Oops too late to vote, interesting quest though! Looking forwards to the next update.
Handing control over to local Reconstruction governments ASAP is probably the better course of action, the Federal government is slower and more susceptible to influence by both lingering Democrat sentiment as well as foreign powers like the French and English who would pressure us away from more radical social and economic reforms in favor of getting back on the gold standard ASAP. Reconstruction governments meanwhile are composed almost entirely of freedmen and carpetbaggers ideologically dedicated to killing the Old South off for good, damn the costs, with maybe an increasing plurality of smallholder whites/scalawags. The old aristocracy are the weakest they're ever going to get right now though, and the closest thing to influence they still have remaining would be in the border states or northern financial centers which can get the ear of the Feds instead of the local Reconstruction governments they're hard locked out of.
And just musing about wider economics in general - we're going to have to go back on a precious metal standard eventually if we want to participate in world trade, but the longer we can keep the greenback going the more democratized we can keep access to capital. Especially with the Western frontier semi-closed and the ability to buy folks off with free real estate constrained, we're going to need to keep the greenback as long as possible until ruinous inflation is looming. At which point we should probably push hard for bimetallism rather than a gold standard, with how devastated the South is we need to keep our capital flows as liquid as possible to avoid choking off freedmen starting from zero and nascent Southern industries that we need to foster something resembling the start of a proletarian class down there to decisively break from the white plantation legacy.