In December 1863, President Lincoln issued the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, which asked relatively little of the southern states. Lincoln declared that defeated states would have to accept the abolition of slavery, but then new governments could be formed when 10 percent of those eligible to vote in 1860 (which in practice meant white southern men but not blacks) swore an oath of allegiance to the United States. Lincoln’s plan granted amnesty to all but the highest-ranking Confederate officials, and the restored voters in each state would elect members to a constitutional convention and representatives to take their seats in Congress. In the next year and a half, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee reestablished their governments under Lincoln’s “Ten Percent Plan.”

Republicans in Congress had other ideas. Radical Republicans argued that the Confederate states should be treated as “conquered provinces” subject to congressional supervision. In 1864 Congress passed the Wade-Davis bill, which established much higher barriers for readmission to the Union than did Lincoln’s plan. For instance, the Wade-Davis bill substituted 50 percent of voters for the president’s 10 percent requirement. Lincoln put a stop to this harsher proposal by using a pocket veto—refusing to sign it within ten days of Congress’s adjournment.

Although Lincoln and congressional Republicans disagreed about many aspects of postwar policy, Lincoln was flexible, and his actions mirrored his desire both to heal the Union and to help southern blacks. For example, the president supported the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, which passed Congress in January 1865 and was sent to the states for ratification. In March 1865, Lincoln signed the law to create the Freedmen’s Bureau. That same month, the president expressed his sincere wish for reconciliation between the North and the South. “With malice toward none, with charity for all,” Lincoln declared in his second inaugural address, “let us strive on to finish the work . . . to bind up the nation’s wounds.” Lincoln would not, however, have the opportunity to implement his balanced approach to Reconstruction. When he was assassinated in April 1865, it fell to Andrew Johnson, a very different sort of politician, to lead the country through the process of reintegration.