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Abraham Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan President Abraham Lincoln wanted to reunite the nation as quickly and painlessly as possible. He had proposed a plan for readmitting the southern states even before the war ended. Called the Ten Percent Plan, it offered southerners an official pardon, or forgiveness, for all illegal acts supporting the rebellion of the Confederacy (Southern States). To receive forgiveness, southerners had to do two things: 1. They had to swear an oath of loyalty to the United States. 2. They also had to agree that slavery was illegal. Once ten percent of voters in a state made these pledges, they could form a new state government. The state can then be readmitted, or can rejoin the United States. Louisiana quickly elected a new state legislature under the Ten Percent Plan. Other southern states that had been occupied by Union (Northern) troops soon followed Louisiana back into the United States. The Wade-Davis Bill Some politicians argued that Congress, not the president should control the southern states’ return to the Union. They believed that Congress had the power to admit new states. Also, many Republican members of Congress thought Abraham Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan did not punish the South enough. A senator from Michigan expressed his views: “The people of the North are not such fools as to…turn around and say to the traitors, ‘all you have to do to return to the Union is…take an oath and then you will be true to the Government” --Senator Jacob Howard Two Republicans—Senator Benjamin Wade and Representative Henry Davis— had a substitute to Lincoln’s plan. According to the Wade-Davis bill, a state had to meet two conditions before it could rejoin the Union. 1. It had to ban slavery in its state. 2. A majority of adult males in the state had to take the loyalty oath. Under the Wade-Davis bill, only southerners who swore that they would never support the Confederacy could vote or hold office. In general, the bill was much stricter than Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan. It would make it harder for southern states to rejoin the Union quickly. President Lincoln therefore refused to sign the bill into law. He thought that few southern states would agree to meet its requirements. He believed that his plan would help restore peace more quickly. President Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan On the evening of April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. Vice President Andrew Johnson was sworn into office quickly. Reconstruction had now become his responsibility. He would have to win the trust a nation shocked at its leader’s death. Johnson’s plan for bringing southern states back into the Union was similar to Lincoln’s plan. However, he decided that wealthy southerners and former Confederate officials would need a presidential pardon to receive forgiveness. Johnson shocked Radical Republicans by eventually pardoning more than 7,000 people by 1866. Johnson was a Democrat and former slaveholder. The Republicans had chosen him as Vice-President because he would be liked more by the border states during the election. In Johnson’s plan: 1. He would choose a temporary governor for each state. 2. He required that the states change their state constitutions. 3. Voters elected state and federal representatives. 4. The new state governments had to declare that secession was illegal. 5. State governments had to refuse to pay Confederate debts. By the end of 1865, all southern states except Texas had created new governments. Johnson approved them all and declared that the U.S. was reconnected. However, Republicans complained that many new representatives had been leaders of the Confederacy. Congress therefore refused to readmit the southern states into the Union. Clearly, the nation was still divided. Radical Reconstruction Radical Republicans took a harsher stance against the South than Lincoln and Johnson. They wanted the federal government to force change in the South. The Radicals wanted the federal government to be much more involved in Reconstruction. They feared that too many southern leaders remained loyal to the former Confederacy and would not enforce the new laws. After the 1866 election, the Republicans became united, as moderates joined with the Radicals. Together, they called for a new form of Reconstruction. In March 1867, Congress passed the first of several Reconstruction Acts. These laws divided the South into five military districts. A U.S. military commander controlled each district. The military would remain in control of the South until the southern states rejoined the Union. To be readmitted a state had to: 1. Write a state constitution that supported citizenship for all African Americans, limited the rights of former Confederate officers, and forced Southern states to pay the Union war debt. 2. Give African American men the right to vote. Radical Republicans Attempt to Impeach President Johnson President Johnson strongly disagreed with the Radical Republicans. He argued that African Americans did not deserve the same treatment as white people. The Radical Reconstruction Acts, he said, used “powers not granted to the federal government or any one of its branches.” Knowing that Johnson did not support its Reconstruction policies, Congress passed a law limiting his power. This law prevented the president from removing cabinet members without Senate approval. Johnson quickly broke the law. For the first time in U.S. history, the House of Representative (Legislative Branch) responded by voting to impeach the president. Impeachment does not mean that the president is removed from office. However, it is the process used by a legislative body to bring charges of wrongdoing against a public official. The next step was a trial in the Senate, where two-thirds of its members would have to vote to impeach Johnson. By a single vote, Senate Republicans failed to impeach Johnson. Even so, the trial weakened his power as president because Congress refused to listen to his opinions.