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By the end of this section, you will be able to:
  • Describe Lincoln’s plan to restore the Union at the end of the Civil War
  • Discuss the tenets of Radical Republicanism
  • Analyze the success or failure of the Thirteenth Amendment
A timeline shows important events of the era. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln unveils the “ten percent plan”; a portrait of Lincoln is shown. In 1865, John Wilkes Booth assassinates Lincoln, Congress establishes the Freedmen’s Bureau, and the Thirteenth Amendment is ratified; an illustration of Booth shooting Lincoln in his theater box, as his wife and two guests look on, is shown. In 1867, Radical Republicans pass the Military Reconstruction Act. In 1868, Congress moves to impeach Andrew Johnson, and the Fourteenth Amendment is ratified; a portrait of Johnson and an image of the impeachment resolution signed by the House of Representatives are shown. In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment is ratified. In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes defeats Samuel Tilden in a contested presidential election; a photograph of Hayes’s inauguration is shown. In 1877, the Compromise of 1877 ends Reconstruction.

The end of the Civil War saw the beginning of the Reconstruction    era, when former rebel Southern states were integrated back into the Union. President Lincoln moved quickly to achieve the war’s ultimate goal: reunification of the country. He proposed a generous and non-punitive plan to return the former Confederate states speedily to the United States, but some Republicans in Congress protested, considering the president’s plan too lenient to the rebel states that had torn the country apart. The greatest flaw of Lincoln’s plan, according to this view, was that it appeared to forgive traitors instead of guaranteeing civil rights to former slaves. President Lincoln oversaw the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, but he did not live to see its ratification.

The president’s plan

From the outset of the rebellion in 1861, Lincoln’s overriding goal had been to bring the Southern states quickly back into the fold in order to restore the Union ( [link] ). In early December 1863, the president began the process of reunification by unveiling a three-part proposal known as the ten percent plan    that outlined how the states would return. The ten percent plan gave a general pardon to all Southerners except high-ranking Confederate government and military leaders; required 10 percent of the 1860 voting population in the former rebel states to take a binding oath of future allegiance to the United States and the emancipation of slaves; and declared that once those voters took those oaths, the restored Confederate states would draft new state constitutions.

Photograph (a) shows a standing portrait of Lincoln. Cartoon (b), titled “The ‘Rail Splitter’ at Work Repairing the Union,” shows Andrew Johnson sitting atop a globe, mending a map of the United States with a needle and thread. Beside him, Lincoln holds the globe in place using a large split rail. Johnson says “Take it quietly Uncle Abe and I will draw it closer than ever!!!” Lincoln replies, “A few more stitches Andy and the good old Union will be mended!”
Thomas Le Mere took this albumen silver print (a) of Abraham Lincoln in April 1863. Le Mere thought a standing pose of Lincoln would be popular. In this political cartoon from 1865 (b), Lincoln and his vice president, Andrew Johnson, endeavor to sew together the torn pieces of the Union.

Lincoln hoped that the leniency of the plan—90 percent of the 1860 voters did not have to swear allegiance to the Union or to emancipation—would bring about a quick and long-anticipated resolution and make emancipation more acceptable everywhere. This approach appealed to some in the moderate wing of the Republican Party, which wanted to put the nation on a speedy course toward reconciliation. However, the proposal instantly drew fire from a larger faction of Republicans in Congress who did not want to deal moderately with the South. These members of Congress, known as Radical Republicans    , wanted to remake the South and punish the rebels. Radical Republicans insisted on harsh terms for the defeated Confederacy and protection for former slaves, going far beyond what the president proposed.

In February 1864, two of the Radical Republicans, Ohio senator Benjamin Wade and Maryland representative Henry Winter Davis, answered Lincoln with a proposal of their own. Among other stipulations, the Wade-Davis Bill called for a majority of voters and government officials in Confederate states to take an oath, called the Ironclad Oath    , swearing that they had never supported the Confederacy or made war against the United States. Those who could not or would not take the oath would be unable to take part in the future political life of the South. Congress assented to the Wade-Davis Bill, and it went to Lincoln for his signature. The president refused to sign, using the pocket veto (that is, taking no action) to kill the bill. Lincoln understood that no Southern state would have met the criteria of the Wade-Davis Bill, and its passage would simply have delayed the reconstruction of the South.

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Source:  OpenStax, U.s. history. OpenStax CNX. Jan 12, 2015 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col11740/1.3
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