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The Best Plan to Reunite?
Pitch Your Idea
After the Civil War, rebuilding the Union became the predominant issue in American
politics. Differing political beliefs led to the emergence of three main schools of thought
on how Reconstruction should proceed. Radical Republicans, moderate Republicans,
and Democrats all developed their own plans for rebuilding the country.
In this activity, you will evaluate the Reconstruction plans of the Radical Republicans,
moderate Republicans, and Democrats and select the one you think would be most
effective in rebuilding the nation. Then, you will write a letter to either President
Lincoln or President Johnson urging that person to follow the plan you chose.
Ruins in Richmond, 1865
Russell, Andrew J. Military installations, activities, and views. 1865. Prints and Photographs Division,
Library of Congress. Web.
I. Evaluating the Platforms
1. Think about the basic beliefs of the Radical Republicans, moderate Republicans, and
Democrats.
 What were the main political views of these groups?
 How did they differ from one another?
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“The President’s Message,” from Harper’s Weekly, 1863
This editorial reacting to a message by President Lincoln supports the moderate
Republican point of view.
The Message of this year is the most important document ever submitted by the
Executive [President Lincoln] to Congress and the country. Elsewhere in our columns
we [explain] its important points, and in the President’s own words, because a conciser
and clearer statement is not possible. There has been occasionally some sharp criticism
of his “style,” but there are few state papers more direct and incisive than his. He knows
exactly what he means to say, and exactly how to say it. And when his Messages and
letters are compared with those of our Chief Magistrates for many a year, their true
American ring, their manly faith in human rights and the people, are as unprecedented
as they are inspiring.
The President’s plan of reconstruction is familiar to all our readers. It is simple and
radical; it is also inevitable. For either the rebels must be left to determine when to
throw down their arms and rush back to the Union to secure political power, or they
must understand that their chiefs are excepted from pardon, and that the system for
which they took up arms having ceased legally to exist, all hope of its restoration must
be abandoned. The former is the Copperhead plan. It proposes that whenever a rebel
chooses to say that he returns to his allegiance he may resume all his political rights. The
President’s plan proposes that he shall resume his political rights, not when he says that
he is sorry, but when he says that he is sorry in such a manner that he can reasonabl[y]
be believed.
That something more than an oath to the Constitution is necessary to secure the peace
of the Union is clear enough from the fact that [Confederate President] Jefferson Davis
himself does not allow [admit] that he has violated his oath. In his view secession is
consistent with the Constitution. Resistance to coercion is not, according to him and the
State Rights school, rebellion . . . Now the paramount [most important] duty of the
Government is not merely to subdue, but to prevent rebellion. But it is clear that when
the rebel guns are silenced the Union is not necessarily restored. The initiative of
political action in the States which rebellion will leave sullen and passive must proceed
from the National Government. . . .
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The President has been often accused of tardily following instead of leading public
opinion. But it is his great merit that he early saw this to be a war in which the people
must save themselves. If they were unequal to the task, a popular government was a
failure. And therefore he has sought only to be the executive magistrate of their will,
which he has divined with more sagacity [wisdom] than any public man in our history …
put[ting] into clear and simple form the settlement to which the national common-sense
irresistibly tends.
"The President's Message." 26 December 1863. Editorials. Harper’s Weekly. Web.
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“A Plain Danger,” from Harper's Weekly, 1865
This editorial supports the Radical Republican point of view.
Apparently we are in some danger of not learning from experience. The . . . hostility to
the Union and Government having proved its character and purpose by a war continued
with unparalleled ferocity until it failed from sheer exhaustion, it is now gravely
proposed that we shall act as if that spirit were no longer dangerous, simply because, for
the present, it is exhausted.
There could be no more fatal mistake . . . The traditions and education of “the South” are
what they always were. The dominant class of that section is not less dominant because
it is defeated. Its authority is now consecrated in the popular mind of its region by
suffering and misfortune. Its haughtiness is supreme. Its hate is unconquerable. It
soothes its pride by the conviction that it was only overcome by numbers, and
disdainfully awaits the day when it can again try its fortune in the field, or, should that
be hopeless, when its sullen passivity of resistance shall paralyze all efforts of the
Government at reorganization . . .
The degree of faith in State Sovereignty and adhesion to Slavery may have varied, but
the white population of the rebel States was practically a unit during the war. . . . No
sentimental drivel about “brethren” will help us organize the results of the war any more
than it prevented the war. Men whose chief point of honor is contempt of the principle
of our common Government are not our political brethren. Men and women who have
gloried in the torture of our soldiers for defending that Government are not our social
brethren. . . .
Any steps at reorganization which disregard these plain facts will be utterly futile. The
prime necessity of our policy is a comprehension of the truth, not a statement of the
theory. The possibility that this spirit of hostility may regain control of the Government
must be inflexibly prevented at whatever cost. If there really be no such possibility so
much the better. But that must not be assumed. The presumption is entirely the other
way.
While there is yet a doubt, the force of the United States should be fully maintained
everywhere. Let freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, and absolute personal
freedom be established and defended in the rebel States. Let the whole body of the adult
male population be registered and suffered to vote, if you will. . . .
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Let the people of the United States retain absolute hold of the whole rebel region until
they are satisfied that its citizens will co-operate in good faith with the rest of the
country. We believe that the principles of the American system are fully adequate to the
perfect pacification of the country. But . . . the loyal white people of the late rebel States
are not strong enough, nor united enough, to secure the observance of those principles,
and that this can be done only by the power of the whole people.
"A Plain Danger." 5 August 1865. Editorials. Harper’s Weekly. Web.
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Excerpt from Address of Democratic Members of Congress to the
Democracy of the United States, 1864
This excerpt supports the Democratic point of view.
TO MAINTAIN THE CONSTITUTION AS IT IS, AND TO RESTORE THE UNION AS
IT WAS.
To maintain the Constitution is to respect the rights of the States and the liberties of the
citizen. It is to adhere faithfully to the very principles and policy which the Democratic
party has professed for more than half a century. Let its history, and the results, from
the beginning, prove whether it has practiced them. We appeal proudly to the record.
The first step towards a restoration of the Union as it was is to maintain the Constitution
as it is. . .To restore the Union, it is essential, first, to give assurance to every State and
to the people of every section that their rights and liberties and property will be secure
within the Union under the Constitution . . .
To restore the Union is to crush out sectionalism North and South. To begin the great
work of restoration through the ballot is to kill Abolition. The bitter waters of secession
flowed first and are fed still from the unclean fountain of abolition. That fountain must
be dried up. Armies may break down the power of the Confederate Government in the
South ; but the work of restoration can be carried on only through political organization
and the ballot in the North, and' West. In this great work we cordially invite the
cooperation of all men of every party, who are opposed to the fell spirit of abolition, and
who, in sincerity, desire the Constitution as it is, and the Union as it was. Let the dead
past bury its dead. Rally, lovers of the Union, the Constitution, and of Liberty, to the
standard of the Democratic party, already in the field and confident of victory. That
party is the natural and persistent enemy of abolition. Upon this question its record as a
national organization, however it may have been at times with particular men or in
particular States, is clear and unquestionable. . . .“Resolved, That Congress has do
power under the Constitution to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the
several States, and that such States are the sole and proper judges of everything
appertaining to their own affairs not prohibited by the Constitution; that all efforts of
the Abolitionists or others made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of
slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most
alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable
tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and
permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend of our
political institutions.”
Richardson, W. A. Address of Democratic Members of Congress to the Democracy of the United States. Washington, DC: Towers &
Co, 1864. Web.
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