When Lincoln died, Vice President Andrew Johnson became president. Formerly a Democratic senator from Tennessee, Johnson had been the only Southern senator to support the Union during the Civil War. Soon after taking office, President Johnson revealed his plan for Reconstruction. He resented the slaveholders who had dominated the South and wished to punish them. As a result, Radicals thought Johnson would create a harsh plan they could accept. Johnson, however, believed in giving the states control over many decisions, and he had no desire to help African Americans.

Johnson announced his plan, which he preferred to call “Restoration,” in May of 1865. Under his plan, most Southerners would be granted amnesty once they swore an oath of loyalty to the Union. High-ranking Confederate officials and wealthy landowners, however, could be pardoned only by applying personally to the president. This provision was Johnson’s attack on the wealthy leaders who he believed had tricked the people of the South into seceding.

Johnson also appointed governors to Southern states and required them to hold elections for state constitutional conventions. Only whites who had sworn their loyalty and been pardoned would be allowed to vote. Johnson opposed granting all freed African Americans equal rights or letting them vote. He believed that each Southern state should decide what to do about freed people, saying, “White men alone must manage the South.”

Before a state could reenter the Union, its constitutional convention had to denounce secession and abolish slavery. States also had to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which Congress had passed in January 1865. This amendment abolished slavery in all parts of the United States. By the end of 1865, all the former Confederate states except Texas had formed new governments and were ready to rejoin the Union. President Johnson declared that “Restoration” was almost complete.

During the fall of 1865, the Southern states created new governments that met the rules Johnson laid down, and Southern voters elected new representatives to Congress. More than one dozen of these representatives had been high-ranking officials in the Confederacy, including the Confederacy’s vice president, Alexander H. Stephens. When the newly elected Southern representatives and senators, arrived in Washington, the Radical Republican-controlled Congress refused to seat them. Many Republicans refused to readmit the Southern states on such easy terms and rejected Johnson’s claim that Reconstruction was complete. To many in the North, it seemed that Johnson’s plan for Reconstruction was robbing the Union of its hard-won victory. In addition, Northerners realized that the treatment of African Americans in Southern states was not improving.

In 1865 and early 1866, the new Southern state legislatures passed a series of laws called black codes. Key parts of these laws aimed to control freed men and women and to enable plantation owners to exploit African American workers. Modeled on laws that had regulated free African Americans before the Civil War, the black codes of each Southern state trampled the rights of African Americans. Some laws allowed local officials to arrest and fine unemployed African Americans and make them work for white employers to pay off their fines. Other laws banned African Americans from owning or renting farms. One law allowed whites to take orphaned African American children as unpaid apprentices. To freed men and women and many Northerners, the black codes reestablished slavery in disguise.

In early 1866, Congress extended the life of the Freedmen’s Bureau and granted it new powers. The Freedmen’s Bureau now had authority to set up special courts to prosecute individuals charged with violating the rights of African Americans. These courts provided African Americans with a form of justice where they could serve on juries. Congress also passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This act granted full citizenship to African Americans and gave the federal government the power to intervene in state affairs to protect their rights. The law overturned the black codes. It also contradicted the 1857 Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court, which had ruled that African Americans were not citizens.

President Johnson vetoed both the Freedmen’s Bureau bill and the Civil Rights Act, arguing that the federal government was overstepping its proper authority. He also said that the laws were unconstitutional because they were passed by a Congress that did not include representatives from all the states. By raising the issue of representation, Johnson indirectly threatened to veto any law passed by this Congress. Republicans in Congress had enough votes to override, or defeat, both vetoes, and the bills became law. As the split between Congress and the president grew, the possibility of their working together faded. The Radical Republicans abandoned the idea of compromise and drafted a new Reconstruction plan, one led by Congress.

Congress wanted to ensure that African Americans would not lose the rights that the Civil Rights Act granted. Fearing it might be challenged and overturned in court, Congress passed a new amendment to the Constitution in June 1866. The Fourteenth Amendment granted full citizenship to all individuals born in the United States. Because most African Americans in the United States had been born there, they became full citizens. The amendment also stated that no state could take away a citizen’s life, liberty, and property “without due process of law,” and that every citizen was entitled to “equal protection of the laws.” States that prevented any adult male citizen from voting could lose part of their representation in Congress.

The amendment banned prominent former Confederates from holding national or state office unless pardoned by a vote of two-thirds of Congress. Congress declared that Southern states had to ratify the amendment to be readmitted to the Union. Of the 11 Southern states, only Tennessee ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. The refusal of the other states to ratify the amendment delayed its adoption until 1868.