Lincoln’s Ten Percent Reconstruction Plan was President Abraham Lincoln’s proposal for restoring former Confederate States to the Union during the Civil War. Under the plan, a former Confederate State could form a new government when 10% of its voters took an Oath of Loyalty to the United States and accepted Emancipation. Lincoln also offered pardons to most former Confederates, excluding certain high-ranking officials. Lincoln preferred a relatively lenient and rapid restoration of the Confederate States to the Union, but Radical Republicans criticized it for giving former Confederates too much influence and providing insufficient protection for Freedmen. Lincoln announced it via the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (1863).
Lincoln’s Ten Percent Reconstruction Plan appears in the following entries on American History Central:
Lincoln’s Ten Percent Reconstruction Plan appears in the following AP US History sections on American History Central:
