Final answer:
Abraham Lincoln's "Proclamation on Amnesty and Reconstruction" was characterized by its leniency towards the Confederate states, only requiring 10 percent of their voters to pledge allegiance to the Union and accept the end of slavery to begin the process of restoration.
Step-by-step explanation:
The best statement that describes Abraham Lincoln's "Proclamation on Amnesty and Reconstruction" is that the policy was fairly lenient toward the southern states. Based on the Ten Percent Plan, Lincoln's approach was built on the idea that the Confederate states never truly left the Union, hence the process was one of restoration rather than revolution. He proposed that once 10 percent of the voting population in the rebel states took an oath of allegiance to the Union and accepted the emancipation of enslaved people, these states could draft new state constitutions.
Lincoln's policy also allowed the states to set their own pace for ending slavery, which was meant to ease concerns over the constitutionality of the Emancipation Proclamation when it came to reconstruction. The Radical Republicans in Congress regarded the plan as too lenient, leading to the introduction of the Wade-Davis Bill, which set stricter terms for reintegration but was pocket vetoed by Lincoln.