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Reconstruction Plans Lincoln’s Plan (1865) During the closing days of the Civil War, President Lincoln developed a plan, commonly called the “Ten-Percent Plan,” to rebuild the South and restore the southern states to the Union as soon as possible. The process was known as Reconstruction. Lincoln’s plan had two simple steps: (1) All southerners, except high-ranking Confederate civil and military leaders, would be pardoned after taking an oath of allegiance to the United States; and (2) when ten percent of the voters in each state had taken the oath of loyalty (allegiance), the state would be permitted to form a legal government and rejoin the Union. Congressional Plan Congress and many northerners thought that the South should be punished. They believed that the Confederate states who had seceded should be treated like a conquered country. In 1864, Congress passed the Wade-Davis Bill, which Lincoln saw as an attempt to punish the South for the actions of the secessionists. Lincoln did not sign the bill into law; he let it die quietly. When the southern states passed a set of laws called the Black Codes, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This law extended citizenship to African Americans and gave the federal government the right and responsibility to intervene any time civil rights were taken away from freedmen. To ensure this happened, Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship to the freedmen and forbade any state from denying anyone the “equal protection of the law.” President Andrew Johnson vetoed the bill, but the veto was overturned by Congress. So the bill became law. Johnson's attitude contributed the growth of the Radical Republican movement, which favored increased intervention in the South and more aid to former slaves, and ultimately to Johnson's impeachment trial. When Georgia, along with other southern states, refused to ratify the 14th amendment, the South was placed under authority of Congress. With their continued refusal to pass this amendment and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867 Johnson’s Plan (1866) Lincoln’s assassination took place before his plan for Reconstruction went into effect. Upon Lincoln’s death, Vice-President Andrew Johnson, a North Carolinian, became the nation’s seventeenth president. Soon after taking office, he took the responsibility for returning the former Confederate states to the Union. Johnson’s Reconstruction plan was much like Lincoln’s except Johnson expanded the group of southerners not given a general pardon. Those who owned property worth more than $20, 000, or those who had held high military or civil positions had to apply directly to the president for a pardon. At first, some of the radicals were willing to work with Johnson because they approved of his plan to offer a reward for the arrest of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. However, after Davis was captured and imprisoned, the radicals turned their attention back to the president’s plan and began to disagree with it. They were afraid that the freedmen would be disenfranchised (have their voting rights taken away). They also thought that the South deserved a greater punishment than the plan provided. After some pressure, President Johnson added several more requirements. First the southern states had to approve the Thirteenth Amendment that made slavery illegal. Second, the southern states had to nullify their ordinances of secession. Third, the southern states had to promise NOT to repay individuals and institutions that had helped to finance the war. The Military Reconstruction Act, 1867 When Georgia, along with other southern states, refused to ratify the 14th amendment, the South was placed under authority of Congress. With their continued refusal to pass this amendment and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867. This placed the former Confederate states under military authority and divided the states into five districts with a Union general in charge of each district. Georgia, Alabama, and Florida made up the third district. The United States Army became the government in these districts until such time as new governments were constituted. Congress charged the former Confederate states with creating new state constitutions and new governments. The military directed the registration of voting for all adult males including African American males who swore they were qualified. Congress asserted its right to reframe the state governments and constitutions, and the Supreme Court upheld this curtailment of state power in the court case, Texas v. White (1869). Congress demanded that all the new state governments disfranchise high-ranking Confederates. Congress demanded that all new state governments ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. If the states fulfilled these requirements, they would be readmitted to the Union. During the spring and summer of 1868, with blacks voting in large numbers, seven of the former Confederate states (North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana) completed the requirements and were reseated in the Union. In 1870 Texas, Mississippi, and Virginia also fulfilled the requirements, after ratifying the Fifteenth Amendment.