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The Ten Percent Plan
The plan stipulated that each secessionist state had to redraft its constitution and could reenter the Union only after 10 percent of its eligible voters pledged an oath of allegiance to the United States. -
Progressive Legislation for Blacks
Although Johnson vetoed this bill as well, Congress was able to muster enough votes to override it. The Radical Republicans also passed the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment, which made freed slaves U.S. citizens. -
Presidential Reconstruction
John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., and Vice President Andrew Johnson became president. Presidential Reconstruction under Johnson readmitted the southern states using Lincoln’s Ten-Percent Plan and granted all southerners full pardons, including thousands of wealthy planters and former Confederate officials. -
Johnson’s “Swing Around the Circle”
Many southerners reacted violently to the passage by Congress of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the two amendments. White supremacists in Tennessee formed the Ku Klux Klan, a secret organization meant to terrorize southern blacks and “keep them in their place.” -
Radical Reconstruction
The Congress that convened in 1867, which was far more radical than the previous one, wasted no time executing its own plan for the Radical Reconstruction of the South. The First Reconstruction Act in 1867 divided the South into five conquered districts, each of which would be governed by the U.S. military until a new government was established. Republicans also specified that states would have to enfranchise former slaves before readmission to the Union. -
Johnson’s Impeachment
In an effort to limit Johnson’s executive powers, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act in 1867. which required the president to consult with the House and Senate before removing any congressionally appointed cabinet members. -
Grant’s Presidency
To the Radicals’ delight, Johnson finally left the White House in 1868, when Republican Ulysses S. Grant was elected president. Grant’s inexperience, however, proved to be a liability that ultimately ended Radical Reconstruction. -
Carpetbaggers, Scalawags, and Sharecroppers
Countless carpetbaggers (northerners who moved to the South after the war) and scalawags (white Unionists and Republicans in the South) flocked to the South during Reconstruction and exerted significant influence there.
