President Abraham Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan was authored shortly after his dedication of the new National Cemetery at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863. While bedridden and recovering from smallpox, President Lincoln wrote the plan as a message included in his upcoming annual address to Congress. The annual address would outline Lincoln's key goals for the upcoming year and much of the speech's 6,000 words were dedicated to his approaches for the Reconstruction-era. While the address gained immediate accolades from members of the political elite classes on both sides of the aisle, there were also those who were unhappy with the moderate approaches Lincoln supported to reunify the South and the North. Some former Confederate states even moved forward under Lincoln's plans, while Congress debated their own legislation. The Ten Percent Plan would not survive following Lincoln's assassination in April of 1865; however, prior to his assassination the plan faced numerous hurdles as lawmakers were at odds over some of the plan's provisions.
Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction
Officially titled the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, the Ten Percent Plan was devised by President Lincoln to speed up both the conclusion of the Civil War and the associated reunification effort under reconstruction. The president was dissatisfied with the slow pace of reconstruction efforts, particularly the state of Louisiana. President Lincoln's advisors were also nervous that without a particular plan for reunification, it may have been possible for former Southern congressmen who had initially denounced the Union to be reinstated as representatives. This could ultimately lead to additional conflicts with the Union in the post-war period, so Lincoln needed to act.
The Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction was more of a blueprint for reunification than it was a policy document. Abraham Lincoln was a skilled politician and distinctly understood the importance political rhetoric could make on public perception. The 10 Percent Plan moniker was thought, by Lincoln, to be a smart political maneuver that may be able to sway weary Confederate soldiers and sympathizers to move quickly toward reconciliation and to end the Civil War. Offered as an enticement to Southerners, the Ten Percent Plan was heralded directly after the address to Congress by many; however, opposition by Radical Republicans and activists including abolitionist, Frederick Douglass.
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Opposition and the Wade Davis Bill
Abolitionist Frederick Douglass was vehemently opposed to President Lincoln's plan laid out in his address to Congress. Douglass said of Lincoln following the address that he, ''has virtually laid down this as the rule of his statesmen: Do evil by choice right from necessity.'' This opposing view on the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction would pit Douglass and other prominent abolitionist leaders against President Lincoln, and set-up a battle that would permeate the Reconstruction-era's approach to reconstruction policy.
Radical Republicans in Congress, although initially agreeing with many provisions in Lincoln's plan, ultimately disagreed with the less strict approaches to reunifying the South. Senator Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio and Representative Henry Winter Davis of Maryland proposed the Wade-Davis Bill in February of 1864. Under the Wade-Davis Bill states would only be eligible to reenter the Union if 50 percent of voters agreed to a loyalty oath and if the state gave Black citizens the right to vote. Congress ultimately debated and passed the Wade-Davis Bill and sent it to the president's desk for signature.
Seen as a rebuke to Lincoln's plan, the Wade-Davis Bill was not signed into law by President Lincoln. Article I, section 7 of the Constitution affords the president with the authority to veto legislation passed by the Congress. President Lincoln tabled the bill, leaving it unsigned until after Congress had adjourned. Known as a pocket veto, this act by President Abraham Lincoln would effectively kill the Wade-Davis Bill. This however would not be the end of the debate, as President Lincoln and Congress began butting heads over the guiding principles and goals of the coming Reconstruction-era.
Implementation
Several states did take President Lincoln up on his plans utilizing the Ten Percent Plan as the blueprint for their readmission to the Union. Before the end of the Civil War, representatives met in Louisiana to draft a new state constitution under the requirements set forth in Lincoln's plan. Louisiana's draft constitution provided for certain societal changes including education and labor reforms and the abolishment of slavery but failed to grant freedmen or Black citizens the right to vote. Lincoln expressed his agreement with the Louisiana draft constitution; however, when Congress returned from recess and took up debate on the document it was ultimately rejected. Congress also refused to seat delegates from Louisiana who had won their election earlier in 1864. Similarly, the state of Arkansas' and the state of Tennessee's bids to reenter the union (using documents drafted under the Ten Percent Plan provisions) were rejected.
The Downfall of the Plan
On April 4, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated while watching a performance of Our American Cousin at Washington's Ford Theater. Actor John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer vehemently opposed to African Americans gaining the right to vote, shot President Lincoln using a small single-shot pistol at close range in the presidential box at the theater. The loss of President Lincoln, only 5 days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender in Virginia, dealt a death blow to Lincoln's plans for the reconciliation of the South. Then Vice President Andrew Johnson, assumed the role of president following the assassination of President Lincoln.
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