Week 15 · Chapter

Chapter 15 — Reconstruction

U.S. History to 1877 Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~70–80 minutes · Objectives 1, 5, 7, and 8 · Read it first this week, before the lecture and the slide deck.

In plain language

This week covers Reconstruction (the years from 1865 to 1877, when the country rebuilt the Union after the Civil War and fought over what freedom would mean). About four million freedpeople (people freed from slavery by the war and the 13th Amendment) built families, churches, and schools, voted, and held office. Congress and the states added three Reconstruction amendments (the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution) that ended slavery, defined who is a citizen, and barred racial bars to voting. White Southerners who rejected Black citizenship answered with laws and with terror, and by 1877 the national government had stopped protecting freedpeople. You will read three amendments as dated documents, and then you will read the whole course's roster again to argue one claim about the period.

Why you already care about this

Picture a brick church on St. Helena Island, off the coast of South Carolina. Enslaved people made its bricks by hand in 1855, and some of their fingerprints still show in the walls. They built it for the white planters who held them. A few years later, after the Union Army reached the island, the same sanctuary held one of the first schools for formerly enslaved people. Children came. So did their grandparents.

Now picture a county office a few years later, in an illustrative case. A clerk opens a new register of voters. A man who was enslaved a few years earlier gives his name, his age, and his place of birth, and signs. The clerk writes it down. Outside, some of his neighbors watch to see who goes in.

You may have filled out a form that decided whether you counted: a voter registration, a school enrollment, a citizenship or residency paper. Reconstruction was a fight over that question for a whole people. In 1865 the states ratified the 13th Amendment. In 1868 they ratified the 14th. In 1870 they ratified the 15th. In 1877 Reconstruction ended. You will read the three amendments one pinned passage at a time.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

tell Presidential Reconstruction from Congressional Reconstruction;
explain Johnson's impeachment and his acquittal by one vote;
state what each Reconstruction amendment did, and keep the three apart;
source and close-read the 14th Amendment, including what its text leaves out;
date an amendment from its record of passage and ratification;
describe what freedpeople did with freedom, and the violence that opposed them;
explain why Reconstruction ended in 1877;
present how far Reconstruction failed as a debate, with each side's best case;
argue one claim about the whole period from three dated documents.

Hook to keep: for every document this week, ask who counted, and who decided that they did.

Carry this sentence with you: a promise written in the Constitution versus a promise kept.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 3 showed how colonial law made slavery hereditary and racial. Week 5 read the Declaration's claim that all men are created equal. Week 6 read the Constitution, its three-fifths clause, and its first ten amendments. Week 12 read Dred Scott v. Sandford, which wrote Black Americans out of citizenship. Week 14 read the Emancipation Proclamation and followed the war to Appomattox and Lincoln's assassination in 1865.
This week: Presidential and Congressional Reconstruction; the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments; what freedpeople built; the violence against them; the end of Reconstruction in 1877; the debate over how far it failed; and the course synthesis.
How they connect: the war ended slavery in practice, and now the country had to decide in law what freedom and citizenship would mean.

This is the course's last teaching week. Week 16 holds the cumulative final exam, and it asks you to use every move from the term on every unit. Three earlier ideas carry this week. From Week 6, an amendment is a formal change to a constitution that takes effect only after it is ratified. From Week 12, the Dred Scott decision of 1857 held that Black Americans were not citizens. From Week 14, the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 applied to areas in rebellion. This week covers violence plainly, and the course is built to be supportive of it. Take one section at a time.

1. Tell the two policies apart: Presidential Reconstruction

Imagine a club that broke its own rules and then asked to rejoin. One leader says, "Sign a card and come back in." Another says, "Write new rules first, and let everyone you shut out have a vote." Those are two very different ways to rejoin.

When the war ended in 1865, Andrew Johnson was President. He had become President when Lincoln was killed. Presidential Reconstruction was Johnson's policy of 1865 to 1866, which readmitted the Southern states on lenient terms, pardoned former Confederates, and gave freedpeople almost no protection.

Many freedpeople hoped for land of their own, on the ground they had worked. Johnson ordered confiscated and abandoned land returned to its former owners. Most freedpeople never received land.

