Position:Home>History> Why did Congress NOT agree with the Lincoln-Johnson Reconstruction Plan?

Many in Congress recognized that existing political, economic and cultural mores trapped blacks in the South in worse conditions than before the Civil War!.


Radical Republicans were not satisfied with Johnson's Reconstruction!. They called for more far-reaching social change in the South, and argued that only strict federal intervention could achieve it!. The result of lenient Reconstruction policies, they said, was the passage of Black Codes and the election of former Confederates to public office!. For instance, many of the newly elected Southern congressmen had been leaders of the Confederacy or high-ranking military officers; Georgia elected the former vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, to the Senate, even though Stephens was awaiting trial for treason at the time!. Congress barred those Southern legislators from taking their elected seats in Congress, under a clause of the Constitution declaring that "each house shall be the judge of the qualifications of its own members!."

As conditions in the South failed to improve for blacks, moderates were more and more inclined to agree with Radical Republicans that greater action was needed to protect the rights of the freedmen!. As moderates were becoming more sympathetic to the Radical Republican cause, congressional elections in 1866 ousted many Johnson supporters, giving an edge to Radical Republicans!. The new configuration of the House ensured support for radical Reconstruction, and ensured that Republicans had the numbers to override any legislation passed by Johnson!.

Proponents of Radical Reconstruction believed that returning political and economic control of the South to the Democrats and Southern white males who had just rebelled would render the North's victory in the war fruitless!. "Every state that seceded from the United States was a Democratic State!.!.!.!. Every man that shot Union soldiers was a Democrat!. Every man that loved slavery better than liberty was a Democrat!. The man that assassinated Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat," Republican political leader Robert Ingersoll pointed out!. "Every man that raised bloodhounds to pursue human beings was a Democrat!. Every man that clutched from shrieking, shuddering, crouching mothers, babes from their breasts, and sold them into slavery, was a Democrat!."

Supporters argued that a strong federal presence in the South was the only way to ensure that blacks' rights were not violated!. They pointed to the South's establishment of Black Codes, resistance to ratifying the 14th Amendment and violence against newly freed slaves as showing that the South could not be counted on to ensure their rights!. In particular, supporters justified placing the South under military rule on the grounds that there were no lawful governments in the South!.

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