Not trying to justify anything here, but if anything is a constant with politicians is that lying is part of that game. I don't agree with it, but it's probably the only way to secure votes from many different types of people simultaneously. More importantly, it completely obscures any actual truth and nullifies the worst bits of most scandals. (The latter being more applicable today.)

Racism and inequality was likely common place back then. Slavery was bad, without a doubt, and being anti-slavery was an easier position to support. Racial and social equality was probably much more difficult to support and probably were still radical concepts. (I can't even imagine what it would have been like to be gay back then, which was still mostly illegal.) Media, for what it was then, could be blatantly racist and sexist. Even through the 1940's, 50's and 60's Disney was still full-bore racist and sexist. (Dumbo and Lady and the Tramp come to mind). Media, for better or for worse, shapes the views of the people.

Fast forward to today, we still have issues: Politicians still campaign on lies, racism and sexism. The bluntness of it all is just just tweaked for current times.

The meat of all of this is that I believe people haven't really changed much. Slavery is gone thankfully, and equality is more of a thing. However, we just use new words and terms for racism or suppression of the people that some believe are "less than human". Today, it's not profitable to throw around the "n word" in media these days. Back then, it was just.. normal. I suspect even more liberal papers weren't immune to talking about "the negros" as a different class of person entirely.

Banning slavery has a huge step forward, but it should have been easy to understand that complete and total integration of everyone into "normal" society was going to take a long time. Like, a fuck ton of time. Does that excuse even "moderate racism" back then? Fuck no it doesn't. Quite literally, people need to die off for some old beliefs and practices to also die off.

Times were different back then and that is about the only justification there is to be had in that regard. It wasn't right, but in context of the times, it wasn't completely wrong either. Any politician must at least seem to hold the values and beliefs of their constituents or they won't get elected. I would like to assume that post-civil was America was a truly a strange time for many people and any equality discussions were still a long way away. It was just too complicated for people to handle.