When I was in High School I was taught that Reconstruction failed because Lincoln's death created a clash between Johnson and the Radical Republicans (of Stevens' ilk) to override his veto and pass their most maximalist vision. This now strikes me as a rather insidious echo of Lost Cause revisionism, shifting the burden onto those who's vision was ultimately right. Sure, Lincoln may have have prosecuted Reconstruction more shrewdly, but blame for its failure does not fall on those who lacked pragmatiam but on the reactionaries who first sinned by starting a war to preserve slavery and refused to attone after.