The Reconstruction period occurred between the very controversial years of 1865 to 1877. The Reconstruction is also another name for when the Union restored a good relationship with the Confederates after they surrendered. The Civil War severely hurt the South's economy and caused many problems. Major cities such as Richmond and Atlanta were destroyed, railroads were torn up and almost all of the South's factories were demolished.

On the other hand, the North had suffered almost no damage at all. In fact, its industries prospered enormously because of the need for war materials such as weapons and clothes which were in great demand. The governments from both the North and South faced some difficult questions after the war ended. For example, how should the rebellious states be readmitted into the Union? Should the leaders of the Confederate armies and its officials be punished, and if so, how? What rights should the 4,000,000 freed slaves be given, and how should they be protected? How, and when, should the destroyed southern cities and towns be rebuilt? Most of these problems were solved, but some weren't.

A lot of the white population refused to accept the former slaves into the community, and the living and working conditions for blacks hardly improved at all. The blacks were given the right to vote, much to the disgust of the South's population of whites, and some white Americans resorted to violence to prevent blacks from voting. As the Reconstruction neared its end in the mid eighteen seventies, the Southern states regained control of their governments and took away many of the rights that were given to the black population after the war.

Lincoln's Plan For The Reconstruction:

Soon after the beginning of the war in 1861, the Northern government began arguing about how the rebellious states should be brought back into the Union. The controlled debate, over a period of time, turned slowly nasty. So, in December 1863, President Lincoln made public his own plan for the Reconstruction. His plan gave a pardon to every Southerner that swore an oath to never again disobey the Union. It offered that if at least 10 percent of a state's population took the oath, that state could choose its own government and set up its own new constitution. Lincoln also made it very clear that slavery would not be accepted in any state, and that all states must abolish slavery. However, one week after the Civil War ended, on April 16, Lincoln was assassinated by a radical southerner John Wilkes Booth. The Vice-President of that time, Andrew Johnson from Tennessee, took Lincoln's place as President of the United States.