Wade-Davis Bill
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The Wade-Davis Bill of 1864 was a program proposed for the Reconstruction of the South written by two Radical Republicans, Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio and Representative Henry Winter Davis of Maryland. In contrast to President Abraham Lincoln's more lenient Ten percent plan, the bill made re-admittance to the Union almost impossible (or at least without a great moral defeat for the South) since it required a majority in each Southern state to swear the Ironclad oath to the effect they had never in the past supported the Confederacy. The bill passed both houses of Congress on July 2, 1864, but was pocket vetoed by Lincoln and never took effect.
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[edit] Background
The Wade-Davis Bill emerged from a plan introduced in the Senate by Ira Harris of New York in February, 1863. It proposed to base Reconstruction in traditional concepts of federalism and republicanism. The Wade-Davis Bill was also important for a new conception of national and congressional power. Although federally imposed conditions of reconstruction retrospectively seem logical, there was a widespread belief that southern Unionism would return the seceded states to the Union after the South's military power was broken. This belief was not fully abandoned until 1863.
[edit] Lincoln's veto
Lincoln feared the bill would sabotage his own reconstruction activities in states like Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee, all of which had seceded but were under the control of a loyal minority. Wade-Davis would also jeopardize state-level emancipation movements in loyal border states like Missouri and, especially, Maryland. Worst of all, the bill threatened to destroy the delicate political coalitions that Lincoln had begun to construct between northern and southern moderates. Lincoln therefore killed the bill with a pocket veto and it was not resurrected.
Davis was a bitter enemy of Lincoln because Lincoln was not harsh enough on the South. Davis and Wade issued a manifesto "To the Supporters of the Government" on August 4, 1864, that accused Lincoln of using reconstruction to secure electors in the South who would “be at the dictation of his personal ambition,” condemned his efforts to usurp power from Congress, and implicitly recommended dumping him from the Republican ticket. Lincoln survived their attacks and greatly strengthened his position with a landslide victory in the election, and the passage of the 13th Amendment in February, 1865. He marginalized the Radicals in terms of shaping Reconstruction policy; after Lincoln's death and the failures of Andrew Johnson, the Radicals took control of reconstruction policy in 1866.
[edit] References
- Belz, Herman. "Henry Winter Davis and the Origins of Congressional Reconstruction" Maryland Historical Magazine 1972 67(2): 129-143. ISSN 0025-4258
- Belz, Herman. Emancipation and Equal Rights: Politics and Constitutionalism in the Civil War Era 1978
- Belz, Herman. Reconstructing the Union: Theory and Policy during the Civil War 1969
- Benedict, Michael Les. A Compromise of Principle: Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction, 1863–1869 1974
- Harris, William C. With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union 1997, pp 123–70.
- Hesseltine, William B.; Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction 1960
- Hyman; Harold M. A More Perfect Union: The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the Constitution 1973
- Nicolay and Hay, "Abraham Lincoln: A History. The Wade-Davis Manifesto" (1889) The Century pp 414-21
