Reconstruction After the Civil War

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Lincolns plans for restoration began even before the war ended. Lincoln was motivated by the desire to build a strong republican party in the south and to make an end to the anguish caused by the war. On December the 8th 1863 Lincoln issued a proclamation of amnesty and reconstruction for the areas of the southern confederacy who would support the United States constitution and pledge a loyalty oath to the union. Lincolns plan offered a pardon for any state and would be allowed back into the union when ten percent of the people who voted in the 1860 election had pledged a loyalty oath to the union and would have to abide by all laws including the ban of slavery,and even said that high Confederate officials and military leaders were to be temporarily excluded from the process. Few states reacted quickly to this “plan” and even established governments based on these terms. However the Radical Republicans did not agree with Lincolns plan do to the fact that it did not secure the equal rights of freed slaves.
Post-war Radical Republicans were interested in main factors such as, a desire ...

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