The Reconstruction Era
Must be submitted no later than Februaruy 3, 2010

Reconstruction appeared to be a program to aid in the assimilation of the freed blacks into the American social and economic system.
The Radical Republicans in Congress had a different goal.
Read Chapter 16 and write an essay describing the plans of Presidents Lincoln and Johnson and how they differed from the plans of Congress.
Put special emphasis on the impact of the 14th Amendment and what it attempted to reverse.
Do you feel that historians are justified in calling this period the 'darkest' period of American History?
Would you have done anything diffderent?

Reconstruction (U.S. history)
I

INTRODUCTION

War-Ravaged South
At the end of the American
Early in 1865, before the war's end, three developments hinted at the depth of this emerging Northern commitment. In January Congress passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in December of the same year. The 13th Amendment expanded the scope of the Emancipation Proclamation by abolishing slavery throughout the United States. Also in January, General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15, setting aside abandoned lands on the sea islands and coastal region of South Carolina and Georgia for exclusive use of the region's freed population. And in March, in order to help former slaves throughout the South in their transition to freedom, Congress established a new federal agency, the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, commonly known as the Freedmen's Bureau. Designed as a relief agency for needy refugees, it provided food, clothing, and fuel for both blacks and whites. Its primary services, however, were for blacks; it established schools, supervised labor relations, and worked to protect blacks from intimidation and violence.

A

Presidential Reconstruction
Despite these measures, the precise nature of the Reconstruction settlement remained undetermined when the war ended.
Complicating the situation was the assassination of Lincoln, whose death on April 15, 1865, moved Vice President Andrew