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The Reconstruction era was a period in United States history following the American Civil War, dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of abolishing slavery and reintegrating the eleven former Confederate States of America into the United States.
- Overview
- Origins of Reconstruction
- Presidential Reconstruction
- Radical Reconstruction
The Reconstruction era was the period after the American Civil War from 1865 to 1877, during which the United States grappled with the challenges of reintegrating into the Union the states that had seceded and determining the legal status of African Americans. Presidential Reconstruction, from 1865 to 1867, required little of the former Confederate states and leaders. Radical Reconstruction attempted to give African Americans full equality.
Why was the Reconstruction era important?
The Reconstruction era redefined U.S. citizenship and expanded the franchise, changed the relationship between the federal government and the governments of the states, and highlighted the differences between political and economic democracy.
What were the Reconstruction era promises?
While U.S. Pres. Andrew Johnson attempted to return the Southern states to essentially the condition they were in before the American Civil War, Republicans in Congress passed laws and amendments that affirmed the “equality of all men before the law” and prohibited racial discrimination, that made African Americans full U.S. citizens, and that forbade laws to prevent African Americans from voting.
Was the Reconstruction era a success or a failure?
The national debate over Reconstruction began during the Civil War. In December 1863, less than a year after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Pres. Abraham Lincoln announced the first comprehensive program for Reconstruction, the Ten Percent Plan. Under it, when one-tenth of a state’s prewar voters took an oath of loyalty, they could establ...
Following Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, Andrew Johnson became president and inaugurated the period of Presidential Reconstruction (1865–67). Johnson offered a pardon to all Southern whites except Confederate leaders and wealthy planters (although most of these subsequently received individual pardons), restoring their political rights and all property except slaves. He also outlined how new state governments would be created. Apart from the requirement that they abolish slavery, repudiate secession, and abrogate the Confederate debt, these governments were granted a free hand in managing their affairs. They responded by enacting the Black codes, laws that required African Americans to sign yearly labour contracts and in other ways sought to limit the freedmen’s economic options and reestablish plantation discipline. African Americans strongly resisted the implementation of these measures, and they seriously undermined Northern support for Johnson’s policies.
When Congress assembled in December 1865, Radical Republicans such as Rep. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and Sen. Charles Sumner from Massachusetts called for the establishment of new Southern governments based on equality before the law and universal male suffrage. But the more numerous moderate Republicans hoped to work with Johnson while modifying his program. Congress refused to seat the representatives and senators elected from the Southern states and in early 1866 passed the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Bills. The first extended the life of an agency Congress had created in 1865 to oversee the transition from slavery to freedom. The second defined all persons born in the United States as national citizens, who were to enjoy equality before the law.
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Reconstruction Era Quiz
In the fall 1866 congressional elections, Northern voters overwhelmingly repudiated Johnson’s policies. Congress decided to begin Reconstruction anew. The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 divided the South into five military districts and outlined how new governments, based on manhood suffrage without regard to race, were to be established. Thus began the period of Radical or Congressional Reconstruction, which lasted until the end of the last Southern Republican governments in 1877.
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By 1870 all the former Confederate states had been readmitted to the Union, and nearly all were controlled by the Republican Party. Three groups made up Southern Republicanism. Carpetbaggers, or recent arrivals from the North, were former Union soldiers, teachers, Freedmen’s Bureau agents, and businessmen. The second large group, scalawags, or native-born white Republicans, included some businessmen and planters, but most were nonslaveholding small farmers from the Southern up-country. Loyal to the Union during the Civil War, they saw the Republican Party as a means of keeping Confederates from regaining power in the South.
In every state, African Americans formed the overwhelming majority of Southern Republican voters. From the beginning of Reconstruction, Black conventions and newspapers throughout the South had called for the extension of full civil and political rights to African Americans. Composed of those who had been free before the Civil War plus slave ministers, artisans, and Civil War veterans, the Black political leadership pressed for the elimination of the racial caste system and the economic uplifting of the former slaves. Sixteen African Americans served in Congress during Reconstruction—including Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce in the U.S. Senate—more than 600 in state legislatures, and hundreds more in local offices from sheriff to justice of the peace scattered across the South. So-called “Black supremacy” never existed, but the advent of African Americans in positions of political power marked a dramatic break with the country’s traditions and aroused bitter hostility from Reconstruction’s opponents.
Serving an expanded citizenry, Reconstruction governments established the South’s first state-funded public school systems, sought to strengthen the bargaining power of plantation labourers, made taxation more equitable, and outlawed racial discrimination in public transportation and accommodations. They also offered lavish aid to railroads and other enterprises in the hope of creating a “New South” whose economic expansion would benefit Blacks and whites alike. But the economic program spawned corruption and rising taxes, alienating increasing numbers of white voters.
29 de out. de 2009 · Learn about the turbulent era of Reconstruction (1865-1877) after the Civil War, when the U.S. tried to reintegrate the South and 4 million freed people into the nation. Explore the key events, laws, amendments and challenges of this period of radical social change.
3 de fev. de 2021 · Learn about the 14-year period of Reconstruction after the Civil War, when the U.S. government tried to integrate the freed Black population into society. Explore the major events, policies and challenges of this era, from the Emancipation Proclamation to the Compromise of 1877.
- Farrell Evans
- 2 min
Reconstruction was the period in U.S. history from 1865 to 1877 when attempts were made to redress the inequities of slavery and its legacy and also to solve the problems of reintegrating 11 states into the Union after the Civil War.
Learn about the period of Reconstruction from 1865 to 1877, when the U.S. tried to rebuild the nation after the Civil War and grant rights to freed slaves. Explore the different phases, policies, and controversies of Reconstruction with Britannica.com.
8 de fev. de 2021 · Learn about the post-Civil War period when the U.S. abolished slavery and granted Black men the right to vote, but also faced political turmoil and racial violence. Explore the causes, events, and consequences of Reconstruction and its impact on American history.
