The idea that it was not Lincoln who destroyed the government created by Jefferson and Madison is absurd. Go find yourself a copy of Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution. This is not written by some Johnie-come-lately without any academic standing. This was written by James McPherson of Princeton who is almost universally considered the dean of "Civil War" historians. (Not be me, mind you.) In the preface he quotes a Harvard professor writing in 1869 as saying that it was as if he is no longer living in the country in which he was born. I don't have my copy at hand, and I do not recall why McPherson chose to quote the professor. Whatever it was, it wasn't what I consider the import of this. This Harvard professor never owned slaves, and probably cared little if at all about slavery. Certainly the end of slavery 400 miles to his south couldn't have had much impact on the life of a Harvard professor. No. What it was was that the government that d'Tocqueville wrote about was gone, just as gone with the wind in Cambridge, Mass. as it was in Charleston, SC. The guys you mention were barely out of diapers in 1869.
ML/NJ
I’ve read McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom and he is far more generous to Lincoln in that book than most of the anti-Lincoln posters here. That is expect for the Epilogue where he morphs into the typical modern day liberal college professor. As far as Lincoln on the slavery issue, it would be Frederick Douglass whom I would quote, especially his speech dedicating a monument to Lincoln in 1876.
That the country dramatically changed after 1865 is undeniable, but it was much closer to the ideals of 1776 than it had been previously. Slavery is simply not compatible with the Declaration of Independence, and anyone who thinks it wasn’t about slavery hasn’t read the secession documents approved by the South Carolina or Georgia legislatures.
As for books to read, I would recommend Harry Jaffa, The New Birth of Freedom.
I can’t think of one government bureaucracy Lincoln created that remains with us today. Starting with T. Roosevelt and the FDA, they are too numerous to mention.