that I have never said that secession, or the war itself, was not the result of slavery. It most certainly was, a fact of which we Southerners should own up to, and be ashamed of. But I suppose I have a low tolerance for self-righteousness on the part of certain Northerners who will not admit that, as a whole, in the 19th century the Northern population was only slightly less racist than Southerners, if at all, and that if had cotton thrived in cold climes, like, say, turnip greens, slavery wouldn't have been an issue.
No, my comment was not directed at you--I was describing typical Stand Watie behavior--and I pretty much agree with what you've written here.
It's amazing how long things continued that way in parts of the North, too. I did an article on one of our local aldermen, one of our first elected black officials, who died in an auto accident in 1968. I found out that he had almost gotten his electrician's license pulled on trumped up charges because some people in city government didn't want a black-owned business serving customers in the white areas of town. When the man died, the state police transported his body 27 miles form the hospital he died at, so he wouldn't be prepared for burial at a white funeral home-and then stuck his widow with the transport bill from the ambulance company.