Answer: President Johnson returned the land to its former owners.
Johnson's approach was a major disappointment to those who had hoped for land distribution to former slaves to help the newly freed black community establish itself economically. Johnson was taking a soft or moderate approach to Reconstruction, which granted pardons to most white Southerners and allowed them to reestablish their own governments, without any role in that process for the newly freed slaves. There were others who had wanted a more aggressive approach to Reconstruction that would have punished Southern slave owners more, and would have made arrangements for freed slaves to become property owners.
President Johnson's Amnesty Proclamation, issued May 29, 1865, authorized "restoration of all rights of property" to Southern rebels (except the former 'property' of slaves themselves), as long as those Southerners pledged an oath of their allegiance to the United States government .
