So you're a Southern Unionist whose ancestors broke with their neighbors -- their States -- to make common cause with the Union, in memory of Andrew Jackson's vision. That isn't a reason to despise other Southerners who just as validly looked back to Jefferson and recognized overweening theories of federal power when they saw them.
But I don't hate the Confederate soldiers who fought for honorable convictions in the 1860s nor their present day descendants who honor their heritage without hate. But my model of the Confederate movement of the 1860s is that of a lot of ordinary honorable Southern men from Robert E. Lee to the private rifleman being suckered to fight the slave oligarchy's battles. Lincoln is demonized for not being a 100% saint in his motives, but the underlying slavery cause behind at the first wave secessions in particular is often glossed over.
Chipping a layer of white marble off Lincoln's legend is necessary to understanding what sort of politician he was, and how to appraise his policies and his methods. A number of Southern writers have undertaken the same work on Robert E. Lee, who was lionized by a claque of failed Southern generals seeking refuge in the shadow of the legend they sought to create. If Lee was a great general, great beyond reproach, a veritable Hannibal's Hannibal, and Lee failed, then how could they have been expected to succeed? This was not a good reason for exalting Lee, whatever his good qualities were, but it was done relentlessly by the generals who aligned themselves with the postbellum Southern Historical Society.
The problem of putting Lincoln in perspective is worse, since he was instantly pounced upon before his body had cooled by Northern politicians with a similar agenda to the Southern generals', or even worse.
Studying the Lincoln presidency and legacy, and that of Reconstruction, is like trying to do forensic examination of a corpse that has been cosmetically restored by someone who keeps trying to snatch the cadaver from your operating theater because a) they don't want you playing with it or disfiguring it and b) because they have something to hide and don't want you fooling around in their evidence.