Wade-Davies Act
In Benjamin Wade and Henry Winter Davis, sponsored a bill that provided for the administration of the affairs of southern states by provisional governors until the end of the war. They argued that civil government should only be re-established when half of the male white citizens took an oath of loyalty to the Union. The bill also excluded from amnesty all Confederate civil officers above ministerial rank and military officers ranking colonel or above.
On the 4th May, 1864, the Wade-Davis Bill was passed in the House of Representatives by 73 to 59. It passed the Senate, 18 to 14 on 2nd July, with only one Republican voting against it. However, Abraham Lincoln refused to sign the bill on 4th July and so it failed to become law. Lincoln defended his decision by telling Zachariah Chandler, one of the bill's supporters, that it was a question of time: "this bill was placed before me a few minutes before Congress adjourns. It is a matter of too much importance to be swallowed in that way."Lincoln made a speech on 8th July where he explained that he had rejected the bill because he did not wish "to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration".
The Radical Republicans were furious with Lincoln's decision. On 5th August, Wade and Henry Winter Davis published an attack on Lincoln in the New York Tribune. In what became known as the Wade-Davis Manifesto, the men argued that Lincoln's actions had been taken "at the dictation of his personal ambition" and accused him of "dictatorial usurpation". They added that: "he must realize that our support is of a cause and not of a man."
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