Radical Reconstruction and the Wade-Davis Bill

Following the announcement of Abraham Lincoln's $10\%$ Reconstruction plan, significant opposition emerged from within the United States Congress.
Despite shared membership in the same political party, a group known as the Radical Republicans strongly disapproved of Lincoln's lenient approach to the Southern states.
The Radical Republicans sought a Reconstruction process that was characterized by the aggressive prosecution of war criminals.
The primary leaders of the Radical Republican faction were Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner.

Leaders Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner advocated for what they called the "conquered provinces theory."
Under this theory, the South was not viewed as a group of states that had never legally left the Union; instead, they were considered conquered foreign lands and enemies due to their act of secession from the United States.
Consequently, the Radical Republicans intended for the Reconstruction process to be both harsh and slow.
A prerequisite for reunification, according to Stevens and Sumner, was that the South must first be returned to the status of unorganized territories before any steps toward being reintegrated into the United States could occur.

In July 1864, the Radical Republicans in Congress passed the Wade-Davis bill, which served as their formal proposal for Reconstruction.
The bill established rigorous requirements for Southern states to be reunified into the United States: - A majority of white male citizens in each state were required to participate in the creation of a new state government. - In order to serve as a delegate to constitutional conventions or to have the right to vote, men were required to take an "ironclad oath." - The ironclad oath required individuals to swear that they had never voluntarily aided or supported the Confederate war effort.
The bill also mandated the disenfranchisement of specific Confederate figures, meaning they would lose the right to vote and other associated civil rights: - All Confederate military officers above the rank of lieutenant. - All civil officers who had served in the Confederacy.
Furthermore, these specified individuals were to be barred from ever becoming citizens of the United States.

Abraham Lincoln disapproved of the Wade-Davis bill's harsh requirements and the potential for it to delay the end of the conflict.
To prevent the bill from becoming law, Lincoln used a pocket veto, effectively killing the legislation without a direct confrontation with Congress.
During the broader era of Reconstruction, a series of constitutional changes known as the Reconstruction amendments were enacted.
The first of these was the Thirteenth Amendment, which aimed to abolish slavery.
The Thirteenth Amendment was passed by Congress and supported by Abraham Lincoln in January $1865$ .