Lincoln is to blame for this. He should have not gone easy. He should have had every slave owner executed and turned over the land to the slaves. There would be the reparations.
Oh yeah that really would have helped heal the nation after the Civil War. Given the damage a Confederate guerilla movement could have done in the South after the war the need to make sure that former Confederates didn't flee into the hills far surpassed any retribution.
Do you think that Southern slaveowners would have just idlely stood there and waited for their executions? Would you? Hell no they would have taken what remained of their forces and did what rebels in Mexico and Latin America did after they lost, fight a long drawn out guerilla war against the federal government.
