Even southerners could not image just how toxic the coming Union victory would be.
Still, there are those today that say everything turned out just fine once the federal governemnt was in total control.
By which you mean Radical Democrats, then as now willing to fight & destroy their country to preserve their own legal privileges over other Americans.
In the 1860s Radical Democrat (aka "Confederates") forces invaded Union lands of:
Sure, a lot of slavers had problems with the new 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments, but it didn't last long -- as soon as Reconstruction ended in 1876, Radical Democrats went to work nullifying those Amendments for nearly 100 years.
Today Radical Democrats are as violent as they were in the 1860s, but our problem is that Republicans no longer have the courage & backbones of our 1860s' ancestors.
jeffersondem: "Still, there are those today that say everything turned out just fine once the federal governemnt was in total control."
The Federal government was never in total control after the election of 1876 ending Reconstruction.
Then Radical Democrats took over the South and effectively reversed Civil War outcomes.
How much more toxic would a Confederate victory have been?