4 He offered pardons to all rebels, except high-ranking officials, who would swear allegiance to the Union. He provided that in any Southern state, except Virginia, where a minimum of ten percent of the qualified voters in the 1860 election took the loyalty oath, a state government could be formed. .

             In late 1864 and in early 1865 states including Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee sent representatives to Washington. But those representatives ran into opposing men in Congress known as the "Radical Republicans."4 These men bitterly opposed the presidents ten percent plan. Representatives" Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts and Senators Oliver Morton of Indiana, Benjamin Wade of Ohio, and Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson of Massachusetts all favored "hard peace" for the south.4 The argued that Lincoln was being far too lenient. They contended that neither the Emancipation Proclamation, which rested on the war powers of the president, nor the Ten Percent Plan sufficiently guaranteed the total abolition of slavery and protected the rights of freedmen. The Radicals succeeded in getting congressional approval. In July of 1864, the Wade-Davis Bill, a measure sponsored by Senator Wade and Republican Henry Winter Davis of Maryland, which stated that, instead of Lincoln"s 10 percent, a majority of a state"s voters in the 1860 election would have to take an oath of loyalty to the Union. Lincoln refused the bill.4 He instantly disposed of the bill with a pocket veto. This severely angered the members of Congress. In retaliation the Members of Congress issued a denunciation of the president. The Wade-Davis Manifesto condemned Lincoln"s actions and declared that Congress alone had the power to control Reconstruction.4 .

             Before this period, Lincoln maneuvered behind the scenes to propitiate conservative whites. He influenced slaveholders to free slaves on a progressive basis and he championed various plans for the deportation and colonization of freed slaves.