AMERICANSOCIETYINTHEINDUSTRIALAGE.pptVIP

RECONSTRUCTION AND THE SOUTH Presidential Reconstruction after John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, the national mood hardened however, in spite of the amount of blood shed, the Civil War caused less intersectional hatred than might have been expected; animosity quickly subsided, and most Confederate leaders were only mildly punished the status of the southern states raised complex legal questions about the process of readmitting them to the Union the process of readmission began in 1862, when Lincoln appointed provisional governors for those areas of South occupied by federal troops in December 1863, he issued a proclamation that provided that southerners, with the exception of high Confederate officials, could reinstate themselves as United States citizens by taking a loyalty oath a state could set up a government when a number equal to 10 percent of those who voted in 1860 took the oath the Radicals disliked Lincolns plan and passed the Wade-Davis Bill, which required a majority of voters in a state to take the loyalty oath before a constitutional convention could be convened the bill further required that the states prohibit slavery and repudiate Confederate debts. Lincoln pocket-vetoed the bill after Johnson became president, he issued an amnesty proclamation only slightly more rigorous than Lincoln’s by the time Congress reconvened in December 1865, all of the southern states had organized governments, ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, and elected senators and representatives. Johnson submitted the new governments to Congress Republican Radicals both radical and moderate Republicans wanted to protect ex-slaves from exploitation and to guarantee their basic rights radicals, however, demanded full political equality; moderates were unwilling to go so far their agreement on a minimum set of demands doomed Johnsonian Reconstruction Republicans feared that the balance of power in Congress might swing to the Democrats because the 13t