Reconstruction Dbq

Reconstruction During the Civil War, a lot of farms and plantations were burned down and crops destroyed. People also had Confederate money which became worthless and the governments were disorganized. Due to these reasons, the South had to rebuild again which is known as Reconstruction. The Reconstruction period was from 1865 to 1877. The purpose was to help the South become a part of the Union again. Federal troops occupied much of the South during the Reconstruction to insure that laws were followed and another war did not occur. Abraham Lincoln was first in charge of Reconstruction when the Civil War ended on April 9, 1865. He had a plan that any southerner who took an oath to the Union would be given a pardon and that if 10% of the voters in a state supported the Union, the state could then be readmitted. His plan also stated that any state that was readmitted must make slavery illegal as part of their constitution. However, President Lincoln was assassinated less than one week after the war ended and was never able to implement his plan to make it easy for southern states to rejoin the Union. Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s Vice President, continued Lincoln’s plan for a while after his assassination but then announced his own plans for Reconstruction which included a vow of loyalty to the Nation and to do away with Slavery

The 13th Amendment outlawed slavery; the 14th Amendment said that black people were citizens of the United States and that all people were protected equally by the law; and the 15th Amendment gave all people the right to vote regardless of race. In 1865, new governments were formed in the South. The first state to be readmitted to the Union was Tennessee in 1866. The last state was Georgia in 1870. States had to approve the new Amendments to the Constitution as part of being readmitted to the