It seems to me, as an outsider, that the union should have never accepted the surrender of the Confederates, and instead, kept going until every last racist was shot and killed.
But, two things about that.... Even after being "freed", people of color were still second class citizens, at best, and segregation continued for many years beyond the end of the war. So the problem didn't just magically go away when the slaves were freed. There were plenty of racist pieces of shit that were happy to see the blacks isolated into their own space, far away from them ....
So I'm not sure killing all of the Confederates would have made a huge difference.
The war didn't end, they just stopped saying certain things out loud. They also were far from the only racists in the country.
I'm so disappointed that there was so much progress with Obama, and he was such a good president (by comparison)... It seemed like the USA was on the way to a golden era of acceptance and equality for all.... Then this shit happened. It's like the racists were so pent up and they finally felt so oppressed by all the DEI that they hulked out and they're trying to take over, and undo the "damage" (as they see it) to the country over the last ~160 years since the civil war ended.
But WTF do I know? I'm just some guy who doesn't even live in the USA.