Reconstruction and Its Legacy

📋 Course Outline

1. Reconstruction Amendments and Plans
2. Reconstruction Policies and Resistance
3. Segregation and Voting Restrictions
4. Sharecropping and Reconstruction’s End

📖 1. Reconstruction Amendments and Plans

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• 13th Amendment : abolished slavery and forced labor
• 14th Amendment : established that all people born in the United States are citizens
• 15th Amendment : gave African Americans the chance to vote

📝 Essential Points

• John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln and was later trapped by pursuers and killed.

• Andrew Johnson took over as president after Abraham Lincoln.

💡 Memory Hook

13th ends slavery → 14th defines citizenship → 15th expands voting rights

📖 2. Reconstruction Policies and Resistance

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Amnesty : a group pardon
• Impeachment : the bringing of formal charges against a public official

📝 Essential Points

• The Freedmen’s Bureau was established in 1865 and set up schools in the South.

• The Reconstruction Act of 1867 required Southern states to:

  • write a new state constitution
  • ratify the 14th Amendment
  • allow African Americans to vote

💡 Memory Hook

Amnesty pardons a group, whereas impeachment formally charges an official