President Lincolns plan was to unite the Union, by giving absolution to former soldiers of the Confederacy only if they would be willing to take an oath to embrace not only the Union, but also the Constitution. The only people that were pardoned were the African Americans from taking the oath. The only way President Lincoln was willing to accept their restoration only if “the number who did so in any state had reached a tenth of the votes cast in the presidential election of 1860” (204). There were many people that were against this idea, but in particular it was always radicals in the Republican Party. The Republican Party was led by three outspoken men, which were “Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, Benjamin Wade of Ohio, Zachariah Chandler of Michigan, and Charles Sumner of Massachusetts” …show more content…
Pierpont in Virginia. Now the second interesting fact of the Johnson era is that on May 29th, 1865, that the President announced he would like to express his own “proclamation of amnesty” (206). What this amnesty proclamation entailed was a very simply act in itself. Which, was taking a simple oath of allegiance many people would partake in such oath if they are seeking pardon, and it would also generate an increase in “categories of excluded persons by forbidding people with property valued at more than $20,000 to take the oath” (206). This was very clear that this oath was to publically shame the wealthy planters instead of penalizing