The order did not include high military and civil officers of the Confederacy, war criminals, and those with taxable property greater than $20,000. In late 1865 and early 1866, on the advice of the Southern governors that he had appointed, Johnson pardoned much of the elite planter class. Subsequently, the planter elite largely re-took power in the South, contrary to Johnson's earlier plans for Reconstruction. Foner notes that the motivation for Johnson's decision to re-empower to the Southern prewar elite, despite his earlier support for the punishment of rebel leaders, 'has always been something of a mystery.'