President Lincoln early in the war realized that if the Union was to win the war against the Confederacy, that steps would need to be taken to return the seceded states back into the Union and stabilize the United States as one front to the rest of the world. President Lincoln also understood that part of the reason for secession of southern states was due to Federal Government infringing on state’s rights and to mitigate this issue he believed that a more moderate approach was needed for a quick a successful reconstruction to occur. Under Lincoln’s original plan, the Confederacy and its people would not be sought out for punishment, but as equals in a joint effort to return the United States to its prewar era. His plan for Reconstruction was …show more content…
In one example, President Lincoln sent a letter to General Shepley addressing his concern for Federal/ Union officers to attempting to obtain a seat a Congressmen for a Confederate state and in this case Louisiana.1 This would later be called “carpet bagging”, which would undermine his plan for a joint effort for Reconstruction that included southern men to remain in position of power and represent their respected states.2 With this being established, Lincoln allowed for General Shepley to hold elections in Louisiana for a position in Congress and as a result two ant secessionist southerners were elected and admitted to …show more content…
President Lincoln and Congress, which was controlled by Radical Republicans, agreed on many policies and the ultimate objective to Reconstruction, but the method and deliverance of Reconstruction is what separated the two.7 Congress believed that Reconstruction should be swift, which required military intervention to impose Union ideals and decisive punishment of anyone who supported secession and/or stood against the Union.8 This was contrary to President Lincoln’s now moderate and relatively successful Reconstruction up to 1863. Congress, continued to fight the President by utilizing its legislative powers by issuing the Habeas Corpus Act of 1863 and the Wade-Davis reconstruction bill of 1864.9 Even with the difference in methods of Reconstruction, Lincoln was still able to work with Congress to root his moderate approach to Reconstruction. This was until his assassination on April 15, 1865 and momentum of President Lincoln’s Reconstruction plan came to a halt. Vice President Johnson attempted to continue Lincoln’s method of reconstruction, but it was not the same as Lincoln who had established his position with Congress and gained trust with select southern states. Congress saw its opportunity to take control of Reconstruction and the beginning of Radical Reconstruction began. Eventually,
Reconstruction is during which the United States began to rebuild the Southern society after they lost to the civil war. It lasted from 1865 to 1877, and it was initiated by President Lincoln until his assassination in 1865. President Johnson continued Lincoln’s agenda to continue the Reconstruction. Throughout the process of Reconstruction, one of its main purpose was to guarantees for equal rights for all people, especially for the African Americans. Even though slavery was abolished after the civil war, many Southerners were still against the idea of equal rights for all black people, such as the Republicans.
Yankees whom are often described as tyrants and did not want to see the south prosper. Jefferson Davis claimed that the war was for the states, and that the “…South needed to defend itself against a “tyrannical majority…” (i.e. Shi & Tindall, 2015, p. 465) It is often mention that many did not know what they were fighting for, like a Texas private who wrote, “we are fighting for matters real and negotiable… our property and our homes” (McPherson, 1994) , but Lincoln frequently said that the main goal was to restore the Union. What did he mean by restoring the union? His idea was rejected by most of the Confederate states because they thought that Lincoln was lying.
At the outset of the Civlil War, Lincoln originally wanted to limit the amount of bloodshed and destruction as much as humanly possible. The goal was not to destroy the south, or to engage in any prolonged warfare costing valuable lives and resources for the Union. “Erring secessionist staes were to be taken back into the Union, and Southern society was to be reshaped (80).” McGovern further adds that “The authoirty of the national government was to be reestablished by respecting, not abusing, the constitutional rights of the rebels (80).”
Although Lincoln concentrated on his plans for Reconstruction, he didn 't apply much diligence towards the Southern properties that were lost due to technical tax evasion. Abraham Lincoln 's plan proposed land be given to Emancipation accepting "rebels", but Confederate officers and people highly involved in their government, would be closed out from this proposition. Lincoln also granted that if ten percent of the state 's majority (of those who could vote), they 'd be allowed to make a new government. This last proposition caused the North anxiety for it could allow the South to receive unneeded power, causing the original split between the regions once again.
