Amnesty Act

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The Amnesty Act of 1872 was a United States federal law that removed voting restrictions and office-holding disqualification against most of the secessionists who rebelled in the United States Civil War, except for very high positions. The Act effected over 150,000 former Confederate troops who had taken part in the war against the United States. The Amnesty Act of 1872 did not swing the political balance in the south, giving voting rights to the ex-Confederates who would most likely vote for the Democratic party. As these Democratic ex-Confederates returned to power, they concentrated their political efforts on removing the rights bestowed upon freedmen during Radical Reconstruction. The Amnesty Act was outweighed by the increasing African American vote and nullified. Previous President Andrew Johnson had issued the Amnesty Proclamation, an executive order, on May 29, 1865, defining the general pardon that had been issued by President Lincoln in 1863.