The new Southern legislatures then passed Black Codes: laws that restricted the work, movement, and rights of freedpeople. Under them, a people freed by the war found their freedom fenced in by state law within months.

Worked example — what Presidential Reconstruction asked, and gave. You list both sides from the record.

Asked of the former Confederate states: very little. They were readmitted on lenient terms, and their leaders could be pardoned.
Given to freedpeople: very little. The land many had hoped for went back to former owners.
What the new legislatures did: they passed Black Codes that restricted freedpeople's lives.
What Johnson did next: in 1866 he vetoed the Freedmen's Bureau bill and broke with the Republicans in Congress.

In words: Presidential Reconstruction let the old order back in and left freedpeople nearly unprotected.

Misconception check. Students often think there was one Reconstruction policy from 1865 to 1877. That is tempting, because the period carries one name. But Johnson's lenient policy and Congress's later policy were opposed to each other. The cure is to ask who made the policy: the President, or Congress.

2. Follow Congress's turn: Congressional Reconstruction and the impeachment

Think about what happens when a team's coach and its owners disagree so deeply that the owners overrule every call. Sooner or later someone tries to fire the coach.

Republicans in Congress were angry at the Black Codes and at Johnson's vetoes. The Radical Republicans, the members who pressed hardest for freedpeople's equal rights, led the response. Congressional Reconstruction was the policy Congress imposed from the Reconstruction Acts of 1867. The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 passed over Johnson's veto. They divided the former Confederate states into military districts. Each state had to write a new constitution and allow Black men to vote before it could return to the Union.

Worked example — the two policies side by side. You read one question down both columns: who set the terms?

The two Reconstruction policies compared: who set them, when, and on what terms
Policy	Set by	Years	Terms for the Southern states
Presidential Reconstruction	President Andrew Johnson	1865 to 1866	lenient readmission and pardons
Congressional Reconstruction	Congress, over Johnson's veto	from 1867	military districts, new state constitutions, and Black male suffrage

In words: a lenient pardon from the President is not a Reconstruction Act of Congress.

The clash ended in a trial. Impeachment is a formal charge of wrongdoing brought by the House of Representatives, which sends the case to the Senate for trial. The House impeached Johnson in 1868. An acquittal is a verdict of not guilty. The Senate acquitted Johnson by one vote.

Worked example — checking the one-vote margin. The U.S. Senate's own history page gives the tally on the first article voted: 35 senators for conviction and 19 against.

Senators voting: 35 + 19 = 54.
Two-thirds of 54 is 36, the number needed to convict.
The shortfall: 36 − 35 = 1 vote.

In words: a clear majority voted to convict, but conviction needs two-thirds, and the vote fell one short. The Senate's page explains that some Republicans voted to acquit to protect the office of the President. The course teaches this tally from the Senate's page and keys none of it.

Misconception check. Students often think impeachment means removal from office. That is tempting, because the two are often said together. But the House impeaches and the Senate tries, and Johnson was impeached and then acquitted. The cure is to keep the two steps apart.

3. Read the 13th Amendment: slavery ended, with one exception

Picture a sign on a door that says "No entry," and below it, in smaller print, "except staff." The small print matters as much as the big print.

The 13th Amendment is the constitutional amendment ratified in 1865 that abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States, except as a punishment for crime. It is D34 on the course's roster. Congress passed it on 31 January 1865, and the states ratified it later that year. The National Archives keeps it.

Every amendment is made in two steps, so the course uses a pair of words. Passed and ratified are the two steps in making an amendment: Congress passes it and sends it to the states, and it is ratified when enough states approve it to make it part of the Constitution.

Worked example — the four moves on the 13th Amendment. You take the moves in order.

Sourcing: Congress proposed it and the states ratified it; it is a constitutional amendment; passed in 1865 and ratified in 1865; the National Archives keeps it.
Contextualization: the war was ending, and the Emancipation Proclamation had applied only to areas in rebellion.
Close reading: the pinned fragment reads "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
What it leaves open: the exception. Slavery and involuntary servitude are barred everywhere in the United States, except as a punishment for crime after a conviction.
Corroboration: the gap from the Emancipation Proclamation to the 13th Amendment is 1865 − 1863 = 2 years.

