How would you characterize life for white southerners during the Reconstruction period?

1. Do you agree with Lincoln’s assessment that the nation could not have endured half slave and half free, even, for example, if some political accommodations had been made at the federal level? Why or why not? Also, to what extent do you agree that the Dred Scott decision and the Kansas Nebraska Act were tantamount to an effort to nationalize slavery?  If they were, what might that reveal about the trend in national politics during the 1850s?