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The 10% Plan
Two years into the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln announced the Proclamation of Amnesty and the Ten-Percent Plan, which required 10 percent of a Confederate state’s voters to pledge an oath of allegiance to the Union to begin the process of readmission to the Union. -
The Wade Davis Bill
The Wade-Davis Bill required that 50% of all voters in the Confederate states, as opposed to Lincoln's proposed 10%, must pledge allegiance to the Union before reunification. Along with the loyalty pledge, the Bill would abolish slavery within the rebel states. -
End of the Civil War
Robert E. Lee surrendered the last major Confederate army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. The last battle was fought at Palmito Ranch, Texas, on May 13, 1865. -
Assassination of Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was at a performance of the comedy, Our American Cousin, at Ford's Theatre.While he was there he was shot by John Wilkes Booth in the back of the head with a . 44 caliber derringer. -
The Black Codes
The black codes were laws passed at different periods in the southern United States to enforce racial segregation and curtail the power of Black voters. After the Civil War ended in 1865, some states passed black codes that severely limited the rights of Black people, many of whom had been enslaved. -
Congress passed Reconstruction Act
This acts established military rule over Southern states until new governments could be formed. They also limited some former Confederate officials' and military officers' rights to vote and to run for public office. -
Impeachment of Johnson
The primary charge against Johnson was that he had violated the Tenure of Office Act. Specifically, that he had acted to remove from office Edwin Stanton and to replace him with Brevet Major General Lorenzo Thomas as secretary of war ad interim. -
14th amendment ratified
The Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States," including formerly enslaved people, and provided all citizens with “equal protection under the laws.” -
Election of Grant
This was the first presidential election to take place after the conclusion of the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery. It was the first election in which African Americans could vote in the reconstructed Southern states, in accordance with the First Reconstruction Act. -
15th Amendment Ratified
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." -
First Black U.S. Senator
Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first African American senator in 1870. Born in North Carolina in 1827, Revels attended Knox College in Illinois and later served as minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland. -
The KKK Act
This act allowed federal troops to make hundreds of arrests in South Carolina, forcing perhaps 2,000 Klansmen to flee the state. According to Foner, the Federal intervention had “broken the Klan’s back and produced a dramatic decline in violence throughout the South.” -
Compromise of 1877
The Compromise of 1877 was an informal agreement between southern Democrats and allies of the Republican Rutherford Hayes to settle the result of the 1876 presidential election and marked the end of the Reconstruction era. -
13th Amendment was Ratified
The 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States. It says that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
