Reconstruction ended much earlier than 1890, though Black suffrage was dying at that time. So just what was that "fantasy" that the "South haters" tried to "base a society" on? For many unreconstructed Southerners, that "fantasy" was precisely our contemporary belief in racial equality.
The destruction of the war did hurt the economic prospects of Southern blacks in comparison to what they would have been had there been a peaceful emancipation. But there was scant prospect of abolition any time soon if the Union was broken. Can one seriously argue that Confederate victory would have left the mass of Southern blacks better off than what actually happened? At the very least, Union victory and emancipation allowed the freedmen to move about and seek new employment. Even if the Confederacy had made a formal emancipation, it would probably have restricted those rights for many years to come.
You don't explain what the "problem" was or who you mean by "Jeffersonians" but your view actually makes me think less of the rebel leaders -- ready to tear up their country, enthusiastic to conquer new territories, yet frightened off by the slightest hint of abolition. The secessionists were capable of radical, decisive action when they felt it desirable and necessary.
Neo-confederatism is another branch of today's victim history, and Southern elites are turned into victims who couldn't have abolished slavery or segregation because others opposed them. Opposition is a constant condition of political life, not an excuse for inaction.
The war was a great tragedy, and neither side fully had the commitment to liberty or civic equality that we expect today. But there was no shame in supporting the Union cause, and we're better off today than we would hve been with a Confederate victory.
However to briefly respond to some of your thoughts, you seem to associate liberty with equality. They are in fact, and always have been, conflicting values. It is impossible to be both free and equal. If you are free, you can succeed or fail. If you are made equal, either you or others must be constrained--usually both you and others, as no one is really free in a Communist, egalitarian system.
The set back to the Southern Negro, to which I referred in Reconstruction, was not primarily because of the ravishes of the War. I was writing in relative terms. The Southern Negro lost ground relative to the poor Southern White during Reconstruction, because he was treated as a pawn by the contemptible alliance of scoundrels--Carpetbaggers, Scaliwags and radical politicians--who promised such nonsense as "Forty Acres & a Mule," i.e. equality and prosperity from Government. It was from this social mess, a loss of many of the skills that they had had in 1865, out of which Booker T. Washington was trying to lift his people. (Let me be a bit more specific without making this unreadable. In 1860 most of the skilled craft work in the deep South--the Gulf States--was being performed by Negro craftsmen. By 1890, the greatest participation in any of the skilled crafts was down to a mere 20%, while some were down to about 2%, and this in States where the Negro was either in a majority or in a very large minority.)
The Southern people have indeed been victimized, and the saddest of all the victims were those Negroes promised the moon, as it were, but led by the pied pipers of the Left to perdition. How much more appealing is the picture proposed by Booker T. Washington, of racial cooperation based upon the ancient ties of two distinct peoples, united in a common culture. (For more on Washington's vision, and how it paralleled that of the Founding Fathers, see The Persuasive Use Of Images.)
William Flax
That is an opinion, perhaps even an opinion that a reasonable man might hold, but it is an opinion only and nothing more.