Three Plans For Reconstruction Essay -- essays research papers

Analysis of the Three Plans for ReconstructionThe American Civil War, lasting from 1861-1865, was the around severe military competitiveness the country had seen it involved the United States of America (the Union), and eleven secessionist Southern kingdoms (the Confederate States of America). The struggle was the upshot of decades worth of political, social, and economic conflict between the agricultural South, which produced mainly cash crops such as cotton, tobacco, and sugarcane, and the industrial North. The South depended on its four million slaves for its social and economic livelihood, whereas the North scorned slavery as immoral and illegal. Even before General Lees surrender in 1865, the federal g all overnment was confronted with an acute dilemma, how to reunite the country. first-class honours degree Lincoln, then Johnson, and lastly Congress, imposed their ideas of how best to recompense the Union, that is to say properly execute the task of Reconstruction.Reconst ruction was initiated by incumbant President Abraham Lincoln before the war ended. On December 8, 1963, Lincoln revealed his rather extremely lenient Reconstruction purpose. He proposed to grant a pardon to any confederate (excluding high-ranking officials), who would ramble their allegence to the Union and accept the end of slavery. If ten dollar bill percent of the 1860 voting population had taken the oath, that state would hold a constitutional convention. If the delegates had written a state constitution endorsing the 13th Amendment, that state could be re-admitted to the Union. Andrew Johnson, President Lincolns Vice President, and successor after his assasination in April of 1865, unveiled his own Reconstruction plan on May 29 of the same year. Johnsons plan, which closely resembled Lincolns, said the President would appoint a governor to each state (after ten percent of the 1860 population took the oath Lincoln had prescribed in 1863), who would convene a constitutional co nvention. At this convention, the state had to write a new constitution, keep off secession, abolish slavery, ratify the 13th Amendment, and stop the payment of war debts. If given a pardon by the President, former Confederate officers and persons owning land worth over $20,000, could vote. Johnson felt that under his plan, Reconstruction would take a few months in fact, the belief that his plan was too lenient towards the South he granted 13,000 pardo... ...to restore Southern society to antebellum status (as demonstrated by his vetos of the Freedmens Bureau, and of the Civil Rights Bill) and as a result, replenish the ruined Southern economy.Congressional Reconstruction, brought on a complete social revolution in the south. The South had a military occupation on their hands, and due to their continual resistance to Reconstruction allowed for the passage of seven separate legislations, aimed at changing their way of life. Politically, blacks had significant potential with the ri ght to vote, especially in Mississippi, South Carolina, and Louisiana, where they were the majority of the population. Blacks managed to gain seventeen sit in Congress (two were in the Senate), and an equivalent number of state offices. Had the South agreed to Lincolns terms, or even Johnsons, they would have been able to track politically, socially and economically just as they had before the war. Unfortunately for the South, their pride and ignorance, caused them to unknowingly choose the greater of three evils. Although Reconstruction ultimately failed, it would have reach optimal results had the South accepted Lincolns Reconstruction Plan.