Abraham Lincoln and the Problem of Reconstruction

From the start of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln considered the problem of reconstruction, and for four years he took actions that he hoped would hasten the end of the rebellion: he supported the statehood of West Virginia and its admission to the Union, he appointed military governors, he issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, and, in his last speech, delivered on April 11, 1865, he offered a vision for the future, one that included Black men as voting citizens. Lincoln's ideas about reconstruction may have led to a rupture with Congress over the Wade-Davis bill, but they provided a blueprint for his vision of a just and generous peace that leaves us wondering what might have happened had he lived.