Civil War Dbq

The end of the Civil War presented a unique crossroads for the war torn United States. How would the North and South reunite? At the helm, there was a moderate politician and a reflective thinker – President Abraham Lincoln. One of the greatest statesmen of all time, Lincoln had advocated a lenient stance, envisioning a “restoration” whereby the southern states would pledge allegiance and reenter the Union under the Constitution. Lincoln had proved to be a great negotiator and had worked successfully during the war to join opposing sides to unite behind the Emancipation Proclamation and passage of the 13th Amendment. Lincoln appealed to the common man and was revered by many of his era. To poet Walt Whitman, “he was democratic, charitable,

Lee had surrendered southern forces and the government of the Confederacy crumbled, there were southern sympathizers who still refused to back down. They would not accept the war won victory of the North. Among these was a Maryland native and famed actor, John Wilkes Booth, who had developed numerous plans during the war to kidnap Lincoln and his advisors and hold them as bargaining chips. The end of the war did not end Booth’s plan, it only strengthened and modified it. He blamed Lincoln for all that had befallen the south and conspired with a group of friends to kill Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State William Seward and General Ulysses S. Grant on April 14, 1865. His cohorts did not complete their end of the plan, but on that night, Booth entered Lincoln’s box at Ford’s Theater and shot the 16th President in the head and changed the course of history. The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth was not successful in protecting the South after the Civil War as Booth had predicted; but instead, installed a new president who was unable to negotiate Lincoln’s envisioned moderate “restoration” of the South, enraged Northern representatives in Congress, and evoked a punitive “reconstruction” of the South that would produce ill will between both sides for decades to

Johnson, a southern Democrat who supported the Union, had been chosen as a running mate by Lincoln in 1860 to try and appease both sides of the slavery debate. Johnson had been a tailor by trade prior to entering politics and had none of Lincoln’s skills as orator or negotiator. From the state of Tennessee, he had sympathy for the South and supported Lincoln’s plan of “restoration.” After Lincoln’s death, Johnson implemented his own plan, based loosely on the desires of Lincoln to shepherd the South back into the Union, but with several distinct changes. Johnson chose not to allow military nor civil leaders of the Confederacy to participate in the new government. He likewise excluded landowners with over twenty thousand dollars in assets to participate. While he was a known racist, Johnson also harbored great disdain for the southern aristocracy. His plan was to put the government into the hands of the southern middle class. This one move may have placated the Republican radicals, but his next actions would bring their wrath. Johnson used executive power to install military governors into southern states while Congress was out of session during the summer of 1865. He then made it fairly easy for the states to rejoin the Union. They needed to repeal secession, abolish slavery, repudiate the southern debt and ratify the 13th Amendment. Under military government, most