Have You Heard Of The Southern Reconstruction Era?

Immediately following the war, all-white Southern legislatures passed black codes which denied blacks the right to purchase or rent land. These efforts to force former slaves to work on plantations led Congressional Republicans to seize control of Reconstruction from President Andrew Johnson, deny representatives from the former Confederate states their Congressional seats, and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and draft the 14th Amendment, extending citizenship rights to Afican Americans and guaranteeing equal protection of the laws. In 1870, the country went further by ratifying the 15th Amendment, which gave voting rights to black men.  The most radical proposal advanced during Reconstruction—to confiscate plantations and redistribute portions of the land to the freedmen—was defeated.