Reconstruction

Reconstruction encompasses the years 1865-1877, from the end of the Civil War to the end of the Grant administration and the election of 1876, which required a compromise to determine the next President. Reconstruction refers to official federal policies enacted to reintegrate the Union. The Reconstruction era includes all of American history in those years, and not just the policy directed toward the ex-Confederate states.

Reconstruction was the plan instituted by the federal government after the Civil War to help reintegrate the states “lately in rebellion” back into the Union fold. The idea of reconstruction began almost with the war itself; the first act that can credibly be called reconstructionist was Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in January of 1863. Provisional governments were set up by the Lincoln administration in Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana as soon as those states were reclaimed by the Union Army, beginning in 1863. Reconstruction was abruptly declared complete and accomplished by Andrew Johnson just under a year after Lincoln’s assassination (in April 1865), but Congress disagreed and refused to seat any congressmen elected from the states of the Confederacy. Most of these newly-elected congressmen had very recently held powerful positions in the Confederacy. Reconstruction began in earnest after the 1866 mid-term elections gave control of both houses of Congress to Radical Republicans. Two years later, Ulysses S. Grant was elected president for the first of two terms. He would preside over Reconstruction for more than half of its duration.

Reconstruction policies were never meant to be permanent, but were to be kept in place in each separate state until that state brought its own policies up to the federal standards, as regarded basic civil rights for the recently freed slaves — guaranteeing them the right to vote, hold office, give testimony in court (even in cases where whites were involved), contract for jobs, attend school, worship freely, etc. These rights were codified in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, all ratified between 1865 and 1870. To ensure these policies were enacted, the US army occupied the South, establishing martial law until state governments were brought in line with federal standards. The army was also responsible for protecting black citizens from embittered, vengeful white violence; the KKK first appeared early during reconstruction.