Reconstruction

(1865–77) Period after the American Civil War in which attempts were made to solve the political, social, and economic problems arising from the readmission to the Union of the 11 Confederate states that had seceded at or before the outbreak of war. Pres. Abraham Lincoln planned to readmit states in which at least 10% of the voters had pledged loyalty to the Union. This lenient approach was opposed by the Radical Republicans, who favoured the harsher measures passed in the Wade-Davis Bill. Pres.

Andrew Johnson continued Lincoln's moderate policies, but enactment in the South of the black codes and demand in the North for stricter legislation resulted in victories for Radical Republicans in the congressional elections of 1866. Congress then passed the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, which established military districts in the South and required the Southern states to accept the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. Southern resentment of the imposed state governments, which included Republicans, carpetbaggers, and scalawags, and of the activities of the Freedmen's Bureau led to the formation of terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the White Camelia. By the 1870s conservative Democrats again controlled most state governments in the South. Though Reconstruction has been seen as a period of corruption, many constructive legal and educational reforms were introduced. The Reconstruction era led to an increase in sectional bitterness, dissension regarding the rights of blacks, and the development of one-party politics in the South.