Question

President Abraham Lincoln’s plan for Reconstruction

Answer 1

Answer:

1863

Lincoln issues Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction

1864

Congress passes Wade-Davis Bill; Lincoln pocket-vetoes it

1865

Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse

Congress creates Freedmen’s BureauLincoln is assassinated; Johnson becomes president

   Key People

   Abraham Lincoln

   16th U.S. president; proposed Ten-Percent Plan for Reconstruction in 1863; assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865

   Andrew Johnson

   17th U.S. president; was vice president in Lincoln’s second term and became president upon Lincoln’s assassination

Plans for Reconstruction

After major Union victories at the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln began preparing his plan for Reconstruction to reunify the North and South after the war’s end. Because Lincoln believed that the South had never legally seceded from the Union, his plan for Reconstruction was based on forgiveness. He thus issued the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction in 1863 to announce his intention to reunite the once-united states. Lincoln hoped that the proclamation would rally northern support for the war and persuade weary Confederate soldiers to surrender.

The Ten-Percent Plan

Lincoln’s blueprint for Reconstruction included the Ten-Percent Plan,which specified that a southern state could be readmitted into the Union once 10 percent of its voters (from the voter rolls for the election of 1860) swore an oath of allegiance to the Union. Voters could then elect delegates to draft revised state constitutions and establish new state governments. All southerners except for high-ranking Confederate army officers and government officials would be granted a full pardon. Lincoln guaranteed southerners that he would protect their private property, though not their slaves. Most moderate Republicans in Congress supported the president’s proposal for Reconstruction because they wanted to bring a quick end to the war.

In many ways, the Ten-Percent Plan was more of a political maneuver than a plan for Reconstruction. Lincoln wanted to end the war quickly. He feared that a protracted war would lose public support and that the North and South would never be reunited if the fighting did not stop quickly. His fears were justified: by late 1863, a large number of Democrats were clamoring for a truce and peaceful resolution. Lincoln’s Ten-Percent Plan was thus lenient—an attempt to entice the South to surrender.