Historical Sources on Reconstruction

During the Reconstruction era, the United States attempted to rebuild itself after the end of both slavery and the Civil War. Despite some successes by Congress to secure the rights for newly freed African Americans through civil rights acts and constitutional amendments, racial conflicts plagued the South. Northerners believed the only way to resolve this was to leave the Southerners to manage their own affairs. In 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew federal troops from the South, officially ending Reconstruction. The consequences of this, however, would echo throughout U.S. history, ushering in decades of Jim Crow laws and segregation. In this book, students will read primary-source materials from presidents, congressmen, white Northerners and Southerners, and African Americans. These accounts offer students the opportunity to get a full picture of the Reconstruction era in America.