Reconstruction encompassed three major initiatives: restoration of the Union, transformation of southern society, and enactment of progressive legislation favoring the rights of freed slaves.

The Reconstruction implemented by Congress, which lasted from 1866 to 1877, was aimed at reorganizing the Southern states after the Civil War, providing the means for readmitting them into the Union, and defining the means by which whites and blacks could live together in a nonslave society.

The Compromise of 1877 effectively ended the Reconstruction era. Southern Democrats' promises to protect the civil and political rights of Black people were not kept, and the end of federal interference in southern affairs led to widespread disenfranchisement of Black voters.

During the period, Congress passed three constitutional amendments that permanently abolished slavery, defined birthright citizenship and guaranteed due process and equal protection under the law, and granted all males the ability to vote by prohibiting voter discrimination based on race, color, or previous condition ...

The most difficult task confronting many Southerners during Reconstruction was devising a new system of labor to replace the shattered world of slavery. The economic lives of planters, former slaves, and nonslaveholding whites, were transformed after the Civil War.

On the negative side, however, Reconstruction led to great resentment and even violence among Southerners. Terrorist organizations, like the Ku Klux Klan, struck fear into the hearts of African Americans and anyone who cooperated with the Republican governments.

The Crédit Mobilier scandal, the Depression of 1873, and the Resumption Act of 1875 focused attention away from the South and onto political and economic woes in the North. All three thus played a role in ending Reconstruction.