Presidential Reconstruction In May 1865, President Andrew Johnson offered a pardon to all white Southerners except Confederate leaders and wealthy planters (although most of these later received individual pardons), and authorized them to create new governments. Blacks were denied any role in the process.

Douglass said: Mr. President, we are not here to enlighten you, sir, as to your duties as the Chief Magistrate of this Republic, but to show our respect, and to present in brief the claims of our race to your favorable consideration.

In Congress, the most influential Radical Republicans were U.S. Senator Charles Sumner and U.S. Representative Thaddeus Stevens. They led the call for a war that would end slavery.

Reconstruction People

• Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) was the 16th President of the United States during one of the most consequential periods in American history, the Civil War.
• Andrew Johnson.
• Oliver O.
• Hiram Revels.
• Blanche K.
• Pinckney B.S.
• Thaddeus Stevens.
• Charles Sumner.

Reconstruction encompassed three major initiatives: restoration of the Union, transformation of southern society, and enactment of progressive legislation favoring the rights of freed slaves.

Reconstruction was a success in that it restored the United States as a unified nation: by 1877, all of the former Confederate states had drafted new constitutions, acknowledged the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, and pledged their loyalty to the U.S. government.

Reconstruction was a success. power of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Amendments, which helped African Americans to attain full civil rights in the 20th century. Despite the loss of ground that followed Reconstruction, African Americans succeeded in carving out a measure of independence within Southern society.

What are the three primary reasons Reconstruction failed to work as hoped? Individuals misused money earmarked for Reconstruction efforts. Lack of unity in government took away the focus of Reconstruction. Southern states were too poor to manage Reconstruction programs.

Western expansion, Indian wars, corruption at all levels of government, and the growth of industry all diverted attention from the civil rights and well-being of ex-slaves. By 1876, Radical Republican regimes had collapsed in all but two of the former Confederate states, with the Democratic Party taking over.

Clearly, post-war reconstruction brought important social changes to former slaves. Families that had been separated before and during the Civil War were reunited, and slave marriages were formalized through legally recognized ceremonies.

The Opposition to Reconstruction The reasons for white opposition to Reconstruction were many. To numerous former Confederates, the new governments appeared as living reminders of military defeat. Their ambitious programs of economic development and school construction produced rising taxes and spiraling state debts.

Lincoln’s blueprint for Reconstruction included the Ten-Percent Plan,which specified that a southern state could be readmitted into the Union once 10 percent of its voters (from the voter rolls for the election of 1860) swore an oath of allegiance to the Union.

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 …

Compare in detail the three Reconstruction Plans: Lincoln’s Reconstruction Plan, Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan, and the Congressional Reconstruction Plan.

The Initial Congressional Plan. The Andrew Johnson Reconstruction Plan. The Radical Republican Reconstruction Plan.

Both Lincoln and Johnson’s plan wanted a quick re-admission for the South. Johnson’s plan wasn’t as willing to give as much freedom to newly free slaves as Lincolns was. Johnson wanted to give the land back to the south unlike the RR. Unlike the 10% plan, the plan they had wanted to punish the south.

The Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction was Lincoln’s plan to reintegrate the Confederate states back into the Union, granting presidential pardons to all Southerners (except political leaders) who took an oath of future allegiance to the Union.