Wade-Davis Bill
The Wade-Davis Bill was a reconstruction bill introduced in the United States Congress by Congressman Benjamin F. Wade and Senator Henry Winter Davis in 1864 during the Civil War. It proposed far more stringent terms for readmission of southern states to the Union than President Abraham Lincoln's plan did, including requirements that 50 percent of white males take an oath of loyalty to the U.S., ratify state constitutions abolishing slavery, repudiate Confederate debt, and accept emancipation as irreversible. The bill passed both houses but was pocket vetoed by Lincoln when Congress adjourned without sending it to him before he could sign it into law.
In his veto message on July 4th, 1864, Lincoln argued that although he shared many of their goals with respect to reconstruction policy, such decisions should be made by himself rather than by Congressional legislation because they were executive prerogatives that belonged solely to him as president under Article II, Section 3, Clause 5 of the Constitution. This veto caused much criticism from Radical Republicans who wanted harsher measures taken against former Confederates and those loyalists who had not taken up arms against them during the war, eventually leading to the passage of a new version known as "the joint resolution" later that year, which included some provisions from both plans but granted greater powers over reconstruction efforts to presidential authority instead of congressional control.