Wade-Davis Bill passed by Congress but killed by Lincoln’s pocket veto

Freedmen’s Bureau established

Lincoln assassinated; Andrew Johnson succeeds him as president

Johnson implements restoration plan

Ex-Confederate states pass Black Codes to limit freedpeople’s rights

Civil Rights Act passes over Johnson’s veto

Major Republican gains in congressional elections

Reconstruction Act

Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

Fourteenth Amendment ratified

Ulysses S. Grant elected president

Ku Klux Klan at peak of power

Congress passes Enforcement Laws to suppress Klan

Fifteenth Amendment ratified

Grant reelected; Crédit Mobilier scandal emerges

Panic of 1873 ushers in severe economic depression

Sweeping Democratic gains in congressional elections

Whiskey Ring and other scandals undermine Grant administration

Minor v. Happersett: Supreme Court rules that Fourteenth Amendment does not extend voting rights to women

Supreme Court severely curtails Reconstruction in U.S. v. Cruikshank

Rutherford B. Hayes becomes president

Reconstruction officially ends