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Abraham Lincoln Announces Plans for Reconstruction
Link Abraham said that as soon as any seceded state citizens took oaths of allegiance to the Constitution they would be readmitted to the Union, the only people who would not be forgiven would be ary commanders. He was very forgiving to the South in his plans so the Republicans opposed them. -
Wade-Davis Bill Receives Pocket Veto
linkLincoln pocket- vetoed after Congress passed The Wade-Davis Bill which required 50 percent of the voters take an oath of future loyalty before the Reconstruction started. -
Lincoln Re-Elected as President
Link Abraham was re-elected in November of 1864. With Abraham Lincoln re-elected any hope for a negotiated settlement with the Confederacy vanished. -
Black Codes created in Mississippi
Link Mississippi's law required blacks to have written evidence of employment for the coming year each January; if they left before the end of the contract, they would be forced to forfeit earlier wages and were subject to arrest. -
Formation of the Freedmans Bureau
Link Freedmen's Bureau was a federal agency, formed to aid and protect the newly freed blacks in the South after the Civil War. Freedmen’s Bureau also helped the former slaves in the workplace. It tried to make sure that the former slaves received fair wages and freely chose their employers. The bureau created special courts to settle disputes between black workers and their white employers. -
President Andrew Johnson Announces plans for Reconstruction
Link When Johnson declared that the war goals of national unity and the ending of slavery had been achieved claiming that reconstruction was completed it became clear that he wanted to let his Southerners off easy. The Republicans in Congress refused to accept Johnson's terms. -
Assasination Of Abraham Lincoln
Link Two days after Lees surrender at Appomattox, Lincoln delivered a speech outlining his plans for peace and reconstruction. In the audience was John Wilks Booth, a successful actor, born and raised in Maryland who later killed Abraham Lincoln at Fords theatre. -
Ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment
Link The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. -
KKK created
Link The KKK was the first terrorist group formed in the US, it was a awful racist organization that would torture and kill African-Americans. -
Civil Rights Act 1866
Link A United States federal law that was intended to protect the civil rights of African-Americans, in the wake of the American Civil War. In April 1866 Congress passed the bill and although Johnson vetoed it, a two-thirds majority in each house overcame the veto and the bill became law. -
Reconstruction Acts Enacted
Link A key feature of the Acts included the creation of five military districts in the South, each commanded by a general, which would serve as the acting government for the region. In addition, Congress required that each state draft a new state constitution, which would have to be approved by Congress. The states also were required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and grant voting rights to black men. -
President Andrew Johnson Impeached
Link The Radical Republicans were the main force behind President Johnsons impeachment due to his reconstruction plans. He was impeached in the U.S. House of Representatives on eleven articles of high crimes and misdemeanors in accordance with Article Two of the United States Constitution. -
Ratification of the 14th Amendment
Link The amendment grants citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" which included former slaves who had just been freed after the Civil War. The amendment had been rejected by most Southern states. -
Ulysses S. Grant elected President
Link Grant was the 18th President of the United States following his highly successful role as a war general in the second half of the Civil War. As president he led the Radical Republicans in their effort to eliminate all of what remained of Confederate nationalism and slavery. -
Ratification of the 15th Amendment
Link The 15th Amendment to the Constitution granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that 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." -
Hiram Revels elected to Senate
Link Revels was a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and a politician. He was the first person of color to serve in the United States Senate, and in the U.S. Congress overall. He represented Mississippi in 1870 and 1871 during Reconstruction. -
KKK Act Enacted
Link The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, also known as the Civil Rights Act of 1871, gave those deprived of their civil rights the opportunity to sue in federal court and authorized the president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in order to end the KKK. -
Freedmans Bureau Abolished
Link On June 28th, 1872 the Secretary of War issued an order discontinuing the bureau in accordance with a June 10th act of Congress. From June 30th 1872 onward the remaining actions of the bureau (to assists freed slaves) would be carried out by the general of the U.S. Army. -
Civil Rights Act 1875 passed
Link The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction Era that guaranteed African Americans equal treatment in public accommodations, public transportation, and prohibited exclusion from jury service. The Supreme Court decided the act was unconstitutional in 1883. -
Last National Troops leave South Carolina
Link With Hayes elected President, he agreed to remove the federal troops from South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, thereby allowing the last southern states to be "redeemed" by Democrats. -
"Jim Crow" enters the American cultural language
Link Jim Crow was the practice of discriminating against and segregating Black people starting at the end of Reconstruction. -
Rutherford B Hayes elected President
Link Hayes was the 19th president. As president, he oversaw the end of Reconstruction and the United States' entry into the Second Industrial Revolution. -
Civil Rights Act Overturned 1833
Link The Court decided that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional and that neither the 13th nor the 14th amendment empowers the Congress to legislate in matters of racial discrimination in the private sector. -
Florida Requires Segregation in Places of Public Accommodation
Link Florida became the first state to enact a statute requiring segregation in places of public accommodation. Eight other states follow Florida's lead by 1892. This leads to the Jim Crow laws. -
Case of Plessy v. Ferguson
Link Louisiana passed a law separating blacks and whites on railcars. The case was a huge deal for the US Supreme Court, it upheld the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities which brought to question is seperate really equal?
