Following the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865, Vice President
Andrew Johnson, a
War Democrat from
Tennessee, was sworn in as president. Johnson had been elected
in November 1864 on the Union Party ticket with Lincoln, a
Republican, and, having been inaugurated in March 1865, had
served just over a month as vice president when he assumed the
presidency. The Civil War had recently ended, and the new chief
executive inherited the task of overseeing the Reconstruction
process of reintegrating the former Confederate states back into
the Union. Loyal state governments had already been established
by the Lincoln administration in Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee,
and Virginia (although none had been recognized by Congress).
The other seven states of the failed Confederacy—North Carolina,
South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and
Texas—had yet to undergo the process.
On May 29, 1865, President Johnson announced his
Reconstruction plan and began implementing it during the summer
of 1865 when Congress was in recess. He offered general amnesty
to all who would take an oath of future loyalty to the Union and
agree to accept all laws and proclamations issued during the
Civil War emancipating slaves. He appointed temporary
governors, authorizing them to call constitutional conventions
in their respective states. The president allowed most of those
who had been eligible voters in 1860 (a qualification that
excluded blacks) to participate in elections for delegates to
state constitutional conventions and, subsequently, for state
and federal office-holders. However, he withheld political
rights from high-ranking Confederate officials and men of wealth
(worth over $20,000) until they personally petitioned the
president for individual pardons. The cover of the
October 14, 1865 issue of Harper’s Weekly showed a
roomful of former Confederates seeking pardons from the
president.
Under Johnson’s guidelines, the new state constitutions
abolished slavery, repealed their secession ordinances, and
repudiated Confederate war debts. The president encouraged, but
did not require, the former Confederate states to ratify the
proposed Thirteenth Amendment, which
abolished the institution of slavery. (Of the former
Confederate states, all but Florida, Texas, and Mississippi
ratified the Thirteenth Amendment before it officially became
part of the U.S. Constitution on December 18, 1865. Florida
ratified it on December 28, 1865; Texas on February 18, 1870;
and Mississippi never ratified it.) By the time Congress
convened in December 1865, the former Confederate states had
achieved or were nearing compliance with the Presidential
Reconstruction plan, and were ready to reenter the Union on an
equal status with all the other states. |