The Lincoln Plan for reconstruction determined that to achieve readmission of a state in the Union it was necessary to gather a percentage of ten percent of the voters in the 1860 elections to take an oath of loyalty to the Union.
Such voters could elect delegates to draft the revised state constitutions and establish new state governments. Lincoln guaranteed the Southerners that by accepting this plan, he would protect his private property, though not his slaves.
On December 1863, the president Lincoln suggest the Proclamation of amnesty and reconstruction, known as the description of the ten percent. Its main objective consists in forgive the rebels who were against the union of the states of the country to be. By this proclamation, all the southern electors would be pardoned once they swear loyalty to the country, and once the 10 percent of them meet this requirement, the state would be recognize as a federal one.
