Dbq Reconstruction Plan

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.”

Lincoln’s plan for reconstruction as one of his many goals was to regain representation by abolishing slavery. (Reconstruction Power Point). “…a state could be reintegrated into the Union when 10 percent of its voters… had taken oath of allegiance to the United States and pledged to abide by emancipation.” (Piehl 353). After having the Ten Percent plan introduced and Lincolns assassination, the Thirteenth Amendment freed the slaves, weakening the south.

Lincoln is still portrayed similarly in some aspects, such as his willingness to pardon the Confederates in order to create loyal governments. He also tolerated variations on Reconstruction. It is also important to note that Lincoln was not looking for a social revolution in which African Americans would be given full voting rights. However, Lincoln differed from Johnson in that Lincoln was broad-minded, willing to change his mind and cooperate with others, and would have let his ideas progress positively during Reconstruction, whereas Johnson was obstinate, racist, and unable to hear criticisms. Congress eventually became tired of Johnson’s refusal to cooperate and implemented their own plans for Reconstruction, which included passing the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (all were equal before the law), the Fourteenth Amendment (equality was now in the Constitution), and the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 and 1868 (the South had new governments, and for the first time in American history, black males could vote).

The Civil War has ended and now we need to reunite the states. The Johnson plan was the best plan because of various reasons. One of the reasons is because they had to ratify the 13 amendments. The thirteenth amendment was to slavery. Abolishing slavery is good because that means everyone has freedom, and freedom is what all African-Americans want.

The lives of African Americans regressed to their Antebellum states due to a combination of violence and legal action following the end of Reconstruction bringing about a period of violence and anarchy. During the Reconstruction Period, it seemed that Congress and the presence of Federal troops would be enough to rebuild and reform the decimated South. Lincoln’s plan to reintegrate the South was considered lenient and focused on bringing the South back into the Union as quickly as possible. After Lincoln’s death, Congress implemented a series of harsher regulations know as Congressional Reconstruction, which came to an end with the election of President Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1876 election (“America’s” Par. 3).

The Presidential reconstruction was led by Andrew Johnson. Johnson had planned to go easy on the south and let each southern state decide their own plans for reentering the Union. Also, Johnson did not believe that African-Americans could manage their own lives and he let southern states pass black codes which restricted the African-American’s rights. With that being said he also did not believe African-Americans should have the right to vote, Johnson’s reconstruction plan allowed southern states to take away all rights for African-Americans.

President Andrew Johnson had tried to veto the Civil RIghts Act of 1865 but it was overturned and the act became a Law. President Johnson’s attitude toward this led to the growth of the Radical Republican Movement and it also increased intervention in the South, more help to former slaves and also to Johnson’s impeachment. The Black Code, Freedman’s Bureau, and the Bill of 1865 are all prime examples of how the African American’s have freedom. In 1865, the Civil War ended offering more freedoms to all African American

In the spring of 1865, the Civil War came to a close with the North victorious, but that was not an end to the country’s problems. The question that was now at hand and on everyone’s mind was how to rebuild the broken and shattered nation. Lincoln during the Civil War had introduced the Ten Percent plan in which states that were in rebellion against the federal government could rejoin the union if ten percent of the state’s population took an oath of allegiance to the U.S and agreed to the emancipation of slaves.

According to Johnson’s views of things, the south has never given up their right to govern themselves. This is what was under Johnson’s Presidential Reconstruction, that all land that had been confiscated by the Union Army and that was distributed out to the freed slaves or the Freedmen’s Bureau, which was established by the Congress in 1865) be given back to its prewar owners. Apart from the abolition of slavery, loyalty to the Union and to pay off the war debt and the southern state government is given free reign to rebuild themselves again. In 1865 and 1866, southern states was introduced to some new laws known as the “black codes,” which kept restrictions on the freed blacks’ activities and made sure of their availability as a labor worker. These codes made the North outraged which include many members of Congress.

After the Civil War, the United States tried to mend the relationship between the Union and Confederacy through the institution of reconstruction under Johnson. President Johnson established minimal requirements that created much controversy between the Congressmen supporting that supported the Union during the war. Ultimately, Johnson acted in protecting poor whites since there was now an abundant supply of cheap labor with slavery no longer being enacted. Slowly with the reintegration of the South, there were state laws created to repress African Americans since they were now the population that was in the majority in comparison to whites. The population grew due to freed African Americans in the South, whites saw that the racially-structured

After the Andrew Johnson’s resistance to reconstruction included bring Confederate states into the Union and letting the African American men vote. Under his held ideals of “white suffrage”. It pitted him in opposition against Congress; thus, his stubborn stance against Reconstruction is the real reason that lead to his impeachment hearing under the Tenure of Office Act of 1867, which is a federal law that passed by congress to restrict the power of the President remove people from office without the approval of the Senate, when he removed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton from his office. Reconstruction was the period following the Civil War, when the states of the Confederacy where the government controlled bringing them back into the union and gave rights to African Americans in the process. White suffrage simply meant: only white males could vote.

Following this, the Civil War took on a new dimension. The Union winning would fundamentally transform the South, where the “peculiar institution” of slavery was a crucial aspect of the economy, politics, and society. Just prior to the end of the war, in April 1865, Lincoln shocked many by suggesting limited suffrage for African Americans in the South, allowing them to vote, at least to some degree. The assassination of Lincoln was soon after, and his successor, Andrew Johnson, oversaw the beginning of Reconstruction. Beginning in May of 1865, Johnson’s Reconstruction policies required former Confederate states to uphold the abolition of slavery, pay off war debt and swear loyalty to the Union.

The southern whites who worked around the Presidents moderate plan of Reconstruction did so in a manner that would be frowned upon today. The Southern whites had been guaranteed charity from Lincoln. “With his [Lincoln’s] enormous prestige as commander of the victorious North and as victor in the 1864 election, he was able to promise freedom to the Negro, charity to the southern white, security to the North” (page 3). An example of how Congress worked around Johnson’s disliked program of Reconstruction was passing through bills for him to sign. Johnson vetoed them and as a result Congress over ruled him and passed them anyway.

The Reconstruction did not happen all at one time. It went through phases, starting out in 1863 with President Lincoln’s Ten-Percent Plan,which kicked off the Presidential Reconstruction phase (Schultz, 2013). This plan stated that if just ten percent of a state’s population would take an oath to support the newly freed slaves, that state would be allowed back into the Union with no repercussions. The Presidential Reconstruction continues until 1867 and included events such as the appointment of Andrew Johnson as president, after the assassination of President Lincoln.

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.