They raped my Grandmother, lynched my Uncle, broke up my family-you find honor, you racist prick?

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

48. I meant "ennoble" in the sense of making them see themselves as better than they were.

To not call them evil, though they were, in the hope they would stop being so.

But, I've reread the entire Second Inaugural Address and some discussion of it since posting that, and I'm not really sure what to think he meant. I'd forgotten there was so much religiosity in the speech. "It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged."

How do you fight a bloody battle against something unless you judge it to be wrong?

Anyway, I do tend to agree with the Radical Republicans of the day who thought he was being too forgiving of the South.

Regarding his plan for reunification:

Lincoln hoped that the leniency of the plan—90 percent of the 1860 voters did not have to swear allegiance to the Union or to emancipation—would bring about a quick and long-anticipated resolution and make emancipation more acceptable everywhere.

This approach appealed to some in the moderate wing of the Republican Party, which wanted to put the nation on a speedy course toward reconciliation. However, the proposal instantly drew fire from a larger faction of Republicans in Congress who did not want to deal moderately with the South. These members of Congress, known as Radical Republicans, wanted to remake the South and punish the rebels. Radical Republicans insisted on harsh terms for the defeated Confederacy and protection for former slaves, going far beyond what the president proposed.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/ushistory2os2xmaster/chapter/restoring-the-union/

But who knows? One of the problems with something as horrific and destructive as slavery is that there is no way of ending it that ends up with all being well. Certainly not immediately, probably not ever.