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NARRATOR: On April 15, 1865, Vice President Andrew Johnson stepped into the very large shoes of Abraham Lincoln after he was assassinated. Johnson quickly distinguished himself from his predecessor.

ERIC FONER: He was stubborn, deeply racist, inflexible, had no real sense of public opinion, public sentiment, and no real interest in the status of African Americans once they had become free. So basically, Johnson implements a plan of reconstruction, which puts control of the southern states back into the hands of the white population.

NARRATOR: To the dismay of Lincoln supporters, Johnson's plan allowed the South to keep the same people in power who had ruled their state governments during the Civil War. It also included the return of property seized in the war to southern landowners. Those southern states that pledged a loyalty oath were allowed to rejoin the Union. Originally a poor Southerner himself, Johnson wanted to empower other poor Southerners.

ERIC FONER: Johnson thinks that loyal poor whites are going to take over in the South, like him. He was from Tennessee. He wasn't a Northerner. He had been military governor of Tennessee. He was a poor white.

Originally, he didn't like the plantation owners. He eventually comes to accept the end of slavery, but he's deeply racist. He's mostly fighting the planters, who he'd hated all the way through his career.

NARRATOR: He might have intended to punish the planter aristocracy and landowners, but Johnson's plan ended up restoring much of their power.

ERIC FONER: The planters and the old confederates basically get back into control of the southern governments under Johnson's plan, and they pass laws, the so-called Black Codes, meant to force the emancipated slaves back to work on the plantations in a condition not all that different from slavery. They give them almost no rights whatsoever. And this leads to a tremendous reaction in the North against Johnson's plan because they say look, we may not totally believe in Black equality, but we fought a war, we're not going to let them be put back into slavery now.

NARRATOR: Johnson's refusal to protect the rights of newly freed Blacks infuriated the moderates and radicals of the Republican Party. When the Republicans gained the majority of both houses in 1866, they had renewed vigor to secure the rights of Blacks. The movement would be called Radical Reconstruction.

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