The Reconstruction Period & Women's Suffrage

Kevin J. Gomez

The following is a brief attempt to examine the significant events in the Reconstruction Period:
Reconstruction under President Andrew Johnson in 1865 was controlled and implemented entirely by him for the first eight months of his term since Congress had recessed. Johnson devised new state governments in the South using presidential powers vested upon him by Congressional legislation.
Essentially, Johnson favored Secretary of War Edwin Stanton’s plan to impose military authority and appoint provisional governors in furtherance of creating new state governments. The major stumbling block in Stanton’s plan was giving voting rights to black men in the south. Johnson favored states’ rights to decide on male Black voting, but in reality, was anti-African-American (Norton, et. al., 1999, 302).
Johnson appointed provisional governors that drafted constitutions that abolished slavery, and restored states to the Union with full congressional representation...