Lincoln's Ideas For Reconstruction After The Civil War

The elections of 1800 and 1864 had made the Republicans victorious in the electorate. However, the South’s influence on the electorate had significantly decreased and the Democratic Party was divided as well. After the Civil War, with only a few requirements for readmission, Conservatives wanted the south to accept the abolition of slavery. Led by Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, the Radical Republicans wanted the military leaders of the Confederacy to be punished. The punishments would include the confiscation of Southern property and suffrage for freedmen.

Lincoln saw reconstruction as a time of healing for the South while radical Republicans saw it as a time to punish the South and teach them a lesson. Lincoln thought that the country should maintain a unity with its states. He also believed in having a strong governed country. After the Civil War, the radical Republicans controlled congress and if Lincoln had lived he would have been able to control their actions. The Radical Republicans whipped up public anger and demanded that president Johnson allow reprisals against former rebels.

Lincoln just wanted the reconstruction to be fast, simple, and painless. Reconstruction was much needed after the Civil War, and they needed a good plan! Lincoln’s plan was a

Secession of slavery and other issues was a major discussion for a long time between the North and South. The republicans appealed to various groups in the North and swore elimination of slavery from territories. The Republican’s believe that a republican president would end the South’s controlling political issues. With the election of President Abraham Lincoln, it seems as if the South felt traded and the North felt empowered.

While Abraham Lincoln was opposed to slavery, he embarked on a civil war to preserve the country. The

Although Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were allies during the war and at the start of reconstruction, they had separate priorities that set an obstacle for Douglass and his goals. Lincoln was a helpful member of Douglass’s team in bettering the lives of black Americans, but because he had his eyes set on ending the Civil War, Douglass was only able to make small steps forward. The most notable changes that arrived during the reconstruction were the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. Freedom for all slaves, all African-Americans receiving protection under the law, and the right to vote set a new pathway for change to continue. Despite their differences in priorities and personality, there were several reasons as to why

As new states became free states, the pro slavery cultures viewed these motives as undermining of their system. When Republican President Lincoln became elected in 1861 the south went into a panic and began succeeding from the Union. The war took off in a effort to rejoin the states. In the beginning of the war, slavery wasn’t touched. Blacks that fell into Union hands were returned

The Confederacy seceded from the Union and formed their own country with their own system of Government. The war’s main conflict however was the idea of slavery. The Confederacy thrived on slavery due to their agricultural lifestyle while the Union wanted to due away with and wanted freedom and equality for all. This led to a major disparity amongst political parties. The president at the time, Lincoln, was a Republican who denounced slavery in many ways including both socially and politically.

After Lincoln’s election as America’s next president, Southern states feared the abolition of slavery despite Lincoln’s promise to only prevent the expansion of slavery. Following this fear, many Southern states seceded from the Union and created the Confederate States of America. Not surprisingly, Lincoln refused to give up the Union’s land to its traitors and enemies. Eventually, this disagreement sparked war between the two territories and countless battles followed. After hundreds of thousands of lives lost and millions of acres of land destroyed, the Union came out victorious, proved its ability to preserve itself, and freed all black people.

Lincoln was on the side of the fence leaning towards lenient punishment against the defeated confederate side. He was under the impression that a more lenient punishment would lead to a quicker recovery of the Union as a whole, which was believed to be his main goal. There were radical members of the Republican party, led by Thaddeus Stevens and Charles

He favored a moderate policy that would conjoin the South with the Union without any punishment for treason. Many resisted Lincoln’s plan, saying it was not harsh enough while others did not know if Lincoln was being too lenient. The Radical Republicans and moderate Republicans were caught in a conflict. One important event of the Reconstruction Period was the Wade-Davis Bill. This was formed by the Radical Republicans and moderate Republicans.

After the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and the rise of the Republican party, Southerners feared the tipping of the balance of political power against them; their need for self-determination parallel the colonists’ belief of rebelling against the oppressive government of Great Britain. However, the Civil War represented something more: the clash of the feudalistic, agrarian South with the industrialized, capitalistic North. These two powers differed socially, politically, and economically, and were especially conflicted over slavery. These two sections of the United States were divided against one another, and could not survive this way. Therefore, it is more accurate to state that though the Civil War resembled some aspects of the American Revolution, it was a clash between two forces who could not exist with one another in their current state, leading inevitably to conflict between the

There were too many factors leading up to the war that only increased the fundamental differences between the north and the south. Lincoln, as well as many others, believed that the country could not continue to exist as two nations under a singular government and survive. The only way was for the two opposing ideologies had to settle the differences between, however, the differences were so important to each section a political compromise would have ultimately ended in one side's economic and social ideology being dismissed. Both sides were unwilling to let their ideologies be taken out by the other. The cotton gin changed the stakes as it revived the cotton production, the main product of the south and set it in place as the key part of the southern economy.

Abraham Lincoln’s vs Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan Lincoln shared the uncommon belief that the confederate states could still be part of the union and that the cause of the rebellion was only a few within the states which lead him to begin the reconstruction in December of 1863. This resulted in plans with lenient guidelines and although they were challenged by Wade-Davis Bill, Lincoln still rejected his ideas and kept his policies in place. Lincoln also allowed land to be given the newly freed slave or homeless white by distributing the land that had been confiscated from former land owners however this fell through once Johnson took office. After Lincoln’s death when Johnson was elected many things started to turn away from giving blacks equal rights and resulted in many things such a black codes which kept newly freed slaves from having the same rights as whites. When Lincoln first acted after the civil war, he offered policies that would allow the confederate slaves to become part of the union again and would allow a pardon for those states.

Abraham Lincoln would lead the Republican Party even though he did not win the south over in the election. He promised that he would save the Union no matter what the cost. This disconnect in policy would later lay the basis for the Civil War, which started in 1861. He never envisioned a proclamation or ending slavery but he was ultimately committed to saving the Union from the succeeding south. Lincoln gave into the antislavery Republicans toward the end of the war and finally decided to make slavery the true basis of the war.