soldiers, however, were sent home, trade with the South was permitted, and the
Freedmen's Bureau was rapidly extended.

Previous to this Johnson had brought himself to recognize, early in May, the
Lincoln "ten percent" governments of Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas, and
the reconstructed Alexandria government of Virginia. Thus only seven states
were left without legal governments, and to bring those states back into the
Union, Johnson inaugurated on May 29, 1865, a plan which was like that of
Lincoln but not quite so liberal. In his Amnesty Proclamation, Johnson made a
longer list of exceptions aimed especially at the once wealthy slave owners.
On the same day he proclaimed the restoration of North Carolina. A provisional
governor, W. W. Holden, was appointed and directed to reorganize the civil
government and to call a constitutional convention elected by those who had
taken the amnesty oath. This convention was to make necessary amendments to
the constitution and to "restore said State to its constitutional relations to
the Federal Government." It is to be noted that Johnson fixed the
qualifications of delegates and of those who elected them, but, this stage
once passed, the convention or the legislature would "prescribe the
qualifications of electors . . . a power the people of the several States
composing the Federal Union have rightfully exercised from the origin of the
government to the present time." The President also directed the various
cabinet officers to extend the work of their departments over the Confederate
States and ordered the army officers to assist the civil authorities. During
the next six weeks, similar measures were undertaken for the remaining six
states of the Confederacy.

To set up the new order, army officers were first sent into every county to
administer the amnesty oath and thus to secure a "loyal" electorate. In each
state the provisional governor organized out of the remains of the Confederate
local regime a new civil government. Confederate local officials who could and