Reconstruction Government in the South

By 1870, the former Confederate states had been readmitted to the Union under new constitutions that marked a striking departure in Southern government. For the first time in the region's history, state-funded public school systems were established, as well as orphan asylums and other facilities.

The new governments passed the region's first civil rights laws, reformed the South's antiquated tax system, and embarked on ambitious and expensive programs of economic development, hoping that railroad and factory development would produce a prosperity shared by both races.

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Composed of slave ministers, artisans, and Civil War veterans, and blacks who had been free before the Civil War, a black political leadership emerged that pressed aggressively for an end to the South's racial caste system.

African Americans served in virtually every governmental capacity during Reconstruction, from member of Congress to state and local officials. Their presence in positions of political power symbolized the political revolution wrought by Reconstruction.