In words: the 13th Amendment ended slavery everywhere in the United States, and its text kept one exception.

Misconception check. Students often think the Emancipation Proclamation freed every enslaved person. That is tempting, because it is the famous document. But it applied to areas in rebellion in 1863, and the 13th Amendment of 1865 ended slavery everywhere. The cure is to match each document to its year and its reach.

4. Read the 14th Amendment: citizenship and equal protection

Think about a birth certificate. It is a small paper, but it can decide whether a person is a citizen. Now imagine a country whose highest court had said that a whole group of people born there could never be citizens.

That was the law after Dred Scott. The 14th Amendment is the constitutional amendment ratified in 1868 that made all persons born or naturalized in the United States citizens and barred states from denying due process or the equal protection of the laws. It is D35, and it is the week's Primary Source Workshop document. The National Archives keeps it.

Two of its phrases need their own definitions. Due process is the guarantee that government may not take a person's life, liberty, or property without fair legal procedures; the 14th Amendment applied it to the states. The equal protection of the laws is the 14th Amendment's guarantee that no state may treat a person within its jurisdiction differently under the law than it treats others.

Worked example — the four moves on the 14th Amendment. You take the moves in order.

Sourcing: Congress proposed it and the states ratified it; it is a constitutional amendment; the National Archives keeps it. Congress passed it on 13 June 1866. It was ratified on 9 July 1868.
Sourcing, continued: the archive's citation dates the House joint resolution 16 June 1866. That was the day it went to the states, not the day Congress passed it. The archive adds that a certificate from the Secretary of State later in July 1868 declared it ratified by 28 of the 37 states. So you name which date you mean.
Contextualization: Black Codes were in force in the South, and Johnson opposed the amendment. A Library of Congress curator explains that Johnson still signed the papers that put the national seal on a proclamation of two states' ratification.
Close reading: the first pinned fragment reads "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States". The second reads "nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws".
What it leaves out: its first section says nothing about the vote. Its second section, in paraphrase, speaks of the vote only for male inhabitants.
Corroboration: set it beside Week 12's Dred Scott fragment, which said Black Americans "are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution". The 14th Amendment wrote citizenship into the Constitution 1868 − 1857 = 11 years after the Court denied it.

The reading in one plain sentence: the 14th Amendment's text shows what Congress and the ratifying states wrote into the Constitution in 1868 about citizenship and the equal protection of the laws; it does not show how far those promises were kept.

Misconception check. Students often think the 14th Amendment gave Black men the vote. That is tempting, because citizenship and voting feel like one right. But the 14th defined citizenship and equal protection, and its first section says nothing about voting. The cure is to read the fragment word by word: citizens, and equal protection.

Pause and choose one. (a) Write two sentences on why it matters that the citizenship fragment says "All persons born" rather than naming a race. (b) Write two sentences on why a close reader notices what the amendment's first section leaves out.

5. Read the 15th Amendment: the vote, and what it leaves out

Picture a club rule that says no one may be turned away "because of their hometown." That rule protects people from one kind of exclusion. It says nothing about every other reason someone might be turned away.

The 15th Amendment is the constitutional amendment ratified in 1870 that barred the United States or any state from denying the vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It is D36. Congress passed it on 26 February 1869, and it was ratified on 3 February 1870. The National Archives keeps it.

Worked example — dating the 15th Amendment from its record. You check three dates against each other.

The archive's transcript opens with the day the session of Congress began, 7 December 1868. That is the session's date, not the day Congress passed the amendment.
The National Archives records that Congress passed it on 26 February 1869 and that it was ratified on 3 February 1870.
A Library of Congress exhibit gives a later day in 1870 for its ratification. The two hosts agree on the year, and the course uses the National Archives' date.

In words: read the record of passage and ratification, not the first date printed at the top of the page. This is Week 5's lesson about a document's own date and an archive's heading, used again.

The pinned fragment reads "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude". Close-read its list. It names race, color, and previous condition of servitude. It does not name sex, so it gave no woman a constitutional right to vote.

Misconception check. Students often think the 15th Amendment gave every adult the vote. That is tempting, because it is the voting amendment. But it barred denying the vote only on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and it said nothing about sex. The cure is to read the list in the fragment and nothing more.

