With the end of the Civil War the country began its Reconstruction to repair the damages the South had cause when the Confederates withdrawal from the Union. One of the questions asked should the South be punished or pardoned for their crimes committed against the Union. President Lincoln began proposing a Ten Percent Plan for the Reconstruction of the South which was in leniency for the Confederates, which entailed pardoning crimes, to any Confederate who would take an oath of allegiance to the Union and accept federal policy on slavery. There was much antagonistic views on Lincoln’s plan for the Reconstructing the South, with the Radical Republicans being adamant that the Reconstruction should be a total reconstruction of the society to guarantee African American true equality. The assassination of President Lincoln caused the nation to go into a political chaos, with Lincoln’s Reconstruction Plan vetoed a new Plan which was overseen by former Vice President Andrew Johnson. Now President, Johnson took the essence of Lincoln plan with the pardoning of southerners who …show more content…
With the established black codes or laws that limited African American rights these black codes were curfews, vagrancy laws, labor contracts, and land restrictions. In 1866, Congress passed a Civil Rights Act that outlawed the black codes, with congress overriding his veto, Congress decided to build equal rights into the Constitution. White rioters went on rampages against African American with act of stabbing, shooting, and hanging hundreds of blacks, President Johnson continued to oppose the equality of African Americans thus beginning a power struggle between congress and the President causing his near future
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.
The Reconstruction of many Southern states from the year 1865 to 1877 is a failure, although reconstruction plans are set up, African Americans still face the same poor treatment they are given prior to the Civil War. The president at the time, Abraham Lincoln, puts in place a reconstruction plan to help rebuild the South in a way it has never been before, without slaves. Lincoln also puts the thirteenth amendment in place, which abolishes slavery. However, after Lincoln’s death, his Vice President, Andrew Johnson takes over and overrules his reconstruction plan, and puts in place his own, which favors the former Confederate states. Johnson fights with congress over the passing of the fourteenth amendemnet, but Congress overrules his vetoes,
While this is true, the main reason for the Ten-Percent Plan was to quickly establish peace and not to punish the South (shown by Congress’ plan of reconstruction). Even though the plan created by the Radical Republicans would benefit African Americans and slaves, it would create conflict in the South. This is because the plan required Confederate states to abolish slavery, prevent Confederate from voting and holding government positions, and reorganize land and southern government before rejoining the Union. The plan created by Andrew Johnson gave more freedom to the state governments, which helps with compromising with the South, but didn’t give rights to African Americans. Lincoln’s plan, on the other hand, would reunite the North and South peacefully and quickly while giving rights to the African Americans.
If Lincoln weren’t assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, then reconstruct would have been different. Andrew Jackson, the former Vice President now president, passed the black code. The black code granted some right such as marriage and owning property. Although, he didn’t protect all there rights. Some states created a law that abolished the full civil rights of an African American.
The traditional view on Reconstruction labeled it as a terrible point in the democracy of America. According to this view, Andrew Johnson, like Abraham Lincoln, wished to pardon the Confederates and reunite them with the Union. Radical Republicans, who wished to dominate the South, disposed of Johnson’s plan and gave power to former slaves, carpetbaggers, and southern whites who cooperated with the Republican Party of the North, all of which were unfit to lead southern governments. In the end, this angered many in the South, including the Ku Klux Klan, who claimed patriotism to restore white supremacy. With this take on the Reconstruction in mind, it is hard to see how Lincoln would have made a difference in the events that occurred.
Indeed, the need for reconstruction was more than welcome. Recontruction, 1865-1877 President Abraham Lincoln had a flexible and realistic approach towards reconstruction. He insisted that slaves had to be emancipated, and this could only be possible after defeating the Southerners. In this regard, he appointed military governors like Andrew Johnson, whose success in the reconstitution of Tennessee proved worthwhile, leading to his recommendation as vice president on the Republican ticket under Lincoln in 1864 (Klotter et al., 2005). Following the assassination of President Lincoln, with Andrew Johnson assuming power, it was believed that he would be able to work well with the Congress, in order to effectively administer the reconstruction process.
After the civil war both Lincoln and the South had differing ideas for reconstruction. Although the North had won the war, tensions were still high between the two sides of the country. Lincoln wanted no persecutions, no bloody work, and to let prisoners of war go; he had no interest in continuing the killing that the civil war had brought upon the nation. Lincoln also wanted them to draft a new constitution, he did not want to punish the south, he wanted to amalgamate them with the union as fast as possible. Radical republicans however did not want to the country to reunify, they also did not agree with Lincoln’s peaceful solution to end slavery.
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,
The President Lincoln’s interest in the matter of reconstructions, articulated in action throughout the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, changed the congress’ sentiment of unity to defeat the South. The radicals, as they called themselves, disliked the President Lincoln’s plan due to two reasons. First, the ten percent plan was very moderate i.e. it did not satisfy the sentiment of the North to the South, and considered such a plan to be easy going in comparison to the outcome of Southerner’s rebellion. Second, the radicals could see Abraham Lincoln’s edge of admission intended from the proclamation. Lincoln wanted to prepare the stage for a strong Republican party in the Southern section though he considered the obvious
A few days after the civil War ended, President Lincoln was assassinated and never had the chance to implement his Reconstruction plan. The Reconstruction Era occurred in the period of 1865 to 1877 under the reign of President Andrew Johnson who was the predecessor of President Lincoln. Congress was not scheduled to convene until December 1865, which gave Johnson eight months to pursue his own Reconstruction policies. Under his Reconstruction policies, the former Confederate states were required to join back into the Union and heal the wounds of the nation.
When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865 his vice president, Andrew Johnson, was sworn into office, the first time ever a president had to take office because of the previous president being murdered. Andrew Johnson was a democrat, so he had major challenges when he took office. It didn’t help either that he was from Tennessee, a state that seceeded fromt the Union during the Civil War. In an effort to try and make friends in Congress with the Republicans Johnson agreed to deny representitives from southern states that seceeded from the Union to sit in Congress. This came to back fire on him because he was from Tennessee but because he elected to help the North during the Civil War the southern state representitives didn’t support him at all.
The country was in shambles and needed a plan to heal, so under Abraham Lincoln he began to do just that. He gave the hope of peace and prosperity to the entire nation, under which it would slowly rebuild. Though the Radical Republicans had to take over this project it clearly became a bright spot in American history for the changes made to help freedmen. Throughout the country the Lincoln’s idea of reconstruction had been signal of hope for many of its people, but because of his assassination the hope steadily diminished.
Reconstruction, if executed properly, would have eliminated the racial segregation and racial tension we have today. For instance, in the news recently there has been a controversy regarding the Confederate flag. The Confederate flag is said to represent slavery because the Confederates, during the Civil War, used this flag as their battle flag; the Confederates fought to keep slavery. Therefore the Confederate flag DOES in fact represent slavery. The recent shooter of 9 African-American people in a South Carolina Baptist Church, Dylan Roof, sparked this debate of whether the Confederate flag should be removed.
After the Union won the major battles that is when Lincoln had put the ten percent plan on the table, this plan was when ten percent of the state’s eligible voters pledge oath to US then they could join the Union. To begin with, there are a few reasons why one would say that reconstruction in the south was a failure. One of these reasons being that, even after the civil war in the South’s government passed laws to limit the rights of the free African Americans. In document C we can see this is evident where it states “No negro or freedmen shall be allowed to come within the limits of the town of Opelousas without special permission of his employers. Whoever breaks this law will go to jail and work for two days on the public streets, or pay a fine of five dollars.”
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.