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lincon announces
President Abraham Lincoln announces his reconstruction plan. It offers general amnesty to all white Southerners who take an oath of future loyalty and accept wartime measures abolishing slavery. Whenever 10% of the number of 1860 voters take the loyalty oath in any state, those loyal citizens can then establish a state government. In early 1864 the governments of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee are reconstructed under Lincoln’s "Ten Percent Plan." Radical Republicans are shocked at the policy -
congress passes
Congress passes its own reconstruction plan, the Wade-Davis bill. It requires a majority of 1860 voters to take a loyalty oath, but only those who swear an "ironclad" oath of never having fought against the Union can participate in reconstructing their state’s government. Congress requires the state constitutions to include bans on slavery, disfranchisement of Confederate political and military leaders, and repudiation of Confederate state debts. After Congress adjourns, Lincoln refuses to sign -
Congress creates the Bureau of Refugees
Congress creates the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, commonly known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, within the War Department. It provides temporary relief to the freedpeople in the form of basic shelter and medical care, assistance in labor-contract negotiation, the establishment of schools, and similar services. At its peak, though, the Freedmen’s Bureau only has 900 agents in the South. -
The Civil War
The Civil War ends with Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia.
President Lincoln is assassinated. Vice President Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat, assumes the presidency. -
President Johnson implements his reconstruction plan
President Johnson implements his reconstruction plan. It offers general amnesty to those taking an oath of future loyalty, although high-ranking Confederate officials and wealthy Confederates have to petition the president for individual pardons. The plan also requires states to ratify the 13th Amendment which prohibits slavery and to repudiate Confederate debts. -
Congress refuses to recognize the state governments reconstructed
Congress refuses to recognize the state governments reconstructed under Johnson’s plan. Republicans are disturbed by the reluctance of white Southerners to ratify the 13th Amendment, their refusal to grant voting rights to black men, their enactment of black codes which limit the rights and liberties of blacks, and their election of former Confederates, such as Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, to state and national offices.
