AP U.S. History · Lesson 3

Reconstruction

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After Lincoln's death, President Andrew Johnson let Southern states rejoin quickly with few conditions. Those states passed Black Codes to control freed people's labor, and some elected former Confederate leaders. Congress, led by the Radical Republicans, took charge of Reconstruction. It passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 over Johnson's veto, and in 1867 its Reconstruction Acts put most of the former Confederate states under military rule until they wrote new constitutions and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. The House impeached Johnson in 1868, and the Senate fell one vote short of removing him.

Three amendments changed the Constitution. The Thirteenth (1865) abolished slavery. The Fourteenth (1868) made everyone born in the United States a citizen and promised due process and equal protection. The Fifteenth (1870) barred denying the vote because of race. Women's rights leaders split over whether to support amendments that left out women.

Freed people rebuilt families, founded churches and schools with help from the Freedmen's Bureau, and voted. Black men served in Southern legislatures and in Congress; Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first Black U.S. senator in 1870. But land was not redistributed, so many freed families became sharecroppers bound by debt.

White Southern resistance, including terror by the Ku Klux Klan, drove Black voters from the polls. Northern interest faded after the Panic of 1873, and the Supreme Court read the new amendments narrowly. The Compromise of 1877 gave Republican Rutherford B. Hayes the disputed 1876 election, and federal troops stopped protecting the last Republican state governments. Reconstruction ended with its promises of equal rights largely unkept, though the amendments stayed in the Constitution.

The Reconstruction amendments
AmendmentYear ratifiedWhat it did
Thirteenth1865Abolished slavery except as punishment for a crime
Fourteenth1868Birthright citizenship; due process and equal protection of the laws against the states
Fifteenth1870Barred denying the vote on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude

Trap The Fifteenth Amendment did not guarantee every man the vote

The Fifteenth Amendment barred denying the vote because of race. It did not ban other tests, so Southern states later used poll taxes, literacy tests and residency rules to keep most Black men from voting. It also said nothing about sex, so women still could not vote in most places.

Worked example Easy

Which amendment made everyone born in the United States a citizen and promised equal protection of the laws?

  1. The Thirteenth Amendment
  2. The Fourteenth AmendmentAnswer
  3. The Fifteenth Amendment
  4. The Nineteenth Amendment

How to solve it

  1. Match each amendment to its main subject: slavery, citizenship, voting.
  2. Citizenship and equal protection belong to the Fourteenth.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Incorrect. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery but said nothing about citizenship or equal protection.
  • B. Correct. The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) set birthright citizenship and barred states from denying equal protection.
  • C. Incorrect. The Fifteenth Amendment dealt with voting and race, not citizenship.
  • D. Incorrect. The Nineteenth Amendment, ratified in 1920, protected women's right to vote.

Explain Explain it

Task verbs: explain, compare

Reconstruction questions often ask about change and its limits. A strong answer pairs two things: a change written into law, and what actually happened where people lived. Name each one specifically, with a date or a place, and say how they relate.

When a prompt asks how far something changed, be ready to give both sides: something that changed and stayed changed, and something that did not change or was undone.

Worked example Medium

Why did Congress take control of Reconstruction from President Andrew Johnson in 1866 and 1867?

  1. Johnson had refused to readmit any Southern state
  2. The Supreme Court ruled that only Congress could readmit states
  3. Southern states passed Black Codes and elected ex-ConfederatesAnswer
  4. Johnson had freed enslaved people without Congress's approval

How to solve it

  1. Recall what happened under Johnson's lenient plan in 1865 and 1866.
  2. Black Codes and newly elected Confederate leaders convinced Congress the South was resisting the results of the war.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Incorrect. Johnson did the opposite: he readmitted Southern states quickly and on easy terms.
  • B. Incorrect. No Supreme Court ruling transferred Reconstruction to Congress; Congress acted on its own power.
  • C. Correct. Northern Republicans saw the Black Codes and the return of Confederate leaders as undoing the Union's victory, so Congress imposed its own plan.
  • D. Incorrect. Johnson did not free anyone on his own; slavery had already ended with the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.

Explain Your turn

Explain one change Reconstruction brought for freed people in the South that lasted beyond 1877, and one limit on Reconstruction's gains for them.

Write it, then compare. Nothing you type here is saved or graded.

Compare with a model answer

A full answer does this

  • Gives an accurate change for freed people that lasted beyond 1877
  • Gives an accurate limit on Reconstruction's gains for freed people

Model answer

One lasting change was the end of slavery: the Thirteenth Amendment abolished it for good, and it never returned after Reconstruction ended. One limit was that freed people received no land, so many became sharecroppers trapped in debt to landowners and merchants.

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