Presidential Reconstruction
The Plans of Lincoln and Johnson
Jillian McLuhan, Lillian Morris, Marissa Gregoire
Presidential Reconstruction
"When a civil war has been brought to a close,
it is manifestly the first interest and duty of the
state to repair the injuries which the war has
inflicted, and to secure the benefit of the
lessons it teaches as fully and as speedily as
possible."
-Andrew Johnson
Presidential Reconstruction
•
The period (1865-1877) during which the states that had
seceded to the Confederacy were controlled by the federal
government before being readmitted to the Union
•
In 1864, Republican Abraham Lincoln chose Andrew
Johnson, a Democratic senator from Tennessee, as his Vice
Presidential candidate. Lincoln was looking for Southern
support. He hoped that by selecting Johnson he would appeal
to Southerners who never wanted to leave the Union.
Presidential Reconstruction
•
After helping push through the
13th Amendment, abolishing
slavery, the President sought to
quickly restore the rebel states to
the Union. He considered
Reconstruction a "restoration"
and wanted to quickly readmit
the Amendment, repudiated the
Confederate debt, and pledged
loyalty to the Union.
•
During this time, Congress
establishes the Joint Committee
on Reconstruction
Lincoln's Plan
•
He wanted to build a strong Republican Party in
the South, rebuilding each state's own
government back to its original design.
•
Restored the Union between the North and the
South.
•
Congress didn't want Lincoln's Plan to follow
through so they made the Ware-Davis Bill
(1864) which required 50% of states male
voters to take oath that they never supported
the Confederacy. Lincoln's pocket veto kept it
from becoming a law and so Congress was at a
stalemate until Lincoln's assassination
•
He was assassinated in 1865.
Johnson's Plan
•
Lincoln successor
•
He was sworn in as Vice
President in March 1865, during
his speech he rambled and was
possibly drunk.
•
Public ally attacked the planter
aristocracy and insisted that the
rebellion must be punished.
•
Planter Aristocracy is the elite
group of plantation owners.
Historians defined higher ranked
planters as owning over 50
slaves. Medium ranked planters
owned 16-50 slaves
Johnson's Plan
•
His amnesty proclamation
(May 29, 1865)
•
It disenfranchised all former
military and civil offer of the
confederacy and all those
who owned property worth
$20,000 or more and made
their estates liable to
confiscation.
•
The obvious intent was to
shift political control in the
south from the old planter
aristocracy to the small
farmers and artisans, and it
promised to accomplish a
revolution in southern society.
Johnson's plan
•
In 1865 Johnson put his plan into operation.
•
Under provisional governors appointed by him,
the southern states held conventions that
voided or repeal their ordinances of secession,
abolish slavery, and (except South Carolina)
repudiated confederate debt. Their newly
elected legislatures (except Mississippi) ratified
the thirteenth amendment guaranteeing
freedom for blacks.
•
By the end of 1865 every ex-confederate state
except Texas had rest abolished civil
government.
Johnson's plan
•
Control of white over black, however, seemed to be restored, as
each of the newly elected state legislatures enacted statues
severely limiting the freedom and rights of the blacks.
•
Laws, known as, black codes, restricted the ability of blacks to own
land and to work as free labors and denied them most of the civil
and political rights enjoyed by whites.
•
Many of the offices in the new government, more over, were won by
disenfranchised confederate leaders, and the president, rather than
ordering new elections, granted pardons on a large scale. He
vetoed most of the bills that came his way and Congress overrode
them. This became the habit of Johnson's presidency.
Bibliography
•
digitalhistory.uh.edu
•
ushistory.org
•
sparknotes.com
•
infoplease.com