Here are some words of current-day historian Paul Johnson (no relation to Andrew Johnson that I know of):
Balancing this, it was abundantly clear that Lincoln wanted to exercise the utmost clemency. He intended to bind wounds. On April 14, 1865, his friend Gideon Wells described him as cheerful, happy, hungering for peace, 'full of humanity and gentleness.' His last recorded words on the subject of what to do with the South and the leaders of the rebellion were: 'No one must expect me to take any part in hanging or killing these men, even the worst of them. Frighten them out of the country, open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off. Enough lives have been sacrificed; we must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union. There is too much disposition in some quarters to hector and dictate to the people of the South, to refuse to recognize them as fellow citizens. Such persons have too little respect for Southerner's rights. I do not share feelings of that kind.'
Lincoln had disagreed with Radical Republicans on reconstruction before. Lincoln's position had been that he wanted occupying armies withdrawn from the South as quickly as possible.
You don't trust Taylor. I have my doubts about Stanton. Taylor characterized Stanton as being in close contact with Johnson's enemies in Congress and constantly betraying him. It is no wonder that Johnson replaced Stanton.
This story cannot be confirmed and is probably fictional. It first appears from the mouth of Eckert and is attributed by him to Lewis Payne, Paine, or Powell, who might also be called the not positively identified dead guy. At any rate, Powell, or whoever he was, was dead for some time before this story made its first appearance.
Perhaps you will take the word of a Lincoln cabinet member? Let's look at the account of Cabinet member Gideon Welles. From The Galaxy, Volume 13, Issue 5, May 1872, excerpted from pages 663-670:
…The Secretary of War [Stanton] manifested a desire to continue military ascendency after the overthrow of the Confederacy. In consultation with his confidants in Congress he proposed by an executive order to abandon the principles laid down by Mr. Lincoln in regard to suffrage, and without warrant from the Constitution, and in derogation of the rights of the States, to authorize the negroes to vote in the elections. President Johnson modified essentially Mr. Stanton’s draft for the temporary government of North Carolina, put the document in the form of a Proclamation instead of an Executive order, and made it more distinctly a civil than military paper. In that respect it was a great improvement on the original and on the Virginia draft. He did not issue the proclamation appointing the Provisional Governor and establishing a temporary government in North Carolina until the 9th of May. The disputed question of suffrage he carefully weighed and investigated, reviewed the whole subject, and while, like Mr. Lincoln, he felt as a man kindly disposed toward the colored race, and would have been gratified even to give them qualified suffrage if were they possessed of capacity, like President Lincoln he came to the conclusion that the subject belonged exclusively to the States and the people of the States respectively, and that the Federal Government had no legal power or legitimate control over it.…Three of the members of President Lincoln’s Administration in 1863 were in the Cabinet of President Johnson in May, 1865, two of whom are understood to have advised an adherence to the rule laid down in 1863. President Johnson agreed with them as to the correctness and legality of the principle, and made it his rule of action in reestablishing loyal governments. There was therefore no change of policy in 1865, on the part of the Administration, from the policy of 1863 in that regard. The views of President Lincoln and President Johnson were identical; yet an organized opposition was immediately commenced against President Johnson for the honest and conscientious discharge of his constitutional duty, which pursued him with vindictive and unrelenting ferocity during his whole Administration, and malignantly and without cause or justification attempted his impeachment. Other pretexts, frivolous and false, were assigned, but the real and true cause of assault and persecution was the fearless and unswerving fidelity of the President to the Constitution, his refusal to proscribe the white people in the rebel States and the States themselves by ex post facto laws, his opposition to central Congressional usurpation, and his maintenance of the of the States and the Executive Department of the Government against legislative aggression.
…But few, comparatively, sympathized with the violent Radicals at the beginning of their opposition to peaceable reconstruction. Tired of war and all its horrid cost, its calamities and abuses, devoted to the Union, and earnestly desiring reconciliation and peace, the masses were, like Mr. Lincoln and his successor, for conciliation and the restoration of friendly feelings. But the expression of these sentiments subjected those Republicans who uttered them to sneers and assaults from Radical partisans. The men who advocated clemency, union, and peace, were denounced as in alliance with Copperheads, as rebel sympathizers, not truly loyal men of unsound principles.
Sounds like you side with the Radicals over Presidents Lincoln and Johnson.
What do you do when Republicans disagree? That must cause a great pain in your head.