Unfortunately, Lincoln was assassinated before his plans for reconciliatory reconstruction could be implemented and was largely replaced with Johnson's more retaliatory plans to treat the south as conquered territory and traitors.
Lincoln had offered a pardon for rebels if they took allegiance to the US Constitution but excluded southern leaders who had left their post to fight against the US...
Even before the war had ended, Lincoln issued the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction in 1863, his compassionate policy for dealing with the South. The Proclamation stated that all Southerners could be pardoned and
reinstated as U.S. citizens if they took an oath of allegiance to the Constitution and the Union and pledged to abide by emancipation.
High Confederate officials, Army and Navy officers, and U.S. judges and congressmen who left their posts to aid the southern rebellion were excluded from this pardon. Lincoln’s Proclamation was called the “10 percent plan”: Once 10 percent of the voting population in any state had taken the oath, a state government could be put in place and the state could be
reintegrated into the Union.....
https://www.apstudynotes.org/us-history/topics/presidential-and-congressional-reconstruction-plans/
After the war, carpetbaggers and scallywags descended on the south like vultures and that is how it gained a reputation for corrupt local governments.