The Reconstruction - Short Summary

The American Civil War (1861-1865) was fought between the Northern and Southern states of the United States of America. The war started when Abraham Lincoln, who was opposed to slavery, was elected as President. He wanted to abolish slavery in the entirety of the United States, not just the North. The Northern states achieved victory mainly because they had more troops and supplies than the Southern states.

After the Civil War was the Reconstruction (1865–1877), a time in which the Southern states were reincorporated into the United States and slavery was completely abolished. However, the Reconstruction did not solve the issue of racism against the former slaves.

Some ways the Reconstruction changed the United States were:

• Abolishing slavery, in the 13th amendment.
• Establishing citizenship, equal protection, and the right to vote for African Americans, in the 14th and 15th amendments.
• Placing the former Confederate states under military government, except for Tennessee.
• Attempting to remove the so-called 'redeemers', like the Ku Klux Klan in Tennessee.
• Removing previous Confederate leaders from power and replacing them with Northern 'carpetbaggers' and freedmen.
• Creating brigades for African Americans in the US Army.
• Building schools for African Americans to become literate.
• Allowing former slaves to buy land and use public services.
• Enforcing the 10 Percent Plan, which required 10% of voters in the Confederate states to pledge allegiance to the Union before the state would begin the process of readmission into the Union, and included a full pardon and restoration of property to all former Confederate citizens except the important military and civil leaders.

However, many of these changes were undone after military presence in the Confederate states was removed, and former Confederate leaders came back to power in the economic depression of 1873, when Northern states became more interested in repairing the economy than helping out the freedmen.

Another idea prevalent in the United States during and after the Reconstruction was that of "separate but equal". An early example of this was an 1890 Louisiana law providing separate railway carriages for blacks and whites. The Plessy V. Ferguson Supreme Court case in 1896 came to the conclusion that if the facilities provided were separate but equal, it was constitutional to separate them. However, in many cases, facilities for black people were worse than their counterparts.