6. Keep the three amendments apart, row by row

Imagine three keys on one ring that look almost alike. Each opens a different door. If you mix them up, you stand at the wrong door.

The three Reconstruction amendments are like that. The Reconstruction amendments are the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, which in turn abolished slavery, defined citizenship and equal protection, and barred racial discrimination in voting.

Worked example — each amendment matched to what it did. You read the three rows in order.

The Reconstruction amendments: the year each was ratified and what each did, from the National Archives' record
Amendment	Ratified	What it did
13th	1865	abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
14th	1868	made all persons born or naturalized in the United States citizens and barred states from denying due process or the equal protection of the laws
15th	1870	barred denying the vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude

Worked example — fragments to documents. You match each pinned fragment to its amendment.

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." comes from D34, the 13th Amendment, 1865.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States" and "nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" come from D35, the 14th Amendment, 1868.
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude" comes from D36, the 15th Amendment, 1870.
Count: 1 + 2 + 1 = 4 fragments from 3 documents.

A memory line for the three: freedom, then citizenship, then the vote.

Misconception check. Students often mix up the three amendments. That is tempting, because they came within five years of one another and all concern Black freedom. But the 13th abolished slavery, the 14th made citizens and promised equal protection, and the 15th barred racial bars to the vote. The cure is the memory line: freedom, citizenship, vote.

7. Recognize what freedpeople built

Think about the first things you would do if a lifetime of being owned ended tomorrow. You might look for the people you had lost. You might want a place to pray that no one else controlled, and a school for your children, and pay for your work.

Freedpeople did all of those things. They looked for family first. Slavery had torn families apart by sale, and many freedpeople searched for years for husbands, wives, children, and parents. The Freedmen's Bureau was the federal agency Congress created in 1865 to assist freedpeople. It helped build schools, oversaw labor contracts, and mediated disputes between freedpeople and employers until Congress closed it in 1872. Its records hold the names of hundreds of thousands of people.

Worked example — what freedpeople built, from the record. You list five kinds of action.

Families: freedpeople reunited families that slavery and sale had torn apart.
Churches: they founded churches of their own, and churches often became community centers.
Schools: they founded schools, and grandparents sat beside grandchildren to learn to read. The church on St. Helena Island held one of the first.
Work: they sought land and fair wages, and some were paid in cash for the first time.
Votes and office: Black men voted and held office. Hundreds served in Southern state legislatures, and in South Carolina Black legislators outnumbered white ones.

In words: freedom was not handed to freedpeople finished. They built it, family by family and school by school.

Three officeholders show the range. Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, both of Mississippi, served in the U.S. Senate. Robert Smalls was born enslaved in Beaufort, South Carolina. He helped write the state's constitution of 1868 and later served five terms in the U.S. House. The course says these facts in words from their sources and keys none of the counts.

Misconception check. Students often think freedpeople waited for the government to give them freedom. That is tempting, because laws and amendments get the headlines. But freedpeople reunited families, founded churches and schools, worked for wages, voted, and held office themselves. The cure is to ask what the people in the record did, not only what was done for them.

Pause and choose one. (a) Write two sentences on why a family search was one of the first acts of freedom. (b) Write two sentences on why a school in a church building tells you something about a community's priorities.

8. Name the violence: the backlash against Black citizenship

This section describes murder, arson, and terror against Black Americans. Read it at your own pace.

Picture the county office from the start of the chapter on the morning of an election. Armed men on horseback ride past the door. Some voters turn around. Others go in anyway.

White Southerners who would not accept Black citizenship turned to terror. The Ku Klux Klan was a white-supremacist terrorist organization formed in Tennessee after the Civil War. It used threats, beatings, arson, and murder to drive freedpeople and their allies from voting and office. Klansmen burned Black schools and churches. They attacked Black families. They threatened and murdered Republican leaders, and they surrounded polling places with armed men. In Memphis in 1866 a white mob murdered Black residents.

Congress answered. The Enforcement Acts were federal laws of the early 1870s that let the national government prosecute people who used violence or intimidation to deny citizens their rights. Federal courts convicted Klansmen under them. Yet the violence went on, and in the North, support for protecting freedpeople faded.

