USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Many Radical Republicans were not pleased with the lenient approach of Lincoln and feared that this could potentially lead to ineffective enforcement of abolition and the potential for the Confederacy to be resurrected in the future.

Detailed explanation-2: -Lincoln’s reconstructive policy toward the South was lenient because he wanted to popularize his Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln feared that compelling enforcement of the proclamation could lead to the defeat of the Republican Party in the election of 1864, and that popular Democrats could overturn his proclamation.

Detailed explanation-3: -Old arguments surfaced that he had never really cared about emancipation, that he was at heart a political opportunist. States’ rights libertarians criticized his aggressive handling of the Civil War, his assaults on civil liberties and his aggrandizing of federal government.

Detailed explanation-4: -With the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, Lincoln was seizing the initiative for reconstruction from Congress. Some Radical Republicans thought the plan was far too easy on the South, but others accepted it because of the president’s prestige and leadership.

Detailed explanation-5: -Reconstruction: The rebuilding of the Union after the Civil War until 1877. Both President Lincoln and Johnson favored a lenient approach, while Radical Republicans (Thaddeus Stevens) argued that the South should be punished.