What was Reconstruction?

Reconstruction was the period from 1865 to 1877 during which the United States rebuilt the South, restored the formerly Confederate states to the Union, and worked to integrate roughly 4 million newly freed African Americans as citizens, voters, and political actors. The era saw the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, the establishment of public schools and public welfare systems in the South, the election of Black politicians to office, and ultimately the violent rollback of those gains as federal commitment waned.

Reconstruction unfolded in three rough phases. Presidential Reconstruction from 1865 to 1866 was led by President Andrew Johnson, a Tennessee Democrat who had remained loyal to the Union. Johnson sought to restore southern states quickly, pardoning Confederate leaders and allowing southern states to draft constitutions that abolished slavery but largely ignored Black civil rights. Southern states passed Black Codes in late 1865 and 1866 that imposed harsh restrictions on Black labor, residence, and movement, in effect re-creating slavery under another name.

Congressional Reconstruction from 1867 to 1873 was led by Radical Republicans in Congress over Johnson's vetoes. The Civil Rights Act of April 9, 1866 declared all persons born in the United States citizens with full civil rights. The Fourteenth Amendment proposed in 1866 and ratified July 9, 1868 enshrined equal protection. The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 divided the unreconstructed Confederate states into five military districts under Union army occupation, required them to draft new constitutions providing for Black male suffrage, and required ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment for readmission. The Fifteenth Amendment ratified February 3, 1870 prohibited racial discrimination in voting.

About 2,000 Black men held public office during Reconstruction. Sixteen Black congressmen served between 1870 and 1877. Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce became Black U.S. senators from Mississippi. The Freedmen's Bureau established March 3, 1865 provided food, schools, hospitals, and labor mediation.

The retreat from Reconstruction began with the Panic of 1873 and accelerated through the 1870s. White southerners organized terrorist groups including the Ku Klux Klan founded in 1866 to intimidate Black voters and Republican officials. The Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871 and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 attempted to suppress this violence, but federal will faltered. The disputed election of 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden was resolved by the Compromise of 1877, in which Hayes received the presidency in exchange for ending federal occupation of the South. The last federal troops left the South in April 1877, and Reconstruction effectively ended. White Democratic governments retook power in every former Confederate state by 1877, and Jim Crow laws began the process of disenfranchising Black voters and segregating southern society.