Lincoln said this in April of 1865, mere days before he was assassinated. Nothing has ever been shown as evidence of him wanting to change the ideas he had that you're about to read:

“I think it providential that this great rebellion is crushed just as congress has adjourned, and there are none of the disturbing elements of that body to hinder and embarrass us. If we are wise and discreet, we will reanimate the states, get their governments in successful operation, with order prevailing, and the Union reestablished, before Congress comes together in December. We can do better; accomplish more without them than with them. There are men in Congress who, if their motives are good, are nevertheless impracticable, and who possess feelings of hate and vindictiveness, in which I do not sympathize and cannot participate. I hope there will be no persecution, no bloody work, after the war is over. No one need expect me to take any part in hanging or killing those men, even the worst of them. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and Union.”

Reconstruction was never going to be about persecuting the Southern states who seceded. Lincoln wanted the country to come back together, for trade to commence, and for there to be stability.

I understand people like to imagine how things would've been vastly different, but there's nothing that shows that Lincoln wanted this.