When the Civil War ended the country had a lot of work to do. Being the victors of the war the North had to deal with most of the problems. The South was left in chaos, all of the former slaveholders were now poor and without workers, and all of the former slaves had no homes, or work. The South was in bad shape and the North wanted to get all of the Confederate states to rejoin the Union. There were many ways to try to get them to come back; each group of people had their own ideas. Some of these ideas clashed and made it hard to make progress, there were a lot of complications, but in the end it all worked out.
The first plan of action was established by the President of that time, Mr. Abraham Lincoln. He had many thoughts and ideas to make the country better. Even though he was from Tennessee he was against slavery and looked forward to see it be abolished. Lincoln's plan for Reconstruction of the country was to ultimately restore the Union. His first action was to offer amnesty to all Southerners that would pledge their loyalty to the country, but the only way the state would be able to be reinstated was if ten percent of their voters took this oath during the presidential election of 1860. His second step was to help the newly freed African Americans, to do this he encouraged all that could read and write or that served in the army to vote.
Lincoln's plan could have started an excellent change in behavior for the South, but of course there would be conflict, which was aroused by the Radical Republicans. The Radicals wanted a stricter way of handling the south. They created the Wade-Davis Bill of 1864, this bill would put the South under military rule and a majority of the states government officials would have to take an oath of loyalty to the country. Lincoln didn't like this bill and he pocket vetoed it. When states started agreeing to Lincoln's plan Congress wouldn't let them rejoin the Union so Lincoln had to start negotiating with Congress.