It was 1865, the Civil War had ended and President Abraham Lincoln has been assassinated. Lincoln had been the moderator between the extreme beliefs of the Republican majority in Congress and the liberal ideas of the Democrats or Confederate sympathizers. None the less Reconstruction needed to begin as soon as possible. The South needed to be rebuilt, economically as well as geographically; the Union would have to readmit all former Confederate states in order for the reconstruction to begin. Lincoln's point of view had been that the South deserved to be readmitted. Others, such as Congress, felt like the South should pay for their rebellious behavior. They felt this way because they were afraid that the South would rebel again. There were many different ideas on how the Reconstruction for the South was to be dealt with, but the most important were Lincoln's Plan, Johnson Plans of Reconstruction, and the Radical Republican Reconstruction.

Lincoln's Plan consisted of two major points: the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, which included the Ten Percent Plan and the acceptance of the Thirteenth Amendment. The Proclamation of Amnesty stated that "

before returning to the Union, the Confederates would take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States of America and the Union of the states there under". Lincoln's plan for Reconstruction was to readmit Southern States on liberal terms, and offered a 10% plan. This plan allowed southern states to reenter the union and develop a state government as soon as 10% of the state's population signed a loyalty pledge however Congress wished to be more severe. Lincoln might have been able to carry his plan through but he was killed shortly after the beginning of his second term in office.

The dispute became even more great as Southern States reconstructed their congressional delegates with ex southern leaders, the very ones who had been in charge of the confederacy during the war. Congress won by overriding the president's veto and passed its own plan, the Reconstruction Acts of 1867. This act made most of the South divided into five military districts, each supervised by a Union major general in command of a detachment of troops. Suffrage was granted to the black male population. By the third section of the 14th Amendment (also adopted in 1868) to the Constitution, the former political leaders of the South were denied participation in the various state governments set up by the Reconstruction Acts.

The Northern Radical Republicans, with a majority in Congress, were the political group that set the goals for Reconstruc

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Approximate Word count = 986
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)