Concept

Ten Percent Plan

Lincoln's 1863 proposal to readmit former Confederate states once 10 percent of their 1860 voters swore future allegiance to the Union and accepted emancipation.

Lincoln's Reconstruction plan, which required only 10 percent of the 1860 voters in Confederate states to take an oath of allegiance to the Union. It also pardoned most Southerners except high-ranking Confederate leaders. Radical Republicans considered it too lenient and answered with the Wade- Davis Bill.