Civil War Times

Rebuilding the South after the devastation of the war while reintegrating it back into the Union was a monumental task. Before he was assassinated in April 1865, Lincoln had developed plans for a “soft” Reconstruction that would allow states back into the Union easily as long as they ended slavery. Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, was even more determined to speedily reunite the country.

However, members of the Republican Party didn’t only seek to end slavery—they also wanted to resolve the status of the newly freed enslaved people. Some members also desired to punish the South for the war’s devasation, but Johnson was opposed to both of these ideas. However, with no Southerners able to sit in Congress, Republicans were able to bypass Johnson by overriding all of his vetoes.

Republicans in Congress known as Radical Republicans passed a much more difficult plan for Reconstruction that involved division of the South into military districts that could rejoin as states once they approved state constitutions in line with Republican principles. They passed the Thirteenth Amendment banning slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment providing citizenship to anyone born in the United States, and the Fifteenth Amendment prohibiting states from denying voting rights on the basis of skin color. In the South, Republicans tried to set up an ambitious program of education for millions of formerly enslaved people who had not learned to read. The program provided medical care and some land reform to give them livelihoods.

This program of Reconstruction was detested in the South, and white Southern militias resisted it violently, giving birth to the Ku Klux Klan, a terrorist group. For a while, the North kept troops in the South to prevent violence, but a number of factors brought Reconstruction’s end. An economic crash in 1873 eroded the credibility of Republicans around the country, while the continued violence in the South created a sense of war weariness in the North. In 1877, the last Northern troops left the South. At the time, many saw Reconstruction as a failure. Subsequent generations have appraised it more favorably for protecting African American rights.

Example

Reconstruction occurred in which region of the United States?

The correct answer is C. Reconstruction occurred in the South.