Essay On Reconstruction Policy

889 Words2 Pages

Reconstruction Policy and the South

Topic
Reconstruction Policy, its effects on the South, the country and beyond (the 20th century). What was Reconstruction? What did it do to the country? How did it affect the South for years after?

I. Hook statement: The years throughout the 1860’s to the 1870’s were full of change, Lincoln was inaugurated a second time after putting forth his ideas for reconstruction and rights for black people, we had just received a surrender from Robert E. Lee and we were recovering from war.
a. Thesis Statement: Reconstruction at the time developed from finding peace and unity into a power struggle between Lincoln and Congress for whose plan would work out better. The changes that would eventually be put through would transmute the way that the North governed the South from then on.
b. Main point - The Ten Percent Plan was Lincoln’s first ideas on how to re-unite the North and the South as quickly and effortlessly as possible. The basis of this plan being that Lincoln could allow a minority that is completely loyal to him to enter the state and set up a government with him as the head, but only after a vote with at least 10% of the electorate state in favor.
c. Main point - Radical members of Congress did not wish to conform with the plan set out by Lincoln, these members were led by Thaddeus Stevens. The members believed Lincoln’s plan to be too “mild” and instead wished to create their own plan. First the members of Congress had to get rid of Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan, to do this they decided that any of the votes from the state governments of Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana that Lincoln’s plan had created would not be counted, this didn’t go over so well with Lincoln and they were forced ...

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...l seemed to be a much more rational plan on paper, but Lincoln did not agree with the measures required, he wished for a loyal government while still being fair to the confederates so that they would be inclined to rejoin the North. ii. Whether the Wade-Davis Bill would have worked out better or not will be a mystery, however Lincoln’s veto of the bill seems to have been the best choice considering the outcome.
c. Another cited sentence from your source (proper embedded citation)
i. Your words linking it to the thesis ii. Your words linking it to the thesis
d. From this evidence, it seems that Lincoln probably intended some sort of Reconstruction policy that would build on the old Whig and Unionist elements in the South to create a possibility of a Republican Party (or Union Party of some sort) with congressional delegations from the South.

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