He was basically saying that the nation needed to heal after the Civil War was over and that the south should be welcomed back into the Union without any thought of revenge or punishment directed toward them. What Lincoln envisioned is pretty much what we have today, one nation and not a collection of individual states whose residents are more loyal to the state they live in than the country as a whole. Before the Civil War most people felt more strongly associated with their state of residence than with the United States as a country.