Why did Congress object to Lincoln’s wartime plan for reconstruction?

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Figure false: Military Auction of Condemned Property, Beaufort, South Carolina, 1865
Figure false: During the war, thousands of acres of land in the South came into federal hands as abandoned property or as a result of seizures because of nonpayment of taxes. The government authorized the sale of some of this land at public auction. This rare photograph shows expectant blacks (and a few whites) gathered in Beaufort, South Carolina, for a sale. The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

CHRONOLOGY

1863

  • Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction.

1864

  • Lincoln refuses to sign Wade-Davis bill.

1865

  • Freedmen’s Bureau is established.

RECONSTRUCTION DID NOT WAIT for the end of war. As the odds of a northern victory increased, thinking about reunification quickened. Immediately, a question arose: Who had authority to devise a plan for reconstructing the Union? President Abraham Lincoln firmly believed that reconstruction was a matter of executive responsibility. Congress just as firmly asserted its jurisdiction. Fueling the argument were significant differences about the terms of reconstruction. In their eagerness to formulate a plan for political reunification, neither Lincoln nor Congress gave much attention to the South’s land and labor problem or to the aspirations of freedmen. But as the war rapidly eroded slavery and traditional plantation agriculture, Yankee military commanders in the Union-occupied areas of the Confederacy had no choice but to oversee the emergence of a new labor system.