Impact Of The 10 % Plan

The plan never worked. But he still hated Lincoln, so he created a plan. A pretty good one the way it turned out in the end. He killed Abraham Lincoln in his own presidential booth.

Throughout the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proposed a new plan called Reconstruction. It required one tenth of the number of voters who voted in 1860 to take an oath of allegiance so the states could reorganize a state government. Also, to let the confederate states could come back into the Union. The state constitution had to be Republican in form, abolish slavery, and provide for Black education. On April 14th, 1865 Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth who was the leader of a conspiracy group that was committed to the southern cause.

The Reconstruction plan changed politics drastically in the South. Republican governments gained power in each southern state. The southern states believed that they fell under the (http://www.westga.edu/~hgoodson/Reconstruction.htm) reconstruction just as long as the Republican government held power in there state. There were multiple of opinions on how the Reconstruction should be achieved.

First off, the terms of the plans were easy for Southerners to accept. He made the Ten-Percent plan. For this plan, it stated that a state could be reestablished into the Union if 10% from the vote take the oath of allegiance to the U.S. Most Radical Republicans thought that Lincoln wasn’t harsh enough, and way to easy towards the South. Every former-confederate most likely loved this plan because every other plan wanted punishment upon them. Slavery was always a big issue.

It would take years to reapair the damges it left, considering it left hunderds of thousands dead. Lincoln made a stand against the majority at the time. But his thoughts on slavery was what the country needed. Trying to end slavery but still not trying

Our Reconstruction Plan differed from the original plan by making two-thirds of the southern states’ population take an oath of allegiance to the Union, rather than the ten percent that the old plan required. This makes it harder for southern states to be readmitted into the Union. The 10% Plan made it too easy for the South to rejoin the Union and gain political power once more. After being readmitted into the Union, southern political power rose drastically. This resulted in the South having more control over the former Confederate land, leaving black people to be controlled and taken advantage of due to the fact that their government was racist.

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

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.

Lincoln felt that it would surely it would allow for expansion of slavery to run rampant through the country and into new territories. Still, the country was divided by anti-slavery advocates and slaveholders and the divide grew larger with each debate. In Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech, he emphasized that this division could not last for long. For the sake of the country and its union, Americans needed to pick a side.

However, it was the best plan for reconstruction because unlike Johnson’s plan it promoted true freedom and equality for the blacks and aimed to preserve northern political advantage in congress. President Lincoln’s plan was very compassionate, stating that all southerners could be pardoned and reinstates as U.S. citizens if they took “an path of allegiance to the constitution and the Union and pledged to abide by emancipation”, once 10% of the voting population in the state had taken the oath the state could be reintegrated into the Union. Radical Republicans rejected Lincoln’s plan believing it would restore southern aristocracy and re-enslave blacks. In response to Lincoln’s plan they passed the Wade-Davis Bill that required more than 50% of white males to take an oath of allegiance before the state could be readmitted. Lincoln vetoed this bill and it was never fully carried out.

To repair a country that has been split in half requires making significant strides that will create harmony between both sides. After the American Civil War multiple phases were required in order to mend the broken country. These phases were Presidential Reconstruction and Radical Republican Restoration. Presidential Reconstruction was the reconstruction plan put in place by President Johnson who had to step into the role of the man who would fix the country after Lincoln’s assignation. While Johnson’s reconstruction plan did not anger the southerners whom he was trying to get to support, his methods were too lenient towards the south as he allowed for mostly states rights.

Limitation: It didn’t address how slavery would be handled in the north and if there even was a plan for slavery in the north. Lincoln wanted to unite the nation or more importantly keep it united by any means, it being either peacefully or military. All he wanted to do was to save the union and when Lincoln was inaugurated into his presidency, he stated in his address that he urges the south to reconsider changing their way

He favored a moderate policy that would conjoin the South with the Union without any punishment for treason. Many resisted Lincoln’s plan, saying it was not harsh enough while others did not know if Lincoln was being too lenient. The Radical Republicans and moderate Republicans were caught in a conflict. One important event of the Reconstruction Period was the Wade-Davis Bill. This was formed by the Radical Republicans and moderate Republicans.

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.