Reconstruction 2026

​1865-1877

​What Do You Have To Know?

• What were the goals of Reconstruction?

• What were the achievements of Reconstruction?

• What were the failures of Reconstruction?

• What was the official end of Reconstruction?

1. What were the main goals of Reconstruction?

The Three R's

1. Restore the Union

2. Rights of the Constitution ensured to African Americans

3. Reorganize the political, social, and economic systems of the former Confederate states.

There were 2 categories of thought in how to accomplish those goals.

​Presidential Reconstruction	​Congressional Reconstruction
​Hugs = Easy	​Slugs= Punish and make big changes
​Lincoln and Johnson	​Radical Republicans

Freedmen's Bureau

Reconstruction Achievement

1st Federal direct relief agency to provide assistance to former slaves and to promote their welfare.

-providing food, clothing, and medical care to freed slaves;

-helping them find employment

-providing education

-Provide legal assistance

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"Big Head" Pres. Johnson

Citizenship for Black Americans

Discrimination of African Americans

President's power to cancel laws

13th Amendment

Reconstruction Amendment and Achievement

Abolished slavery

What were the achievements of Reconstruction?

Reconstruction was the most significant period of social change for African Americans during the post-Civil War era. African Americans achieved unprecedented gains in education, civil rights, and political power.

1. Schools and universities were established for African Americans

2. By 1870, African Americans had been elected to Congress and many state legislatures.

3. Reconstruction Amendments passed

4. Freedmen's Bureau Established

14th Amendment

Reconstruction Amendment and Achievement

Granted:

1. Birthright citizenship

2. Due process

3. Equal protection under the law

15th Amendment

Reconstruction Amendment and Achievement

Guaranteed all African American males the right to vote

What were the failures of Reconstruction?

Despite the significant gains made during Reconstruction, it ultimately failed to deliver lasting equality to African Americans.

• Reconstruction ended too soon allowing for the election of conservative politicians in the South who rolled back many of the gains made by African Americans.

• White Southern Resistance:

  1. Terror Groups

  2. strategies to undermine reconstruction amendments

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The Ku Klux Klan

African Americans after Civil War

Farmers after the Civil War

Failure of 13th Amendment

​-Black Codes

-Debt

-Black codes were designed to deny African Americans their constitutional rights and limit economic opportunities.

-Sharecropping and tenement farming often kept people in debt

Failure of 14th Amendment

​-Jim Crow Laws

-De Jure Segregation= segregation by law

-Taken to the Supreme Court in Plessy Vs Ferguson where the doctrine of "separate but equal" was upheld therefore even more segregation laws would be passed in the South

Failure of 15th Amendment

​-Poll taxes

-Literacy tests

-Intimidation

-Over time African Americans lost their political voice and gains under reconstruction.

-White Southerners were able to get around these restrictions thanks to the Grandfather Clause

• For the next 100 years the South would vote Democrat creating the "Solid South"

• a white Southerner who collaborated with northern Republicans during Reconstruction, often for personal profit. The term was used derisively by white Southern Democrats who opposed Reconstruction legislation.

Scalawag

a derogatory term for an outsider—originally Northerners moving to the South during1865–1877 Reconstruction—who exploits a new area for political or financial gain. It implies an untrustworthy, transient opportunist, often used for politicians running in new districts.

Carpetbagger

Compromise of 1877= End of Reconstruction

-In exchange for allowing Republican Rutherford B. Hayes to be President, the South would get federal money, more local political control for state governments, and removal of federal troops from the South and a formal end to Reconstruction.

Reconstruction was ultimately a failure: Loss of Northern Commitment to goals of Reconstruction

-Many northerners were tired of the effort and cost of Reconstruction and focused on settling the West
. Many gains made by African Americans were rolled back and daily life was not much different so many freedmen began to move north and west in order to escape Jim Crow Laws and violence.