The Wade Davis Bill

In the late months of 1863 the North saw that the Civil War was going in their favor and would be shortly won. President Abraham Lincoln posed the question to Congress of how to remit the seceded states. In December 1863, Lincoln came up with a way to remit the seceded states. In order to reenter into the Union, a state would have to have 10 percent of it population take an oath to the United States. Several Congressmen believed that Lincoln was being too easy towards the seceded states. In 1864 Senator Benjamin F. Wade and Representative Henry Winter Davis came up with a counter proposal called the Wade Davis Bill. This Bill mandated that 50 percent of the white male population of a seceded state must take an oath to the United States and required that states allow African Americans to vote. President Lincoln rejected the Wade Davis Bill and the Bill died. Later in history the Wade Davis Bill did give inspiration to some polices during reconstruction.  

"Home." Wade-Davis Bill (1864). The National Archives, n.d. Web. 27 Jan. 2013. <http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true>.