Henry Winter Davis

In 1863 Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that the executive branch should be in charge of reconstruction policy, in particular the readmission of rebel states to the Union. His declaration rankled many legislators, in particular Representative Henry Winter Davis and Senator Benjamin Wade. The two congressmen drafted the Wade-Davis bill in response to the president’s proposal. The bill, which Congress approved in 1864, gave the legislative branch greater authority over reconstruction and established stricter standards for readmission. However, Lincoln vetoed the bill because he was unwilling to commit to any particular reconstruction plan. Moreover, he felt that states that were already “reconstructed” under his policies would not be able to meet Congress’s more rigorous conditions. In the following document, written in the wake of Lincoln’s veto and published in the New York Daily...