Confederate leaders. Lincoln hoped that this magnanimous offer would encourage the South to accept defeat.

Lincoln was assassinated before his plan could be implemented. When Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency, he kept many of Lincoln's provisions in place, but he also made some notable changes. Johnson was even more generous to the defeated South. This may be because he was a Southerner and had certain sympathies for other Southerners. His main objective was to reunite the country, but he felt no need to impose punishments on the former rebels. He required each former Confederate state to officially repeal its article of secession and directly petition him for readmittance. Once that was done, he restored all confiscated property to the defeated rebels. Johnson also did not have much, if any, concern for the population of former slaves. His Reconstruction plan made almost no provisions for their wellbeing.

Congressional Reconstruction was the most divergent of the three. After the Civil War, the Republican Party, led by a coalition known as the Radical Republicans, had a supermajority in Congress that was able to override Johnson's veto power. As a result, they successfully passed numerous Reconstruction-related laws. Their priorities were more focused on punishing the former rebels and protecting the Black population than smoothly reuniting the states. Instead of just ten percent, they wanted half of all eligible voters in the Southern states to swear loyalty as a condition for readmittance. Congress also expanded the mission of the Freedman's Bureau, which was tasked with integrating former slaves into society. It ordered the US Army into the South to protect the newly-gained rights of Black people. Furthermore, Congressional Reconstruction required the Southern states to ratify the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to be readmitted.

Lincoln's plan for Reconstruction was called the Ten Percent Plan. In it, ten percent of the eligible voters in a state in 1860 would have to take a loyalty oath to the Union in order for that state to be readmitted into the Union. States would also have to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. Lincoln did not want to hang former Confederate leaders; rather, he hoped that they would seek asylum abroad and never return to the United States. Lincoln's plan was still evolving at the time of his assassination in April 1865.

Johnson, who was on the presidential ticket in 1864 to provide balance, did not see Reconstruction the same way. Johnson vetoed additional funding to the Freedmen's Bureau, as he believed that Reconstruction should be a state-mandated affair. He thought that black suffrage should also be led at the state level, rather than through a constitutional amendment. While he did seek to punish the rich plantation owners, he wanted the poor whites who made up the bulk of the former Confederate army to be able to vote.

Johnson's plan was considered too lenient, as Johnson would ultimately grant several pardons to individual rich Southerners allowing them back into political life. Congress passed the Wade-Davis bill, which allowed suffrage for all black males. It also mandated that fifty percent of those eligible to vote in 1860 would have to take loyalty oaths. Many Radical Republicans were in favor of persecuting the former Confederate leadership. While Johnson was initially hailed by them as being harsher than Lincoln, he was treated as a traitor when he pushed for states to take the lead on Reconstruction. Johnson's inability to get along with Congress ultimately led to his impeachment.