The plan would require southerners to take an oath of loyalty to pledge to the union and support emancipation for the slaves; requiring a ten percent of the state’s voters to take the oath. If the ten percent quota was reached then the state could establish a new state government, may well identify a meeting and apply for acknowledgment on a federal level.
Lincolns plan infuriated Radical Republicans; Senator Benjamin Wade and Congressman Henry W. Davis who both issued the Wade-Davis Bill. The bill was also …show more content…
They wanted the confederate states to serve an extended time of punishment and had to show their loyalty to the Union; supporting the emancipation and rights of former slaves.
After Lincolns assassination in April 1865, a new president was appointed to office; Andrew Johnson whom once was a slave owner. In the beginning, Johnson spoke of assisting slaves into freedom and charging confederates for treason against the Union; however he was against black equality and often viewed as racists.
Johnson supported white supremacy and may of 1865 he put forth a policy to re-establish southern state governments; which would pardon and return confiscated property back to the south if they pledged allegiance to the union.
Johnson would pardon leaders and planters that had wealth which then they could elect chosen delegates to help reestablish the state as part of the Union. By Fall of 1865 majority of the ex-confederates, planters and high ranking military personnel had been pardoned. The lands and plots that had once been the souths were returned to former confederates; even the freedmen’s 40-acre plots that were established for free