Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and Congress offered many different ideas and plans for Reconstruction. Reconstruction was the era succeeding the Civil War in which the United States needed rebuilding. Following the end of the Civil War, the south needed help recognizing slaves as equal citizens after the thirteenth amendment was passed which abolished slavery. Abraham Lincoln’s plan for Reconstruction was known as the, Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, also known as the 10% plan. Lincoln’s plan was, a rebel state (southern) could rejoin the Union once ten percent of voters who had voted in 1860 swore an oath of allegiance to the Constitution and the Union and received presidential pardon acquitting them from treason charges (Shi, …show more content…
The Wade-Davis Bill required that a majority of white male citizens declare their allegiance to the Union and the Constitution before a Confederate state could be re-admitted rather than only ten percent of citizens (Shi, 514). Lincoln vetoed the bill as being too severe and therefore it never became law. The Radical Republicans goal was to punish the south. With the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution being approved it officially abolished slavery everywhere. This caused the question to arise of what exactly freedom meant for the new freed slaves who had nothing (Shi, 515). This lead to Congress creating the Freedmen’s Bureau. The Freedmen’s Bureau aided in helping “freedmen and their wives and children”, and provided assistance directly to the people (Shi, 515). The Freedmen’s Bureau was a major step in the right direction during Reconstruction. It lead to new schools to further education which resulted in creating jobs. It also provided more stability in the states and improved the lives of the people. After Lincoln’s assassination, Andrew Johnson was placed into office. Johnson placed a new plan of Reconstruction into action. His plan was comparable to Lincoln’s as it was
After the end of the American Civil War in 1865 our growing country was in desperate need of adjustments. The Union had beaten the Confederacy which left them in charge of how we were going to fix all of the problems in our country at the time. At this time Abraham Lincoln had been killed and new president Andrew Johnson had been chosen. The three major problems that Johnson decided to address and fix was slavery, the rights of the people, and the rights on voting. These problems would be resolved in the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, also known as the “reconstruction amendments”, of the United States Constitution and they brought profound changes to our nation.
Reconstruction Era: Congressional Reconstruction During the Reconstruction Era President Abraham Lincoln introduced the “10 percent plan”. Abraham Lincoln’s plan included allowing Confederate states to rejoin the union once 10 percent of the people swore an oath of loyalty. His plan also included for states to formalize the 13th Amendment to eradicate slavery. Radical Republicans led by Thaddeus Stevens thought that the Reconstruction Plan that was put forth by Abraham Lincolns was too lenient on the Confederate States.
Throughout the history of the United States, there have been many decisions that have impacted the path that society would take and multiple possibilities for each decision. One such decision was related to the Civil War, more specifically the plans for reconstruction after the Civil War. After the Civil War the nation had to rebuild and three plans were provided that outlined a process for the reconstruction, Lincoln’s plan, Johnson’s plan, and the Radical Republican’s plan. Lincoln’s plan called for restoring the Union as quickly as possible with very little punishment for the Southern states. Lincoln’s plan included amnesty for those that pledged an oath to the United States, high ranking Confederate officials were excluded from that amnesty,
First of all, the problem with bringing the South and the North together is that they should’ve taken one issue at a time. They were juggling between the issue of slavery, economic problems, and state power. It was too much at the same time and was asking things to clash. They didn’t make sure that both of the issues weren’t addressed fairly either.
The period of Reconstruction can be described as the period after the Civil War in which the states formerly part of the Confederacy were brought back into the United States. The period of Reconstruction began in 1865 shortly after President Lincoln's reelection, and came to an end in 1877 when President Hayes withdrew the last federal troops from the South and the Republican government collapsed. While reuniting the Union, Reconstruction sought to enhance Black rights and freedoms in order to establish a truly free country after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, and the Thirteenth Amendment which was ratified in 1865. However, despite these important new Constitutional rights and protections for the freed African Americans, the promise
My Vision for Reconstruction After Lincoln’s assassination from John Wilkes Booth, all of his hard work and diligence put into his well thought-out reconstruction plan was destroyed. Lincoln’s main priority throughout his rein of presidency was to reunite the seceded states of the Confederates back into the Union. After the massive destruction the south received of the long battling days of the the Civil war, the south was left as a barren, destroyed wasteland. Lincoln sought after the plan to bring the south back up to it's urbanized and farming glory.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves and reigniting anger within the South and white supremacists. This, arguably, led to the serious debate over the whites’ allowance of African Americans to use their rights, and was more prominent in the South than North. While the American Civil War was occurring, this debate grew larger in size and more prominent in society and politics. Thus, the Reconstruction Era began, in which the U.S. government chose to protect African Americans and support them in using their rights. However, white hate groups did not want African Americans to have a voice in the matters of society, as they continued to see them as slaves and of lower class due to their skin tone.
