United States History Student Edition

02 Plans for Reconstruction

The Reconstruction Debate GUIDING QUESTION

READING STRATEGY Analyzing Key Ideas and Details Read carefully to determine the impact of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments on African Americans. Use a diagram like this one to record your notes.

Why did leaders disagree about the South rejoining the Union? The Confederate states tried and failed to break away from the United States. Now that the Civil War had ended, they had to rejoin that Union. The war left the South’s economy and society in ruins. It would take much effort to restore the states that had experienced so much destruction. The task of rebuilding the former Confederate states and readmitting them to the Union was called Reconstruction (ree•kuhn•STRUHK•shuhn). The president and Congress had different ideas about how to achieve these goals. The debate over Reconstruction led to years of bitter conflict after the Civil War. Lincoln’s Plan and the Radical Republicans President Lincoln offered the first plan for bringing the Southern states back into the Union. In December 1863, while the Civil War still raged, Lincoln presented his ideas. Lincoln’s plan required voters in each Southern state to take an oath of loyalty to the Union. When 10 percent of the voters in a state had taken the oath, the state could form a new state government. The state would also be required to adopt a new constitution that banned slavery. After a state had met these conditions, it could send representatives to Congress. Lincoln’s proposal was known as the Ten Percent Plan. Lincoln did not want to punish the South after the war ended. He believed that punishment would slow the nation’s healing from the war. Lincoln wanted to see white Southerners who supported the Union take charge of their state governments.

Amendment

Impact

Fourteenth

Fifteenth

Reconstruction after the Civil War, the period of rebuilding the South and readmitting the former Confederate states into the Union

FLORIDA BENCHMARKS

• SS.8.A.1.1 • SS.8.A.1.2 • SS.8.A.1.6 • SS.8.A.5.8 • SS.8.CG.1.2 • SS.8.CG.1.3 • SS.8.CG.2.1 • SS.8.CG.2.3 • SS.8.CG.2.4 • SS.8.CG.2.6 • SS.8.E.2.2 • SS.8.G.1.2 • SS.8.G.4.6 • ELA.K12.EE.1.1 • ELA.K12.EE.4.1 • ELA.K12.EE.6.1

The city of Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, was left in ruins following the Civil War.

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