Abraham Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan

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The Civil War has been a series of gruesome battles that has lasted gone on long enough, and has already taken 116,589 lives this year (pbs.org) after count. President Abraham Lincoln is doing his best to end the war as quickly as possible, and thus keep as many soldiers alive as possible. His goal is to enact the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, also known as the Ten Percent Plan, in order to assimilate back into the Union and strengthen the United States. It would be in our legislature’s best interest to adopt the Presidential theory of Reconstruction, because it will shorten the war and save soldier’s lives and revolutionize the Confederate state’s politics in order to improve their well-being (change this). If the legislature …show more content…
61), which meant that the eleven states that succeeded (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee), would gain the protection of the Union, as long as, “not less than one tenth in number of the votes cast in such state at the presidential election of 1860, each having taken the oath aforesaid, and not having since violated it, and being a qualified voter by the election law of the state existing immediately before the so-called act of secession” (Gamebook, p 60). This plan will lead to the Civil War ending faster, because the Confederacy would be willing to rejoin the Union and want to gain their protection, especially after …show more content…
If the legislatives were to follow Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner’s mindset that the states who seceded committed state suicide, which meant that, “Congress would control the states who committed suicide, and the states were territorial status” (Lecture), then they would be unwilling to cooperate with us in ending the war. His ideology is that the states are now run by Congress, and lost their statehood, where Lincoln has a more forgiving approach when it comes to accepting them back into the Union. Lincoln’s plan would also include elected representatives who knew what would be best for the state, and could give input in sessions on ways to improve their states, whereas Sumner’s mindset would mean that Congress would be able to control what goes on for the former Confederate states if they were to rejoin. This plan would also give the Confederacy a noble reason for calling a truce with the Union. The South has been fighting for “independence, a way of life, for their homes” (McPherson, p 98), while the Union was fighting for, “a high and noble sentiment”, (McPherson, p 98). The fighting has taken the entire