Worked example — reading a source about violence. You take one rule from Week 1 and apply it here.

The record: the violence is documented, and the course states it as fact.
Contextualization: you can explain why the attackers acted, to stop Black voting and office-holding.
The rule: contextualization explains a source; it never excuses what the source describes.

In words: the Klan's terror was a campaign to overturn Black citizenship by force, and the course never stages it as a debate.

Misconception check. Students often think the violence of these years was random crime. That is tempting, because it happened in many places and many ways. But it targeted voters, officeholders, schools, and churches, the very things freedpeople were building. The cure is to ask who was attacked and what they were doing.

Honesty note: the course says the scale of this violence in words because counts differ from source to source. No count is keyed.

9. Explain the end of Reconstruction in 1877

Picture a referee leaving a game in the middle of a fight. The fight does not stop. One side wins it.

The presidential election of 1876 was disputed. The results in several Southern states were contested. The disputed election of 1876 was the presidential election whose results in several Southern states were contested; its settlement brought a new administration that withdrew the last federal troops protecting Southern statehouses. The end of Reconstruction came in 1877, when federal troops left the last Southern statehouses they protected, amid white-supremacist violence and Northern retreat rather than because its goals had been met.

Worked example — the week's years in order. You order the four chronology years and measure the gaps.

Order, earliest to latest: 1865 (the 13th Amendment ratified), 1868 (the 14th Amendment ratified), 1870 (the 15th Amendment ratified), and 1877 (the end of Reconstruction).
Gaps: 1868 − 1865 = 3 years; 1870 − 1868 = 2 years; 1877 − 1870 = 7 years.
Span: 1877 − 1865 = 12 years.
Check: the three gaps add back to the span, 3 + 2 + 7 = 12 years.

In words: the three amendments came within five years, and Reconstruction ended seven years after the last of them.

Misconception check. Students often think Reconstruction ended because its work was done. That is tempting, because "the end" can sound like "finished." But it ended in 1877 amid violence and Northern retreat, with freedpeople's rights left unprotected. The cure is to ask what was still unprotected when the troops left.

10. Weigh the debate: how far did Reconstruction fail?

Think about a building project that stops halfway. One neighbor says it failed, because the building was never finished. Another says the foundation is still there and people built on it later. Both are looking at the same site.

Historians still debate this. How far Reconstruction failed is the debate historians still have over whether Reconstruction failed, achieved lasting change, or was overthrown by violence; the course presents the strongest case on each side and keys no verdict.

Worked example — the strongest case on each side. You state each side in its best form.

It failed: by 1877 the national government had abandoned the protection of freedpeople. Few received land, and violence had driven many Black voters from the polls.
It achieved lasting change: the three amendments stayed in the Constitution. The families, churches, and schools freedpeople built endured.
A third view: some historians argue that "failed" is the wrong word, because Reconstruction was overthrown by violence rather than abandoned for lack of merit.

In words: this is a question of interpretation, and the course asks you to weigh it with evidence. What is not up for debate is the record: the amendments' text, the violence, and the year Reconstruction ended.

Misconception check. Students often think a debate means every claim is opinion. That is tempting, because historians disagree here. But the debate is over how to weigh the record, not over whether the violence happened or what the amendments say. The cure is to keep documented facts out of the "debate" pile.

Caveat: the course keys no verdict on this debate, on a quiz or anywhere else. Your job is to argue a side from evidence and to state the other side fairly.

Pause and choose one. (a) Write two sentences making the strongest case that Reconstruction failed. (b) Write two sentences making the strongest case that it achieved lasting change.

11. Read the roster again: the course synthesis

Picture a stack of 36 index cards, one for each dated document you have read this term. The first is a royal grant of 1492. The last is an amendment of 1870. Spread them on a table, and the whole course is in front of you.

The course synthesis is one claim about the whole period from contact to 1877, argued from three dated documents on the course's roster and ending in one plain sentence. You use all four moves at once.

Worked example — the roster's span. You measure the course.

The roster holds 36 dated documents, from Ferdinand and Isabella's grant of 1492 (D01) to the 15th Amendment of 1870 (D36).
The course ends with Reconstruction in 1877, so its span is 1877 − 1492 = 385 years.

