Following the end of the Civil War, the Union came out the victor and the Confederacy the loser. Because the Confederacy lost the war, though, the Union was presented with the problem of reincorporating the southern states back into the Union, a process known to historians as Reconstruction. With the goal in mind of creating a Republican presence in the south based on a Free Labor ideology, the Republican Party was only moderately successful, and their eventual failure resulted in a Democratic south as well as southern traditions, such as white supremacy, being retained. Nearing Union victory, President Abraham Lincoln proposed a solution to reincorporate the southern states back into the Union. His plan, called the ten percent plan, proposed
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The final plan for Reconstruction separated the south into five military districts, each with generals and a certain amount of Union troops, with the purpose in mind to make sure southerners were qualified to vote and that the society was secure. Similar to Johnson’s proposal, the southern states were to hold constitutional conventions where the governments (i.e., all male citizens) were required to draft and approve of new state constitutions that accepted partial suffrage, and by ratifying the 14th amendment would the southern states be readmitted back into the Union. With this in mind, it is necessary to note how there was not a single mention to a land redistribution policy integrated in the south, nor was any mention to an economic policy at all! The south had been suffering tremendously following the civil war, suffering from debt and the loss of the South’s primary means of economics: slavery. For this simple reason, the Republicans, and Johnson, could have compromised to include an economic means of restoring the south to its former wealth prior to the Civil War. In spite of this, there could have been a greater effort from the United States government, specifically Republicans, to add an economic policy, and is evidence of a weak Republican party who could not compromise on a single Reconstruction
The final plan for Reconstruction separated the south into five military districts, each with generals and a certain amount of Union troops, with the purpose in mind to make sure southerners were qualified to vote and that the society was secure. Similar to Johnson’s proposal, the southern states were to hold constitutional conventions where the governments (i.e., all male citizens) were required to draft and approve of new state constitutions that accepted partial suffrage, and by ratifying the 14th amendment would the southern states be readmitted back into the Union. With this in mind, it is necessary to note how there was not a single mention to a land redistribution policy integrated in the south, nor was any mention to an economic policy at all! The south had been suffering tremendously following the civil war, suffering from debt and the loss of the South’s primary means of economics: slavery. For this simple reason, the Republicans, and Johnson, could have compromised to include an economic means of restoring the south to its former wealth prior to the Civil War. In spite of this, there could have been a greater effort from the United States government, specifically Republicans, to add an economic policy, and is evidence of a weak Republican party who could not compromise on a single Reconstruction