When reconstruction first started there were four million freedmen. the Freedmen’s Bureau was started to help those men and men that had been displaced by the war. Their first goal was to get people who had been displaced by the war emergency relief. Some other things that the Freedmen’s Bureau also set up schools for white and black people who were uneducated, they helped people find jobs, they also set up their own courts to settle disputes between blacks and whites. Andrew
When the Civil War began, it became clear that the new amendment meant nothing to the constitution and that it did not impact the chances of war. After the Civil War ended, the second proposal was chosen to be ratified as an act of victory. The new Thirteenth Amendment said that all slavery would be abolished unless used as an act of punishment for a committed crime. While it was considered unusual, Lincoln took an active role in Congress, making sure his amendment had a smooth passage. He believed that the amendment was the final constitutional solution to abolishing slavery.
The Varying Policies for Reconstruction and Reunion Following the Southern defeat of the Civil War, President Lincoln had every intention of returning the rebellious states to the Union as quickly and painlessly as possible. During the war, he had already drafted a plan for reconstructing the torn nation, called the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. The plan involved returning land and granting pardon to most rebellious citizens (but not the higher Confederate officers and bureaucrats) and for the Southern state governments to handle the newly freed slaves however they chose, so long as they retained their freedom. This proclamation was also called the 10 Percent Plan, as the final policy was the the southern states could return
Soon after the war was over, President Abraham Lincoln introduced his reconstruction plan to reunite the nation, and have it function the way it used to. On December 1863, President Lincoln issued his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction; it offered “full pardon” and the restoration of property to white Southerners. However, the prerequisites to receive full pardon include swearing an oath of allegiance to the United States and its laws; the only people excluded from the offer were Prominent Confederate military and civil leaders. On December 8, 1865, President Lincoln announced the terms of another reconstructive plan, known as “Lincoln’s Ten-Percent
Reconstruction was a period of time dedicated to rebuilding the nation after the Civil War. The war ended with the South being defeated and their economy being devastated. Many Southerners struggled after the war with rebuilding their land and lives. The President and Congress had to decide the terms for which the former Confederate states would be permitted to join the Union. President Lincoln’s plan for reuniting the country was found in the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction.
One of reasons the confederacy failed was because the U.S. Congress, with Lincoln’s support, proposed the 13th amendment which would abolish slavery in America. Although the confederate peace delegation was unwilling to accept a future without slavery, the radical and moderate Republicans designed a way to takeover the reconstruction program. The Radical Republicans wanted full citizenship rights for African Americans and wanted to implement harsh reconstruction policies toward the south. The radical republican views made up the majority of the Congress and helped to pass the 14th amendment which guaranteed equality under the law for all citizens, and protected freedmen from presidential vetoes, southern state legislatures, and federal court decisions. In 1869, Congress passed the fifteenth amendment stating that no citizen can be denied the right to vote because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
After Lincoln got assassinated, Andrew Johnson became president. During the summer of 1865 Johnson planned his reconstruction plan, and in his reconstruction said that states had to agree with the 13th amendment ( which abolished slavery ). February 1866 Congress passed the freedmen’s bureau and this gives the military responsibility for protecting the blacks, but Johnson vetoed the bill, surprising many republicans. Congress enacts the Civil Rights Act of 1866 on April 1866. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 means… “ it grants citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and guarantees them equal rights under the law.”
Abraham Lincoln’s vs Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan Lincoln shared the uncommon belief that the confederate states could still be part of the union and that the cause of the rebellion was only a few within the states which lead him to begin the reconstruction in December of 1863. This resulted in plans with lenient guidelines and although they were challenged by Wade-Davis Bill, Lincoln still rejected his ideas and kept his policies in place. Lincoln also allowed land to be given the newly freed slave or homeless white by distributing the land that had been confiscated from former land owners however this fell through once Johnson took office. After Lincoln’s death when Johnson was elected many things started to turn away from giving blacks equal rights and resulted in many things such a black codes which kept newly freed slaves from having the same rights as whites. When Lincoln first acted after the civil war, he offered policies that would allow the confederate slaves to become part of the union again and would allow a pardon for those states.