Lincoln's Reconstruction Plan

After the Civil War between 1865 and 1877, the country went into Reconstruction. They had to rebuild the south because of Sherman’s plan of total war. In Sherman’s plan, his army took food and burned property, destroying everything that could be used by the Confederates during the war. President Lincoln helped by giving amnesty for Confederate soldiers and a plan for readmission to the Union of the Southern states. He also proposed the Ten Percent Plan. The plan allowed states to be readmitted to the Union if ten percent of its voters swore a loyalty oath to the Union and agreed to the end of slavery. President Johnson took office once Lincoln got assassinated, this changed the course of Reconstruction because he was a southerner and a democrat. He had more sympathy for southerners and many former Confederates assumed political office as soon as their state was readmitted to the Union.

Initially, came Abraham Lincoln’s presidential reconstruction plan. This plan was known as the Ten Percent Plan. It stated that a southern state could re-enter into the Union in which they succeeded from if they acquire 10 percent of voters who swear an oath of allegiance to the Union. This was from the election of 1860 during the voter rolls. Once these voters swore an oath to the Union, they could then elect and draft in chosen delegates to do things such as draft state constitutions as well as create new governments for states. All the southerners who weren’t official government or army officers were granted pardons, and also had been granted protection of their private property. This did not include their slaves. Overall, Lincoln’s plan

President Abraham Lincoln wanted to prevent a resurgence of resistance. He realized that time was of the essence, and a plan would need to be devised to clearly allow white southerners the ability to regain their status in the Union. His main objective from the beginning of the Civil War was to bring it to an end as quickly as possible. Thus, Lincoln issued the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction.

1.Lincoln’s original plan was the Ten Percent Plan which would exclude the Confederates except for important officials. This is significant because this was the original idea that the United States wanted to follow in order to rebuild the country.

As the Reconstruction Era began, a plan was already thought of to put an end to the the Era. A plan was proposed by Abraham Lincoln was known as the 10 Percent Plan in 1863. The central idea of it, “...pardoned any former Confederate who would take an oath to support the Constitution. The parbon offer

When Abraham Lincoln was elected as the first republican president, he only received 40% of the popular votes; he also beat three other candidates on top of that. Lincoln was responsible for a lot of changes and is also known as an icon in American History. Lincoln was a Kentucky-born lawyer and a former Whig Representative to the Congress. Lincoln was going up against Stephen Douglas in the Senate race; Douglas argued that the states should have a right to be a slave state or a free state, while Lincoln argued against slavery and the spread of it. Unsurprisingly, Lincoln had lost the Senate race, but his campaign against slavery brought national attention to the Republican Party, in 1860, Lincoln had won the Republican party’s nomination

After the war, the government tried to solve key problems facing the nation. The 10% Plan was proposed by Abraham Lincoln and its purpose was to end Reconstruction quickly. It pardoned all Ex-Confederates in the South as long as they apologized, it would only need ten percent of the voters in each state to swear allegiance to the Union, and did not offer any type of equality to the Freedmen. The 10% Plan was a short-term effect because Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865, and after he was killed and Vice President Andrew Johnson took over the idea of the 10% Plan disappeared. Another attempt to end Reconstruction by the government was proposed by the Radical Republicans in congress and was the complete

His stance on reconstruction was similar to Lincoln’s, in that he was not as harsh on the South as the Radical Republicans in Congress wanted. In May 1865, Johnson issued his Amnesty Proclamation, which required an oath of loyalty from former confederates, who would then be pardoned and have their property restored (except slaves) that had be confiscated by Federal officials during the war. The only people not included in this proclamation were high-ranking military and civilian Confederate officials and those who resigned their positions in the Federal government to serve the in the Confederacy. Johnson issued a second proclamation outlining his plan for how the states should go about getting themselves back into the Union. Under this plan, the President would appoint a governor to each state under reconstruction.

