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Period: to
Reconstruction 1865-1877
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The Freedmen’s Bureau
The Freedmen's Bureau was established to help and protect emancipated slaves after the Civil War.
The Freedmen's Bureau provided food, housing and medical aid, established schools and offered legal assistance. -
President Lincoln is Assassinated
He was shot on April 14, 1865 by John Wilkes Booth. Then, Andrew Johnson became president after his assassination. -
The 13th Amendment is Passed
The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. -
Civil Right Acts of 1866
The purpose of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was to protect ex-slaves (Freedmen) from legislation in the Southern States such as the Black Codes and the Vagrancy Laws. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 also gave further rights to the freed slaves. -
Ku Klux Klan
The goal of the original Ku Klux Klan was to oppose the Reconstruction policies of the radical Republican Congress and to maintain "white supremacy." -
Military Reconstruction Acts
They passed the Military Reconstruction Acts which divided the South into five military districts and outlined how the new governments would be designed. -
Andrew Johnson’s Impeachment Trial
The impeachment of President Andrew Johnson was the result of political conflict and the rupture of ideologies in the aftermath of the American Civil War.
President Andrew Johnson had to answer 12 articles of Impeachment and was acquitted in the Senate by one vote less than the two-thirds necessary to remove him and was allowed to continue his term of office. -
Election of Ulysses S. Grant
The unprecedented way that Grant ran his cabinet, in a military-style rather than civilian, contributed to the scandals.
He fought to protect the rights of African Americans more than any other nineteenth-century President. He worked hard to ensure the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment and tried to make it possible for blacks to vote. -
14th Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment is an amendment to the United States Constitution that was adopted in 1868. It granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African Americans and enslaved people who had been emancipated after the American Civil War. -
15th Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment protects the voting rights of all citizens regardless of race or the color of their skin. It also protected the voting rights of former slaves. It was ratified on February 3, 1870. Section 1: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2: The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. -
Reconstruction Ends
Democrats agreed that Rutherford B. Hayes would become president in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South and the granting of home rule in the South. President Hayes’ withdrawal of federal troops from Louisiana and South Carolina marked a major turning point in American political history, effectively ending the Reconstruction Era.