ANDREW JOHNSON'S PLAN FOR RECONSTRUCTION

Much to the disappointment of the Radical Republicans, the Reconstruction plan announced by Andrew Johnson was also a relatively lenient one. Johnson stated that the United States should offer “amnesty and pardon” to any Southerner who would swear allegiance to the Union and the Constitution. Like Lincoln, Johnson felt that ex-Confederate leaders should not be eligible for amnesty; he also opposed amnesty for individuals (almost always plantation owners) whose property was worth over $20,000. Johnson had been a small farmer from Tennessee before he entered politics, and he possessed the typical hatred that small farmers had for plantation owners. Johnson also created a fairly simple plan for Confederate states to reenter the Union.

All of the former Confederate states followed the proscribed procedures and elected members to the Congress of the United States that met in December 1865. However, the “loyalty” of the former Confederate states was still questioned by some in the North. Many former Confederate officials and military officers were elected in local and even congressional elections. In no Southern state legislature were the issues of blacks getting the vote or education for former slaves even considered in the months following the Civil War. The Radical Republicans of the North found this totally unacceptable.