The Reconstruction era, lasting from 1865 to 1877, was the period when the US federal government sought to reunite the nation after the Civil War. Key issues included how to punish Confederates, readmit Southern states, and secure rights for newly freed Black Americans.
Following Abraham Lincoln's assassination days after the war's end, President Andrew Johnson—a pro-Union, pro-states' rights Southerner—pursued a lenient approach to reconciliation. He pardoned former Confederates, restored their property, and allowed Southern states to govern with little federal oversight. Those states quickly enacted laws restricting the freedoms of formerly enslaved people, while groups such as the Ku Klux Klan targeted Black communities and leaders with violence.
In response, Congress defied Johnson's resistance—even impeaching him—and passed the Reconstruction Acts, which imposed military rule in the South and required new state constitutions guaranteeing civil rights and Black male suffrage. This ushered in a brief period of Black political participation in the South.
However, following the contested presidential election of 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew federal troops, effectively ending Reconstruction and allowing Southern Democrats to reestablish a racial hierarchy through Jim Crow laws.
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Proposed in 1863, Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan offered lenient readmission for Southern states once 10% of voters pledged loyalty and ended slavery. It was adopted in a few Union-occupied areas but was only partially implemented before his assassination in 1865.
Passed in 1864, the Wade-Davis Bill required 50% of white male voters to swear loyalty and guarantee emancipation before readmission. Lincoln pocket-vetoed it, rejecting Congress's stricter approach.
Ratified in December 1865, the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery nationwide except as punishment for a crime. Southern states were required to ratify it under President Andrew Johnson's initial Reconstruction plan before regaining representation, though Congress later imposed stricter conditions.
Southern states exploited the amendment's clause allowing slavery "as punishment for crime" to arrest thousands of Black Americans on minor charges, leasing them to private employers through convict labor systems that persisted for decades.
Created in 1865, the Freedmen's Bureau aided four million formerly enslaved people and some poor Southern whites—distributing food, mediating labor disputes, and founding thousands of schools—including HBCUs Howard, Fisk, and Morehouse. Despite major achievements, the Bureau was dissolved in 1872.
Led by Andrew Johnson after Lincoln's death, Presidential Reconstruction (1865-67) quickly restored Southern governments through mass pardons and lenient terms, allowing ex-Confederates to regain power and pass Black Codes that restricted freedpeople's rights.
With little federal oversight, Southern states enacted laws effectively reestablishing slavery's economic and social order. These laws, known as the "Black Codes," restricted freedpeople's movement, labor, and property rights.
Founded in 1865 by former Confederate officers in Tennessee, the Ku Klux Klan used terror, murder, and intimidation to suppress Black political power and restore white Democratic control across the postwar South.
In 1866, white mobs in Memphis and New Orleans killed dozens of Black residents and burned Black neighborhoods. The massacres horrified Northerners, convincing Congress that stronger federal action was needed to protect freedpeople's rights and enforce Reconstruction.
After surrender, most Confederate soldiers were pardoned and returned home, while leaders like Jefferson Davis faced short imprisonment. The South came under military occupation, Confederate money became worthless, and many former officers were barred from public office.
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