What did the Ten Percent Plan require to rejoin the Union?

• A. Ten percent of the state's voting population sign a loyalty oath and end slavery.
• B. Fifty percent of voters sign a loyalty pledge.
• C. All former Confederates must be pardoned.
• D. Slavery must be reestablished in the South.

Answer: (A)

The idea being tested is Lincoln’s lenient approach to bringing the Southern states back into the Union. It proposed that a state could rejoin once about a tenth of its voters swore loyalty to the United States and accepted emancipation of enslaved people. With that pledge in place, the state could set up a new government and send representatives to Congress. This is why the answer is that a tenth of voters needed to sign a loyalty oath and end slavery. The other options describe either a much larger threshold, blanket pardons for Confederates, or restoring slavery, none of which matched this plan.