The Southern states agreed to Andrew Johnson’s plan of reconstruction because his policies were too lenient toward the Southern states and he gave easy terms to reinstate their positions: the President granted thousands of pardons to white Southerners, wealthy planters and Confederate leaders, he allowed them to return to power on the state level, he gave no regulation to the Southern states, which later sought to subjugate freed slaves via harsh laws (the Black Codes) and he did not protect African Americans from those abuses.
