Editing History of the United States (section)

=== Reconstruction ===
{{Main|Reconstruction era|History of the United States (1865–1918)}}
{{Further|Ku Klux Klan|Jim Crow laws|Nadir of American race relations}}
[[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]] lasted from the end of the war until [[Compromise of 1877|1877]].{{Sfn|Guelzo, Fateful Lightning}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=A Short History of Reconstruction |url=https://archive.org/details/shorthistoryofre00eric |year=1990 |publisher=Harper & Row |isbn=9780060964313 |author-link=Eric Foner}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Summers |first=Mark Wahlgren |title=The Ordeal of the Reunion: A New History of Reconstruction |year=2014}}</ref> Lincoln supported the [[Ten Percent Plan]] for states' re-admission, and the right of Black people to vote.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-06-05 |title=Reconstruction - Definition, Summary, Timeline & Facts |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Reconstruction-United-States-history |access-date=2024-06-12 |website=Britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> Lincoln was [[Assassination of Abraham Lincoln|assassinated]] in April 1865 by [[John Wilkes Booth]], and succeeded by [[Andrew Johnson]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-05-28 |title=Assassination of Abraham Lincoln - Summary, Conspirators, Trial, Impact, & Facts |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/assassination-of-Abraham-Lincoln |access-date=2024-06-12 |website=Britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>
[[File:East and West Shaking hands at the laying of last rail Union Pacific Railroad - Restoration.jpg|thumb|A May 10, 1869 picture of the completion of the [[first transcontinental railroad]] in [[Promontory, Utah]]]]

After the war, the far west was developed and settled, first by wagon trains and riverboats, and then by the [[first transcontinental railroad]]. Many Northern European immigrants took up low-cost or free farms in the Prairie States. Mining for silver and copper encouraged development.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The First Measured Century: An Illustrated Guide to Trends in America, 1900–2000 |url=https://www.pbs.org/fmc/book/1population10.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170815021759/http://www.pbs.org/fmc/book/1population10.htm |archive-date=August 15, 2017 |website=[[Public Broadcasting Service]] (PBS)}}</ref>
[[File:FreedmenVotingInNewOrleans1867.jpeg|thumb|An illustration of African-American [[Freedman|Freedmen]] voting in [[New Orleans]] in 1867]]

The severe threats of starvation and displacement of the unemployed [[Freedmen]] were met by the first major federal relief agency, the [[Freedmen's Bureau]], operated by the Army.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cimbala |first=Paul A. |title=The Freedmen's Bureau: Reconstructing the American South after the Civil War |year=2005}}</ref> The bureau also took in freed slaves.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}} Three "[[Reconstruction Amendments]]" expanded civil rights for black Americans: the 1865 [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Thirteenth Amendment]] outlawed slavery;<ref>{{Cite web |title=Thirteenth Amendment - Definition, Significance, & Facts |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Thirteenth-Amendment |access-date=2024-06-12 |website=Britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> the 1868 [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]] guaranteed equal rights and citizenship for Black people;<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-05-08 |title=Fourteenth Amendment - Definition, Summary, Rights, Significance, & Facts |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fourteenth-Amendment |access-date=2024-06-12 |website=Britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> the 1870 [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]] prevented race from being used to disenfranchise men.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-05-02 |title=Fifteenth Amendment - Definition, Significance, & Facts |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fifteenth-Amendment |access-date=2024-06-12 |website=Britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>
Ex-Confederates remained in control of most Southern states for over two years, until the [[Radical Republicans]] gained control of Congress in the [[1866 elections]]. Johnson, who sought good treatment for ex-Confederates, was virtually powerless in the face of Congress; [[Impeachment of Andrew Johnson|he was impeached]], but the Senate's [[Impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson|attempt to remove him]] from office failed by one vote. Congress enfranchised black men and temporarily banned many ex-Confederate leaders from holding office. New Republican governments came to power based on a coalition of Freedmen made up of [[Carpetbagger]]s (new arrivals from the North), and [[Scalawag]]s (native white Southerners), backed by the Army. Opponents said they were corrupt and violated the rights of whites.{{Sfn|Rable}} State by state, the New Republicans lost power to a conservative-Democratic coalition, which gained control of the South by 1877. In response to Radical Reconstruction, the [[Ku Klux Klan]] (KKK) emerged in 1867 as a white-supremacist organization opposed to black civil rights and Republican rule. President Ulysses Grant's enforcement of the [[Ku Klux Klan Act]] of 1870 shut them down.{{Sfn|Rable}} Paramilitary groups, such as the [[White League]] and [[Red Shirts (United States)|Red Shirts]] emerging around 1874, openly intimidated and attacked Black people voting.{{Sfn|Rable}}

[[File:Kkk-carpetbagger-cartoon.jpg|thumb|A September 1, 1868 cartoon from [[Tuscaloosa, Alabama|Tuscaloosa]]'s ''Independent Monitor'', threatening that the [[First Klan|KKK]] will [[Lynching|lynch]] [[scalawag]]s (left) and [[carpetbagger]]s (right) the day [[President of the United States|President]] [[Ulysses S. Grant]] takes office in 1869]]

Reconstruction ended after the disputed [[1876 United States presidential election|1876 election]]. The [[Compromise of 1877]] gave Republican [[Rutherford B. Hayes]] the presidency in exchange for removing all remaining federal troops in the South.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ayers |first=Edward L. |title=The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction |url=https://archive.org/details/promiseofnewso00ayer |year=1992 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/promiseofnewso00ayer/page/3 3]–54 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-503756-2}}</ref> In 1882, the United States passed the [[Chinese Exclusion Act]] (which barred all Chinese immigrants except for students and businessmen),<ref name="Anderson Diplomacy">{{cite journal |first=David L. |last=Anderson |title=The Diplomacy of Discrimination: Chinese Exclusion, 1876–1882 |journal=California History |volume=57 |issue=1 |year=1978 |pages=32–45 |doi=10.2307/25157814 |jstor=25157814}}</ref> and the [[Immigration Act of 1882]] (which barred all immigrants with mental health issues).<ref>Roger Daniels and Otis L. Graham, Debating American Immigration, 1882–present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 14.</ref> From 1890 to 1908, southern states effectively [[Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction era|disenfranchised]] Black and poor white voters by making voter registration more difficult through [[Poll taxes in the United States|poll taxes]] and [[literacy test]]s. Black people were segregated from whites in the violently-enforced [[Jim Crow]] system.{{Sfn|Vann Woodward}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jim Crow Laws - Causes and Effects |url=https://www.britannica.com/summary/Jim-Crow-Laws-Causes-and-Effects |access-date=2024-06-12 |website=Britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>