Was he the savior of our nation? A hypocritcal opportunist? Genius? Gay? Personally I believe he was our greatest president.
Lincoln's election may have precipitated the South's secession, but it was coming anyway. So, given that, Lincoln did what he had to do, and that was win the war and reunite the country. And in his second inaugural, he provided the emotional blueprint for re-unifying. More has never been asked of any US president, so I would have to agree with your assessment.
for the sake of discussion...an example of anti-Lincoln opinion. http://akjb.org/The Great Abe Lincoln.html Try not to dismiss it as the ramblings of a crackpot (which is easy to do).
Lincoln was a great president, but IIRC also a great politician. For example, he changed his message wrt slavery depending on where in the country he was campaigning. This has led to some scepticism about his qualities.
I think, had he survived to complete his second term, Reconstruction would have been more of a Reconciliation.
AFAIK, Lincoln was prepared to readmit the southern states essentially immediately on the cessation of the war. He did not want the period of "reconstruction" that was foisted on the South. Johnson agreed with this view, although he did not have the political backing (or skills) to make it happen.
True, but I don't think Lincoln (and I'm certainly speculating here) would have turned such a blind eye to the brutalizing and intimidation of the newly freed peoples in the South. (and before you get into it, yes, I know Lincoln didn't have the most progressive views on race relations) I also don't think Lincoln would've vetoed the Civil Rights bill as Johnson did (largely to curry favor with Democrats). In short, yes, Lincoln was for reconciliation as opposed to the radical Republicans in Congress, but from what I've read it would still have been a bit sterner than that advocated by Johnson.
(Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, v. 3 [New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1953], pp. 247-8. Sixth Debate with Steven A. Douglas at Quincy, Ill., Oct. 13, 1858) Lincoln was a man in the midst of a process of possibility, that being one of becoming a 'great' President in terms of affirming - and BEING - a maximization of his own humanity and the keeping track of that of any other. But that, combined with a will to keep the Union together, is all I can say about him. Anything else would be Campbellian monomythic application of something else superimposed over, and making opaque, the actual language we have from him on a number of wholly moral issues, not the LEAST of which is the clear underpinning of white supremacist doctrine seen above (not supremacist in terms of neo-nazi-ist Klannish behaviour, but in the casually debated (at one time, now casually ignored) appropriation of human primacy by white people. Lincoln contributes to this even as he is immersed in an awareness of humanity that springs from intimate relations with mass death, one that begins, or seems to, a subversive and transformative process that calls upon those 'human' notions mentioned above, in their Latin, rooted sense: humando, burying. The more humans Lincoln saw buried, the more aware of everyone's humanity he seemed to become. Ironically, he became mythologized in ways he never was during his political career after he himself was violently subject to this humando sensibility. Because that process of possibilty remained incomplete (because it was cut short, as with Malcolm X, who was on a similar arc if not a smiliar journey), the best we can say is that Lincoln was successful at some things, as differentiated from being great. To say he was the greatest President isn't saying that much, and places 'greatness' on such a meager continuum as to render the word impotent.
I'm no expert on the man but I don't think he was by any means a progressive. I would think that had he lived to oversee reconstruction he would have turned an iron gaze upon many of the problems felt by the south.
Lincoln had the wisdom and political skill to hold the more extreme elements of the Radical Republicans in check--but that's not the same thing as saying he would have entirely disagreed with the Reconstruction project. Johnson was too pro-Southern to lead any such effort. Don't forget that the work of Reconstruction was unfinished, and then betrayed. Confederate apologists portray it mainly as a period where white Southerners were harshly punished for rebellion. The primary purpose of Reconstruction was to undo the old slave economy, re-integrate the South politically AND integrate it economically to the North. Not to mention institutionalizing and consolidating the newly free status of millions of former slaves. The only way you can say Reconstruction went 'too far' is if you conveniently ignore the millions of African-Americans who were abandoned by the Federal Government; and most 'Lost Cause', 'War of Northern Aggression', 'War of State's Rights' Confederate apologists are, of course, more than willing to do just that. The Civil War and Reconstruction look a lot different if you don't marginalize black Americans role in our nation's history.
You may want to reread what Mr Lincoln had to say on the subject. Whether he could have pulled it off is another subject. Johnson was not the man for the job on many levels. Reconstruction was about punishment. To say otherwise is simply disingenous and/or naive. The number of congressmen that gave a crap about the rights of the freed slaves in the late-1860's was practically zero. After passing the 14th amendment, what further progress was there? Virtually none. What laws were passed to enforce even the voting rights of those freed? None. Furthermore, the south was not "reintegrated" (interesting choice of words, BTW) politically until the middle of last century (Lyndon Johnson in 1963 was the first president from the south and Carter in 1976 was the first from the "Old South"). Economically, it is still catching up. Rubbish. Reconstruction went too far because it delayed rather than speeded the integration into society of those people you claim everyone else is conveniently ignoring. I'm not an "apologist" (what a stupid term that is) but I do know the civil war was an economic war with slavery and state's rights as the catalytic issues. Lincoln went to war to preserve the union, not to defeat slavery. He said so multiple times. I and others who read history differently than you are not "marginalizing" anyone or their role in history by saying this.
I agree (to an extent) with much of your post but this last paragraph is a bit confusing....perhaps I'm not understanding you correctly. You say Reconstruction went too far because it delayed rather than sped up the integration of newly freed slaves into society. By that are you saying that the backlash against newly freed slaves was totally a product of "harsh" reconstruction? Do you believe that newly freed slaves would've been intergrated more quickly if the South had been immediately welcomed back into the Union (with no conditions) assuming also that the same civil rights laws were passed?