Worked example — one claim from three documents. You argue a claim about citizenship.

The Declaration of Independence (D09, 1776) says "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal".
Dred Scott v. Sandford (D29, 1857) held that Black Americans "are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution".
The 14th Amendment (D35, 1868) says "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States".
The gaps: 1857 − 1776 = 81 years; 1868 − 1857 = 11 years; and 81 + 11 = 92 years, which matches 1868 − 1776 = 92.
The claim: across those 92 years, who counted as a citizen under the nation's founding law was fought over and changed, and the 14th Amendment's text reversed what the Court had held 11 years before.
Another reading: a text's promise is not its enforcement, and Section 8 showed how far the promise went unkept.

The synthesis in one plain sentence: these three documents show how the nation's founding law described equality and citizenship in 1776, 1857, and 1868; they do not show, by themselves, how people lived under those words.

Misconception check. Students often think a claim needs every document on the roster. That is tempting, because the roster is long. But a strong claim rests on a few documents read closely, with their dates, their fragments, and another reading acknowledged. The cure is to choose three documents that speak to one question.

Key terms

Reconstruction — the period from 1865 to 1877 when the nation rebuilt the Union after the Civil War and fought over what freedom and citizenship would mean for the four million people freed from slavery. (first used: 1. Tell the two policies apart: Presidential Reconstruction)
Freedpeople — the men, women, and children freed from slavery by the Civil War and the 13th Amendment; the documents of the time often call them freedmen. (first used: 1. Tell the two policies apart: Presidential Reconstruction)
Presidential Reconstruction — President Andrew Johnson's policy of 1865 to 1866, which readmitted the Southern states on lenient terms, pardoned former Confederates, and gave freedpeople almost no protection. (first used: 1. Tell the two policies apart: Presidential Reconstruction)
Black Codes — laws passed by the Southern legislatures under Presidential Reconstruction that restricted the work, movement, and rights of freedpeople. (first used: 1. Tell the two policies apart: Presidential Reconstruction)
Radical Republicans — the members of the Republican Party in Congress who pressed hardest for equal rights for freedpeople and led Congressional Reconstruction and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. (first used: 2. Follow Congress's turn: Congressional Reconstruction and the impeachment)
Congressional Reconstruction — the policy Congress imposed from the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, which placed the South under military districts and required new state constitutions and Black male suffrage; it is also called Radical Reconstruction. (first used: 2. Follow Congress's turn: Congressional Reconstruction and the impeachment)
Reconstruction Acts of 1867 — the laws Congress passed over President Johnson's veto that divided the former Confederate states into military districts and set the terms, including Black male suffrage, on which each state could return to the Union. (first used: 2. Follow Congress's turn: Congressional Reconstruction and the impeachment)
Impeachment — a formal charge of wrongdoing brought by the House of Representatives against an official, which sends the case to the Senate for trial. (first used: 2. Follow Congress's turn: Congressional Reconstruction and the impeachment)
Acquittal — a verdict of not guilty; in 1868 the Senate acquitted Andrew Johnson because the vote to convict fell one short of the two-thirds required. (first used: 2. Follow Congress's turn: Congressional Reconstruction and the impeachment)
13th Amendment — the constitutional amendment ratified in 1865 that abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States, except as a punishment for crime. (first used: 3. Read the 13th Amendment: slavery ended, with one exception)
Passed and ratified — the two steps in making an amendment: Congress passes it and sends it to the states, and it is ratified when enough states approve it to make it part of the Constitution. (first used: 3. Read the 13th Amendment: slavery ended, with one exception)
14th Amendment — the constitutional amendment ratified in 1868 that made all persons born or naturalized in the United States citizens and barred states from denying due process or the equal protection of the laws. (first used: 4. Read the 14th Amendment: citizenship and equal protection)
Due process — the guarantee that government may not take a person's life, liberty, or property without fair legal procedures; the 14th Amendment applied it to the states. (first used: 4. Read the 14th Amendment: citizenship and equal protection)
Equal protection of the laws — the 14th Amendment's guarantee that no state may treat a person within its jurisdiction differently under the law than it treats others. (first used: 4. Read the 14th Amendment: citizenship and equal protection)
15th Amendment — the constitutional amendment ratified in 1870 that barred the United States or any state from denying the vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. (first used: 5. Read the 15th Amendment: the vote, and what it leaves out)
Reconstruction amendments — the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, which in turn abolished slavery, defined citizenship and equal protection, and barred racial discrimination in voting. (first used: 6. Keep the three amendments apart, row by row)
Freedmen's Bureau — the federal agency Congress created in 1865 to assist freedpeople, which helped build schools, oversaw labor contracts, and mediated disputes between freedpeople and employers until Congress closed it in 1872; its records hold the names of hundreds of thousands of people. (first used: 7. Recognize what freedpeople built)
Ku Klux Klan — a white-supremacist terrorist organization formed in Tennessee after the Civil War that used threats, beatings, arson, and murder to drive freedpeople and their allies from voting and office. (first used: 8. Name the violence: the backlash against Black citizenship)
Enforcement Acts — federal laws of the early 1870s that let the national government prosecute people who used violence or intimidation to deny citizens their rights, used against the Ku Klux Klan. (first used: 8. Name the violence: the backlash against Black citizenship)
Disputed election of 1876 — the presidential election whose results in several Southern states were contested; its settlement brought a new administration that withdrew the last federal troops protecting Southern statehouses. (first used: 9. Explain the end of Reconstruction in 1877)
End of Reconstruction — the close of Reconstruction in 1877, when federal troops left the last Southern statehouses they protected, amid white-supremacist violence and Northern retreat rather than because its goals had been met. (first used: 9. Explain the end of Reconstruction in 1877)
How far Reconstruction failed — the debate historians still have over whether Reconstruction failed, achieved lasting change, or was overthrown by violence; the course presents the strongest case on each side and keys no verdict. (first used: 10. Weigh the debate: how far did Reconstruction fail?)
Course synthesis — one claim about the whole period from contact to 1877, argued from three dated documents on the course's roster and ending in one plain sentence. (first used: 11. Read the roster again: the course synthesis)

