Reconstruction Dbq

The Reconstruction era of 1865 was an attempted unify the states of the United States of America after the Civil War. This proved to be terribly difficult and contentious process. The three main issues the federal government had to deal with included how to deal with states as they re-joined the Union, how Southern whites should be treated, and how to deal with the freed slaves. Furthermore, President Lincoln’s reconstruction plan included that states never truly seceded from the Union as this was not legally possible, and therefore they should not necessarily be punished. The plan had two major provisions: Pardons of Southerners who participated in the war if the took an oath of allegiance to the United States and Readmission of a state if 10% of white voters in that state took

On the other hand, Congress, most of all Radical Republicans, did not agree with Johnson’s actions. In fact, they would not allow the newly elected Southern representatives and senators from joining Congress in December of 1865. Instead , Congress enacted their own Reconstruction plan which consisted of: Creation of a Freedmen's Bureau to help newly freed slaves, passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to help protect freedmen from laws such as the Black Codes that were being passed in many Southern states, passage of the 14th Amendment, the purpose of which was to ensure that future legislatures could not revise the Civil Rights Act, passage of Reconstruction Acts that made restoration to the Union more difficult. Seven states were readmitted to the Union in 1868. Furthermore, congress prepared the 15th Amendment in 1868, it required the rest of the states to ratify the amendment to be readmitted and eventually all states were readmitted by 1870. On another note, Andrew Johnson and Congress had multiple disputes throughout his