Reconstruction Acts

American  

plural noun

1. U.S. History. the acts of Congress during the period from 1865 to 1877 providing for the reorganization of the former Confederate states and setting forth the process by which they were to be restored to representation in Congress, especially the acts passed in 1867 and 1868.

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Example Sentences

Congress passed, over President Andrew Johnson’s veto, the first of four Reconstruction Acts.

From Washington Times • Mar. 2, 2021

The Reconstruction Acts required the Southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment and give African Americans the vote before they’d be readmitted to the Union.

From Washington Post • May 16, 2018

Spring and Summer 1867 : Congress passes three radical Reconstruction Acts, dividing the Confederacy into military districts, and giving the military power over the judiciary and politics in the former Southern states.

From Slate • Oct. 27, 2017

Predictably, President Johnson vetoed the Reconstruction Acts, viewing them as both unnecessary and unconstitutional.

From Textbooks • Dec. 30, 2014

Texas, too, was in her final stage of restoration in 1870, and like Virginia and Mississippi was readmitted upon conditions that had become more onerous since the passage of the Reconstruction Acts in 1867.

From The New Nation by Dodd, William E.