Summary

Presidential Reconstruction was Johnson's lenient readmission; Black Codes followed.
Congressional Reconstruction began with the Reconstruction Acts of 1867.
The House impeached Johnson in 1868; the Senate acquitted him by one vote.
The 13th Amendment (1865) abolished slavery, except as a punishment for crime.
The 14th Amendment (1868) made citizens and promised equal protection.
The 15th Amendment (1870) barred denying the vote on account of race; it did not name sex.
Freedpeople reunited families, founded churches and schools, worked, voted, and held office.
White-supremacist violence, including the Klan's, attacked Black citizenship.
Reconstruction ended in 1877, amid violence and Northern retreat, not because its goals were met.
How far it failed is a debate; the record it argues over is not.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

An illustrative town council adopts a park rule in its 4th year, a library rule in its 9th year, and a water rule in its 15th year. How many years passed from the park rule to the library rule, and from the library rule to the water rule? Check that the two gaps add back to the span.
An illustrative club's rule says no member may be refused a seat "because of the street they live on." A member is refused a seat because of their age. Does the rule's text protect that member? Explain in two sentences.
A classmate writes that a set of laws "made every freedperson a voter" because the laws "made every freedperson a citizen." Rewrite the sentence so it says only what the second phrase shows.
An illustrative committee of 30 members needs two-thirds to pass a motion, and 19 vote yes. How many more yes votes did the motion need?

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

Park to library: 9 − 4 = 5 years. Library to water: 15 − 9 = 6 years. The span is 15 − 4 = 11 years, and 5 + 6 = 11, so the gaps add back. Name the two points you measure between, as you did with the week's years.
No. The rule names only one ground, the street a member lives on, so it says nothing about age; that is the close reading the 15th Amendment's list needs, since it named race, color, and previous condition of servitude and not sex.
Write it as: the laws made every freedperson a citizen. Citizenship is not the vote, which is the trap of mixing up the 14th and 15th Amendments.
Two-thirds of 30 is 20, so the motion needed 20 yes votes, and 20 − 19 = 1 more. A majority is not two-thirds, which is how Johnson's acquittal came by one vote.

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, and the quiz. Next week the cumulative final asks you to use the same four moves and the one plain sentence on every unit of the course.

Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com