The Civil War: Reconstruction
...ht Lincoln’s plans were too lenient, promoted the Wade-Davis Bill which required that fifty percent of a state’s citizens to promise loyalty in order to be recognized as a part of the United States. Immediately, the President vetoed the bill and instead proposed the 10 Percent Plan, which declared that once ten percent of a state’s voters in the presidential election of 1860 had sworn allegiance to the United States and agreed to abide by the law, the state would be recognized as a member of the nation. Lincoln also required Confederate military officers to apply for “presidential pardons”, and only then would they become viewed as members of the Union. Once a state government was formally established, the purified administration would be acknowledged. Although Lincoln’s goals seemed practical and attainable, his assassination prevented him from following through and reaching them. Andrew Johnson, Vice-President to Lincoln, took charge of the United States after Lincoln’s death. Though he favored the 10 Percent Plan and agreed that the South never legally left the Union, there were considerable differences between his and Lincoln’s plans. Johnson supported Black Codes which devastated his reputation in the North. Johnson, like Lincoln, did not address land reform and therefore made his own plan economically unstable. His sympathy towards the South led him to restrict the liberties of African Americans. As if they had not had it bad enough, Johnson prevented them from serving as jurors, from marrying interracially, and from testifying against whites. Johnson also granted official pardons to both the elite and working-class ex-rebels of the Confederacy, so long as they did not own too much land. Despite his intentions to bring the Union back together, Johnson’s plan faced a great deal of opposition, and before achieving any of his goals, he had left the office. While Lincoln and Johnson both tried to ease the South back into the Union, Radical Republicans openly stated that the government needed to treat the Southern states like “conquered provinces”. To ensure some civil liberties for blacks, the Radicals pushed the Fourteenth Amendment into the Constitution, giving blacks the same rights as a white woman. Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts Senator, exemplified the radicalism of fellow Republicans who “desired immediate racial equality and punishment for the South...