What Three Policies Would Most Have Helped Ensure a Successful Reconstruction?

Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the most important action by Congress towards protecting the rights of Freedmen during Reconstruction. The Congress passed the act as a counterattack against the Black Codes in the southern, which had been recently enacted by all former slave states following the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Included in the Civil Rights Act were the rights to: make contracts, sue, bear witness in court and own private property. The Act granted freedmen all the benefits of federal citizenship, without regard to race, color, or previous condition, and promised that federal courts would uphold these rights. In cases where these rights were violated, federal troops would be used for enforcement. The Civil Rights Act also helped to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment. The Act made African Americans American citizens and forbade discrimination against them.

The Fourteenth Amendment intended to secure rights for former slaves. It was proposed by the congress in 1866, and sent to states to ratify in 1868. The amendment provides a broad definition of national citizenship, overturning the Dred Scott case, which excluded African Americans. The amendment declare that citizenship would be the same in all states, that states that did not give freedmen ht vote would have reduced representation in the congress, and that former Confederate official could not hold public office.

The Fifteenth Amendment recognized the right of black men to participate in the American democratic process as voters and officeholders. The Fifteenth Amendment was an important beginning, granting the constitutional right of all black men to participate in local, state, and national government for the first time in American history. The Amendment prohibits the states or the federal government from using a citizen's race, color, or previous status as a slave as a voting qualification. Its basic purpose was to enfranchise former slaves. After the passage on a per capita and absolute basis, more blacks were elected to political office during the period from 1865 to 1880 than at any other time in American history. Although no state elected a black governor during Reconstruction, a number of state legislatures were effectively under the control of a substantial African American caucus.