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Freedmen's Bureau
Congress voted to continue and enlarge the bureau established by the congress in the last month of war. It assisted former slaves and poor whites in the South by distributing clothing and food. It also set up 40 hospitals, 4,000 schools, and 74 teacher-training centers. -
Union Victory in The Civil War
After the war ended, this is when reconstruction started. After President Lincoln's death, former Vice President Andrew Johnson continued with his views of wanting the Nation to come back together peacefully and quickly. -
Civil Rights Act of 1866
congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which gave African American citizenship and forbade states from passing discriminatory laws called the Black Codes. Black Codes had severely restricted and affected African Americans' lives. -
The Klu Klux Klan (KKK)
Made of confederate veterans, this club started in 1866 in Tennessee. They wanted to restore white supremacy by prevent African Americans of exercising their rights. By 1868, this Klan existed in almost every Southern state. Between 1868-1871, the KKK and other groups against African Americans killed thousand of innocent black citizens. -
The Reconstruction Act of 1867
The act dividing the confederate states (excluding Tennessee who was admitted back into the Union) into 5 military districts. The standards the confederate states had to reach to join the Union again were; had to ensure African-American men the right to vote, and the state had to ratify the 14th Amendment. Johnson vetoed the Reconstruction Act of 1867 because he thought it messed with the Constitution. Congress overrode the veto. -
President Johnson Impeachment
After firing Secretary of War, Johnson got tried with 11 charges of impeachment. The Senate was one vote away from successfully removing President Johnson. -
The Fourteenth Amendment
The 14th Amendment made all persons born or naturalized in the United States citizens of the country. They were all entitled to equal protection of the law, and no state could deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. It also gave the right to states to decide who gets to vote. The amendment did not get ratified until 1868. -
President Ulysses S. Grant
Grant won the race with a big difference in Electoral votes, but he barely got more than half of the popular vote. The African Americans' votes were a big reason of the big amount of popular votes he received. -
The Fifteenth Amendment
This amendment stated that no one can be kept from voting because of their "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." At this time, most of the Northern states had rejected African Americans from voting. -
Enforcement Act of 1870
This act gave government more power to punish the people who tried to stop African Americans from the rights they were given. -
The Panic of 1873
The Nation's largest banking firm, Cooke's Banking, went bankrupt. Then eventually small banks closed and the stock market collapsed. More than 18,000 businesses had shut down. This Panic created a 5 year depression. -
Redemption
From 1869-1875, the democrats recaptured the state governments of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. By the 1876 congressional Reconstruction came to an end.