Differences of Opinions between President Andrew Johnson, the so called Radical Republicans, and the Southern State’s resentment provided the country with a difficult challenge for Reconstruction after the Civil War. Without the leadership of Abraham Lincoln, who believed in pardoning the South, bringing the Confederates states back into the Union became a rocky and short-lived process. Many Historians call the reconstruction of the South a failure. Lincoln’s plan for reuniting the Union consisted of factors that ensured a full pardon for war crimes and a restoration of property with the exception of slaves for members of the individual Southern States as long as ten percent of the population of each state took an oath of loyalty to the Constitution
Test #2 Presidential and Congressional Reconstruction Evan Meekins, the author of The Black Banner describes the period of Reconstruction as, “War was easy. The hard part was cleaning up afterward.” Reconstructing a divided and severed Union was a difficult and insurmountable task, but it had to be done. It fixed the issue of slavery by freeing the slaves and had rejoined the ex- Confederate states into the Union once again. Reconstruction was semi-effective in the state of Texas.
The Reconstruction, one of the roughest and controversial era in American history, took place after the Civil War between 1865 and 1877. This began the process of bringing the Nation back together and giving former slaves equals rights by three new Constitutional amendments. From the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Lincoln’s goal was the restoration of the Confederate states to the Union. In 1863, Lincoln proposed the Ten Percent Plan that granted amnesty to those Confederate states which swore an oath of allegiance to the Union. It would have given a general pardon to all southerners excluding high-ranking Confederate army officers and government officials.
Reconstruction of the south encompassed three major political initiatives: restoration of the Union, transformation of southern society, and enactment of progressive legislation favoring the rights of freed slaves. President Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction—issued in 1863, two years before the war even ended—mapped out the first of these initiatives, his Ten-Percent Plan. Under the plan, each southern state would be readmitted to the Union after 10 percent of its voting population had pledged future loyalty to the United States, and all Confederates except high-ranking government and military officials would be pardoned. After Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, President Andrew Johnson adopted the Ten-Percent Plan and pardoned thousands of Confederate officials. Radical Republicans in Congress, however, called for harsher measures, demanding a
Abe Lincoln advocated for a stronger executive branch during his career, which makes sense when taking into account that Lincoln’s presidency was defined by the Civil War and Reconstruction era before his assassination in 1865. The southern states had already began seceding from the Union by the time Lincoln had become president. Lincoln began to respond even before actual fighting broke out in the south. At first, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in Maryland as a way of securing safe travel for the military from the northern states to the capital . Eventually, President Lincoln either suspended the writ of habeas corpus by a direct order or authorized military commanders to suspend habeas corpus in various parts of the United States
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 1865-1877 (the period after the Civil War) was Reconstruction. President Abraham Lincoln started planning for Reconstruction of the south during the Civil War as Union soldiers. Reconstruction was a time of great pain and endless questions, known as the period following the civil war of rebuilding the United States. This still concluded as a war because it waged by radical northerners who wanted to punish the South and Southerners who desperately wanted to preserve their way of life. The South had started the civil war that caused so much destruction and deaths.
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.
Congressional reconstruction which was also called radical reconstruction can be characterized as “Increased intervention in the south” (Roark 409). Southern whites and there constant defiance, boosted the standing of radical republicans within the republican party. Finally In March 1867, “Congress overturned the Johnson state governments and initiated military rule of the south” (Roark 411). Congress rolled
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.
After Abraham Lincoln was elected as President of the United States, the South became very concerned that the end of life as they knew it was near, (Shultz, n.d.). President Lincoln was opposed to slavery and he was against the spread of it in the West. The southerners assumed that if the all the western territories remained free, the Republicans would accomplish their abolition efforts. Secession began with the states in the deep south, (Shultz, n.d.). South Carolina was the first southern state to secede from the Union and several others began to follow.