When the Civil War finally broke out, President Lincoln and the Union’s official policy toward the Confederacy was one of preserving the Union and bringing conciliation and not concession. President Lincoln believed the Union needed to be preserved and with time he thought it would be. Lincoln was hoping …show more content…
Radical Reconstruction was comprised of the previous Confederate states being divided into five military districts that were each controlled by a general. First, the commander held voter-registration campaigns. These campaigns were held to “enroll black people and to bar white people who had held office before the Civil War and supported the Confederacy” (Goldfield et. al. 364). The voters that were eligible after the campaigns elected delegates to go to state convention and write a new constitution that would guarantee all free men the right to vote. This Reconstruction plan made it likely for Republicans would run offices and the rights of former slaves would be protected. However, many southerners that were not given the right to participate in this process deemed it illegitimate. Radical Reconstruction and Presidential Reconstruction differed in who was in charge and what came about as a result of the Reconstruction