Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson adopted moderate positions to return the South to the Union as quickly as possible, while Radical Republicans in Congress sought stronger measures to improve the rights of African-Americans, including the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The United States, while reducing the rights of former confederates, such as through the provisions of the Wade-Davis bill, Johnson, a former Tennessee senator and former slave owner, followed an indulgent policy toward ex-Confederates . Lincoln's last speeches show that he was leaning to support the freedom of vote of all freedmen, while Johnson opposed this.