Reconstruction produced enormous tensions among the political parties, and between the president and Congress. After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his vice president, Andrew Johnson, became the following president after the Civil War. Andrew Johnson wanted the South back to full pledged membership in the union as rapidly as possible. Johnson quickly set his plans in motion while congress was not in session which then became known as the Presidential Reconstruction. It seemed that he wanted a rapid lenient restoration of the union. His aim was to bring the white south and white north back together. African Americans do not play a role in Johnson's vision of the postwar South other than to go back to work, be landless, and rightless plantation

In hindsight it is sometimes claimed that Reconstruction was a failure. Although there was some good that came out of the Reconstruction it was mostly just a relentless uphill battle against Southerners and immoral politicians that were here to delay change and keep racism alive. Reconstruction brought the Ku Klux Klan who displayed great resistance, and poverty that swept the South once the blacks were freed. The freedom of these black slaves led to discriminatory legislatures such as the Black Codes and the Jim Crow laws to keep the blacks constrained from actually being free. The South was then encountered with corruption and high property taxes, as a rebuild was in order to reestablish the war torn part of the nation.

Lincoln's main goal was to reunite the Union after the North had won and demolished most of the South. Lincoln wanted to reunite the North and South but the South didn't want to join a slave free north. Lincoln came up with the 10 percent plan which required 10 percent of the state’s population to vote to be loyal to the North and then that state would have to create a new government. The southern states combated this plan with the Wade-Davis Bill which stated that reconstruction would be handed over to congress and the Southern States

After the tragedy of Lincoln's death, Vice President Andrew Johnson stepped up into the presidential position and started his own plans for reconstruction; his too, would turn out to be a failure. He supported hardcore Democratic principles and restoring Southern power. He brought in the remaining states back into the constitution. He divided the power of planters and restricted there voting He created the idea of "blanket pardons" which allowed Southern states that had abolished slavery and repealed their articles of secession to re-assume their powers of government and elect representatives to the Congress. This all backfired because while the south was happy and the Blacks weren't voting under Johnson, the Radical Republicans were angered and more conflict was started. The whole idea of everyone being happy wasn't working at all with anyone. Johnson was the second to go, being the first impeached president ever.

As the Civil War continued in 1863 Lincoln Had announced his plan called the Ten-Percent Plan of Reconstruction. The main goal of the plan was to abolish slavery by getting ten percent of the voters to take the oath, so that when the ten percent was reached they could elect a new state government, which would abolish slavery. In the textbook it states "Lincoln's plan offered no role to blacks in shaping the post-slavery order." There was only select few states that took this oath and those states were Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas. All of these events has started to take place after the victories at the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in 1863, Lincoln felt as If the south had never truly succeeded into the union. Lincoln agreed that

The Reconstruction of the United States was a time of political controversy following the civil war. Throughout 1863-1877 several plans were put into place in an effort to unify the confederate states back into the union. Part of this process was to give newly freed slaves rights as free men. Some parts of the plan were successful and others were a complete disaster.

Many questions emerged after the end of the Civil War. The two most common questions were: “How do we put the South back into the Union” and “What do we do with the free slaves?” The Reconstruction Era is known for its two parts. The first would be the Presidential Plan of Reconstruction and the other would be the Congressional Plan of Reconstruction. The Presidential Plan was proposed by Abraham Lincoln but was enacted by President Andrew Johnson. The plan consisted of ways on how to rebuild the South. This plan was also known as the Ten Percent Plan because the Union will take the certain amount of voters in a Confederate state, at least ten percent of voters from the 1860 Election, to come back to the United States. The Presidential Plan came to an end and then came the Congressional Plan of Reconstruction, which was also known as the Fifty Percent Plan, exactly like the Ten Percent Plan. The only difference is that the Fifty Percent Plan was much more strict. Not only did a Confederate state need at least fifty percent of voters from the 1860 Election but they also needed to rewrite state Constitutions that must be