Reconstruction Era: Key Legislation and Social Changes (1865–1877)

Reconstruction

Period after the Civil War (1865-1877) when the South was rebuilt and rejoined the Union.

Lincoln's Ten-Percent Plan

Allowed a state back into the Union when 10% of 1860 voters took loyalty oaths and accepted emancipation.

Radical Republicans

Congress members who thought Lincoln's plan was too easy on the South.

Wade-Davis Bill (1864)

Required a majority of white men to swear loyalty; Lincoln killed it with a pocket veto.

13th Amendment (1865)

Abolished slavery in the U.S.

Freedmen's Bureau (1865)

Gave freedpeople food, medicine, education, and legal help.

Andrew Johnson

Became president after Lincoln's death; favored quick Southern readmission.

Black Codes

Southern laws limiting rights of freed African Americans.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

Granted citizenship and equal rights to African Americans.

14th Amendment (1868)

Guaranteed citizenship and equal protection under the law.

Reconstruction Acts of 1867

Divided South into 5 military districts under Union control.

Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

Result of conflict with Congress over Reconstruction; he was acquitted by one vote.

15th Amendment (1870)

Gave African American men the right to vote.

Scalawags

Southern whites who supported Reconstruction and Republicans.

Carpetbaggers

Northerners who moved South after the war for opportunity or reform.

Sharecropping

Farming system where freedmen worked land for a share of the crop; often led to debt.

Tenant Farming

Renting land for cash instead of sharing crops.

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

White-supremacist group using violence to stop Black political power.

Enforcement Acts (1870-71)

Gave the federal government power to fight the KKK and protect voters.

Election of 1876

Disputed race between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden.

Compromise of 1877

Hayes became president; federal troops withdrew from the South, ending Reconstruction.

New South

Idea of industrial, economically diverse post-Reconstruction South.

Jim Crow Laws

Segregation laws enforcing 'separate but equal.'

Poll Taxes & Literacy Tests

Barriers used to stop Black citizens from voting.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Supreme Court upheld segregation as 'separate but equal.'