Study Guide – Reconstruction Era
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Under President Lincoln’s Reconstruction Plan, he aimed not to punish the south but to preserve
peace and unite the nation.
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The 13 Amendment Abolished Slavery
During the war the Union Army seized southern plantations and gave the land to former slaves at
the end of the war. People like Tunis Campbell were able to own their own land.
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Under Andrew Johnson’s Plan for reconstruction, southern states had to ratify the 13
Amendment but ex-confederate leaders would not be punished. His aim was to punish former
slaves and help former plantation owners. He also forced former slaves to give back the land that
had been given to them.
Radical Republican leaders like Thaddeus Stevens favored a reconstruction plan that would give
former slaves equal rights.
Radical Republicans implemented the Reconstruction Acts that put the south under military rule
and forced southern governments to write constitutions that granted blacks the right to vote.
The Freedman’s Bureau was created to help provide former slaves with housing, health care and
education. Hundreds of schools were created through the Freedman’s bureau.
Black Codes restricted the rights and opportunities of former slaves at the outset of
Reconstruction.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and 14th Amendments granted citizenship rights to former slaves
and were designed to combat the Black Codes
The fifteenth Amendment granted blacks the right to vote
Carpetbaggers like Mitchell Twitchell traveled down south to find new opportunities. Many of
these people were harassed by southern whites.
Sharecropping was an economic system that left former slaves deeply in debt.
The K.K.K and other white supremacist organizations emerged in an attempt to terrorize blacks
and limit their participation in the voting process.
Poll Taxes and Literacy Tests were used by southern towns to restrict the ability of former slaves
to vote.
1872 was a difficult year for former slaves. As more white southern democrats were elected to
office , Congress closed the Freedman’s bureau and passed the Amnesty Act which allowed
former confederates to vote and hold office again. President Grant had grown tired of
Reconstruction and did not provide military in order to protect freedman’s voting rights in states
such as Mississippi.
Jim Crow Laws were laws that segregated blacks from whites in the south
In Plessy vs. Ferguson the Supreme Court declared that segregation is legal as long as public
facilities were equal.
In 1877 Reconstruction came to an end when President Rutherford B. Hays agreed to pull troops
out of the south in return for southern votes during the election of 1876, This deal was known as
the Compromise of 1877.