After the North defeated the South in the Civil War, politicians faced the task of putting the divided country back together. There was great debate about how severely the former Confederate states should be punished for leaving the Union. With the assassination of President Lincoln in 1865, it was up to President Andrew Johnson to try to reunite former enemies.
The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 readmitting Southern states back into the Union
The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) provided former slaves with national citizenship
Fifteenth Amendment (1870) granted black men the right to vote
