Obscura

18. Wade-Davis

December 1863:
The 10 Percent Plan President Lincoln announces a plan for reconstructing those Confederate states already under Union control. He offered to pardon Confederates who take an oath to support the Union. When ten percent of a state's citizens eligible to vote in 1860 swear an oath of allegiance and a state has abolished slavery, he promises to readmit the state to the Union.

By the end of the war, Lincoln publicly calls for limited black suffrage in the South.
1864
July 1864:
The Wade-Davis Bill Many Congressional Republicans believe that the 10 Percent Plan is too lenient since it does nothing to end the economic and political power of the planter class or protect the civil rights of ex-slaves. They also feel that the president has overstepped his authority by issuing a plan for reconstruction without consulting Congress.

Congressional Republicans outline their plan for reconstructing the union. The Wade-Davis Bill requires each state to abolish slavery, repudiate their acts of secession, and refuse to honor wartime debts. It also stipulates that a majority, rather than 10 percent, of voters in 1860 take an oath of allegiance before a state could be reorganized. Finally, it specifies that anyone who wanted to vote in a constitutional convention in a former Confederate state must swear that he had never voluntarily supported the Confederacy.

Lincoln refuses to sign the Wade-Davis Bill because, he wrote, he is not ready "to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration."

posted by Cobb @ 10:42 AM