Reconstruction Era Timeline

President Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., and died the next morning. Lincoln's death placed Andrew Johnson in the presidency and dramatically altered the course of Reconstruction, as Johnson pursued a far more lenient approach toward the defeated Confederate states.

Image source: Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency following Lincoln's assassination. His Reconstruction policies emphasized rapid restoration of the former Confederate states with minimal protections for freedpeople, setting up repeated clashes with the Radical Republicans in Congress who sought stronger federal guarantees of civil rights.

Image source: Presidency of Andrew Johnson

The Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, formally abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States, except as punishment for crime. This constitutional milestone marked the legal end of slavery and created the foundation for the broader struggle over the rights and status of freed African Americans.

Image source: Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 over President Johnson's veto, granting citizenship and equal civil rights to all persons born in the United States, regardless of race. It was the first major law in American history to be enacted over a presidential veto and laid the groundwork for the Fourteenth Amendment.

Congress passed the First Reconstruction Act over Johnson's veto, dividing the former Confederacy into five military districts and requiring states to draft new constitutions guaranteeing Black male suffrage before readmission to the Union. This marked the beginning of Radical Reconstruction and federal military oversight of the South.

Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act to restrict the president's power to remove certain officeholders without Senate approval. Johnson's violation of this act by attempting to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin Stanton led directly to his impeachment in 1868. The act was later repealed.

The United States purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in a deal negotiated by Secretary of State William Seward. Though unrelated to Southern Reconstruction, the acquisition reflected the expansionist ambitions of the Johnson-era government and was initially mocked as 'Seward's Folly' before proving strategically and economically valuable.

Image source: Alaska Purchase

The House of Representatives impeached President Andrew Johnson for violating the Tenure of Office Act after he attempted to remove Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. The Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict and remove him, preserving Johnson in office but weakening his influence over Reconstruction.

Image source: Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, granting birthright citizenship and guaranteeing due process and equal protection under the law to all persons. It became one of the most consequential amendments in American constitutional history, providing the legal basis for countless civil rights claims in later generations.

Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant won the 1868 presidential election, defeating Democrat Horatio Seymour with the crucial support of newly enfranchised Black voters in the South. Grant's victory signaled continued federal commitment to Reconstruction and the protection of African American civil and political rights.

Image source: 1868 United States presidential election

The Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting the denial of the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It represented the culmination of Reconstruction's constitutional revolution, though its enforcement would prove weak and its protections would be systematically undermined in later decades.

Congress passed the Amnesty Act, restoring full political rights, including the right to hold office, to most former Confederates, excluding only a few hundred high-ranking leaders. The act enabled former Confederate officials to regain power in Southern politics, accelerating the decline of Republican governments in the South.

In its first major interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court narrowly defined the privileges and immunities of national citizenship, effectively gutting the amendment's protections against state action. The decision severely limited federal power to safeguard the civil rights of African Americans.

A severe economic depression triggered by the failure of the banking firm Jay Cooke & Company swept the nation. The economic crisis shifted Northern attention away from Reconstruction, weakened support for federal spending in the South, and strengthened Democrats in the 1874 midterm elections.

Image source: Panic of 1873

The presidential election between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden produced disputed results in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. An electoral commission negotiated a resolution that awarded the presidency to Hayes, with the understanding that federal troops would be withdrawn from the South.

Image source: 1876 United States presidential election

The informal Compromise of 1877 resolved the disputed election by making Rutherford B. Hayes president in exchange for the removal of federal troops from the South. The withdrawal ended Republican control of the remaining Reconstruction governments and effectively concluded the federal effort to protect the rights of freedpeople.

Image source: Compromise of 1877

President Hayes ordered the removal of the last federal troops from South Carolina and Louisiana in April 1877. With the soldiers gone, Democratic 'Redeemer' governments quickly took control, marking the symbolic end of Reconstruction and leaving African Americans without federal protection.

By the late 1870s, federal enforcement of the Reconstruction Amendments had largely collapsed. Court decisions and declining Northern will made prosecutions of white supremacist violence increasingly rare, allowing disenfranchisement, Jim Crow segregation, and racial terror to take root across the South.

The Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment did not give Congress the power to prohibit racial discrimination by private individuals and businesses. The decision opened the door for the rise of Jim Crow segregation throughout the South.