What was andrew johnsons reconstruction plan

Blacks were denied any role in the process. Johnson also ordered nearly all the land in the hands of the government returned to its prewar owners -- dashing black hope for economic autonomy.

At the outset, most Northerners believed Johnson's plan deserved a chance to succeed. The course followed by Southern state governments under Presidential Reconstruction, however, turned most of the North against Johnson's policy. Members of the old Southern elite, including many who had served in the Confederate government and army, returned to power. The new legislatures passed the Black Codes, severely limiting the former slaves' legal rights and economic options so as to force them to return to the plantations as dependent laborers.

Some states limited the occupations open to blacks. Second, to Johnson, African-American suffrage was a delay and a distraction; it always had been a state responsibility to decide who should vote.

Without a focus on providing explicit legal equality for the freed slaves, Johnson overlooked the actions of white Southerners and blocked the actions of Congress.

Despite the abolition of slavery, many former Confederates were not willing to accept the social changes. Southern state governments quickly enacted the restrictive Black Codes. The Black Codes indicated that the freedmen would have more rights than they had before the war, but still only a limited set of second-class civil rights.

Additionally, freedmen were not granted voting rights or citizenship The Black Codes outraged Northerners, and were overthrown by the Civil Rights Act of , which gave freedmen full legal equality except the right to vote.

This helped freedmen force planters to bargain for their labor. Such bargaining soon led to the practice of sharecropping, which gave the freedmen both greater economic independence and social autonomy. However, because freedmen lacked capital, and because planters continued to own the tools, draft animals, and land, the freedmen were forced into producing cash crops, mainly cotton, for the landowners and merchants.

Widespread poverty, as well as the falling price of cotton, led to indebtedness among a majority of the freedmen, and poverty among many planters. Northern officials gave varying reports on conditions involving freedmen in the South.

One harsh assessment came from Carl Schurz, who documented dozens of extra-judicial killings in states along the Gulf Coast. He also reported that at least hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other African Americans had been killed in this area.

In Selma, Alabama, Major J. Houston noted that whites who killed 12 African Americans in his district never came to trial. Several other killings never culminated in official cases. Black women were particularly vulnerable at this time, as convicting a white man of sexually assaulting a black woman was immensely difficult. Because black women were considered to have little virtue, some in white society held that they could not be raped.

This racist mindset contributed to numerous sexual crimes against black women. Black men were construed as being extremely sexually aggressive, and their supposed threats to white women often were used as a pretext for lynching and castrations. During the autumn of , the Radical Republicans responded to the implementation of the Black Codes by blocking the readmission of the former rebellious states to Congress. Johnson, however, pushed to allow former Confederate states into the Union as long as their state governments adopted the Thirteenth Amendment which abolished slavery.

The amendment was ratified by December 6, , leading Johnson to believe that Reconstruction was over. Although Johnson had sympathies for the plights of the freedmen, he was opposed to federal assistance.

An attempt to override the veto failed on February 20, In response, both the Senate and House passed a joint resolution, disallowing any congressional seat admittance until Congress declared Reconstruction finished. Illinois senator Lyman Trumbull, leader of the moderate Republicans, recognized that the abolition of slavery was worthless without the protection of basic civil rights, and thus proposed the first Civil Rights Law.

Congress quickly passed this Civil Rights bill. The impeachment of Andrew Johnson was one of the most dramatic events that occurred during the Reconstruction era in the United States, and was the first impeachment in history of a sitting U. Johnson was impeached because of his efforts to undermine congressional policy; the impeachment was the culmination of a lengthy political battle between the moderate Johnson and the Radical Republicans who dominated Congress and sought control of Reconstruction policies.

Johnson was acquitted by one vote. Johnson was impeached on February 24, , in the U. Specifically, he had removed Edwin M. Stanton, the secretary of war whom the Tenure of Office Act was largely designed to protect , from office and attempted to replace him with Brevet Major General Lorenzo Thomas.

The House agreed to the articles of impeachment on March 2, Chase presiding. The first vote on one of the 11 impeachment articles concluded on May 16 with a failure to convict Johnson. A day recess was called before attempting to convict him on additional articles, but that effort failed on May The to votes were one short of the required two-thirds needed for conviction. The Fourteenth Amendment provided the foundation of equal rights for all U. During and immediately after the Civil War, the U.

Congress passed three constitutional amendments that provided political and social equality for African Americans. Northern congressmen believed that providing black men with the right to vote would be the most rapid means of political education and training.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the U. Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was ratified by the required number of states on December 6, House of Representatives and direct taxes among the states. Though the amendment formally abolished slavery throughout the United States, factors such as Black Codes, white supremacist violence, and selective enforcement of statutes continued to subject some black Americans to involuntary labor, particularly in the South.

The impact of the abolition of slavery was felt quickly. In Delaware, where a large number of escaped slaves had settled during the war, people became legally free. His amnesty proclamations, however, emboldened former Confederate leaders to regain their former seats of power in local and national governments, fueling tensions with freedmen in the South and Republican lawmakers in the North.

Following Abraham Lincoln's death, President Andrew Johnson based his reconstruction plan on Lincoln's earlier measure. Johnson's plan also called for loyalty from ten percent of the men who had voted in the election. In addition, the plan called for granting amnesty and returning people's property if they pledged to be loyal to the United States.

The Confederate states would be required to uphold the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery; swear loyalty to the Union; and pay off their war debt. Then they could re-write their state constitutions, hold elections, and begin sending representatives to Washington. Under the plan, Confederate leaders would have to apply directly to President Johnson in order to request pardon.

Johnson issued over 13, pardons during his administration, and he passed several amnesty proclamations. The last one, issued Christmas Day , granted sweeping pardons to former Confederates, including former Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Andrew Johnson and Congress were unable to agree on a plan for restoring the ravaged country following the Civil War. There was a marked difference between Congressional Reconstruction - outlined in the first , second, and third Military Reconstruction Acts - and Andrew Johnson's plan for Presidential Restoration North Carolina's plan shown here.

In the midst of it all was the human aspect. The Bureau supervised relief and educational activities for refugees and freedmen, including issuance of food, clothing, and medicine. The Bureau also assumed custody of confiscated lands or property in the former Confederate States, border states, District of Columbia, and Indian Territory.

Backlash occurred in the South in the form of the Black Codes. Passed in and in Southern states after the Civil War, these Codes severely restricted the new-found freedoms of the formerly enslaved people, and it forced them to work for low or no wages.