Reconstruction Plan

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A mind map about the Reconstruction Plan, which is also known as Lincoln's Ten-Percent Plan (1863–1865).

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Outline

Plans for Reconstruction

Presidential

President Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, 1863 is also known as Lincoln's 10% plan

It set up a simple process for political reconstruction, reconstructing the state governments in the South so that Unionists were in charge rather than secessionists.

It provided that full presidential pardons would be granted to most Confederates who took an oath of allegiance to the U.S constitution and accepted the freedom of slaves.

It mentioned that a state government should be reestablished and accepted as legitimate by the president as soon as at least 10% of state voters took the loyalty oath.

His proclamation required the elimination of slavery in each Southern state.

Lincoln’s Wartime Reconstruction in Action: A Case Study in Louisian

Louisiana was the only region deep within the Confederacy where Union authorities started experimental Reconstruction policies during the Civil War.

Lincoln didn't adopt Congress’ formal plan, the Wade-Davis Bill, stating that he was “unprepared to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration.” Instead, he implemented his experimental 10% plan.

He later encouraged states to give African American men the right to vote but because Lincoln was assassinated at the end of the war, it is difficult to know how he would have handled the readmittance of other states.

Louisiana’s Constitution of 1864 ended slavery and disposed of Louisiana's old order of rule by planters and merchants and it did not give African Americans voting rights.

The constitution also enabled the legislature to establish a free public school system for all children aged six to eighteen, with no mention of race. Legislators elected under the Constitution of 1864 established schools for whites but not for blacks.

President Andrew Johnson

Announced the restoration plan on May 1865

Believed that the wealthy tricked the south so governors were appointed to south states to hold constitutional conventions

Andrew Johnson’s Presidential Reconstruction Plan

In May 1865, President Andrew Johnson offered a pardon to all white Southerners except Confederate leaders and wealthy planters and authorized them to create new governments. Johnson also ordered property, except slaves, returned to anyone who took the oath and was pardoned.

It provided for the disfranchisement of all former leaders and officeholders of the Confederacy and Confederates with more than $20,000 in taxable property.

Congressional

Radical Republicanism of congress opposed Lincolns's and Johnson's plan.

Republicans had been divided between moderates who were concerned with economic gains for the white middle class and radicals, who championed civil rights for blacks.

Civil Rights of 1866

It pronounced all African Americans to be U.S citizens and also attempted to provide legal shield against the operation of Southern states' Black Codes.

Congress passes and sent to the states an amendment that when ratified in 1868, had both immediate and long term significance for American society. The 14th amendment:

-declared that all persons born or naturalized in the US were citizens.

-obligated the states to respect the rights of U.S citizens and provided them with "equal protection of the law" and "due process of law"

Freedman's Bureau

In 1865, Congress created the Freedman's Bureau and it acted as an early welfare agency providing food, shelter and aid for those made destitute by the war. It had authority to resettle freed blacks on confiscated farmlands in the south.

Wade-Davis Bill(1864)

Republicans in congress objected Lincoln's 10% plan argued that it would allow a reconstructed state government to fall under the domination of disloyal secessionists.

The Bill proposed far more demanding and stringent terms of reconstruction that required 50% of the voters of a state to take a loyalty oath and permitted only non-Confederates to vote for a new state constitution.

15th amendment

It prohibited any state from denying a citizens right to vote based on their race, skin color, etc.