Homestead Act
...ry back together. There was great debate about how severely the former Confederate states should be punished for leaving the Union. With the assassination of President Lincoln in 1865, it was up to President Andrew Johnson to try to reunite former enemies. The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 laid out the process for readmitting Southern states into the Union. The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) provided former slaves with national citizenship, and the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) granted black men the right to vote. These were only the first steps, however, toward reconstructing the fragmented nation. Compromise of 1877: In the close election of 1876, Republican governor of Ohio Rutheford B. Hayesand governor Samuel J. Tilden of New York. To ensure Haye' s election Republicans leaders in the senate negotiated secretly with conservative Democrats, who were willing to abandon their opposition if the last troops were withdrawn and "home rule" restores to the South. There were also vague pledges of federal support for southern railroads and internal improvements. Hayes also promised also promised to end federal support for Radical regimes. The entire South was firmly under the control of whit...