GED Social Studies
Civil War & Reconstruction
The Civil War (1861–65) grew from decades of conflict over slavery and whether states could leave the Union. The North's victory produced three constitutional amendments; Reconstruction then tried to rebuild the South around them — and its collapse shaped the next century.
The words first
- secession
- Southern states declaring themselves out of the Union, 1860–61
- Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
- Lincoln declares slaves in rebelling states free
- 13th / 14th / 15th Amendments
- end slavery / citizenship + equal protection / vote regardless of race
- Reconstruction (1865–77)
- rebuilding and re-admitting the South
- Jim Crow
- segregation laws that followed Reconstruction's end
The method
THE ARC
decades of conflict: slavery's expansion west, free vs slave
states, the economies diverging (industry N / plantation S)
↓ Lincoln elected 1860, pledged to stop slavery's SPREAD
eleven states secede → Fort Sumter fired on, 1861
↓ four years of the country's bloodiest war
Emancipation 1863 (war aim now includes ending slavery)
↓ Union victory 1865 · Lincoln assassinated
the Reconstruction amendments:
13th free · 14th citizens+equal · 15th vote
↓ federal troops enforce them in the South
1877: troops withdrawn — Reconstruction ends
↓ Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, literacy tests
rights on PAPER survive → the tools of the 1950s–60s
civil rights movement
Worked all the way through
The problem
The 15th Amendment guaranteed the vote regardless of race in 1870, yet by 1900 almost no Black men voted in the Deep South. How were both things true at once?
- Step 1 — State what the amendment forbade.Denying the vote BECAUSE OF race — explicitly.
- Step 2 — See the workaround.After federal troops left in 1877, states invented race-neutral-sounding barriers: poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses — plus outright intimidation.
- Step 3 — Connect paper to practice.The right existed on paper but the machinery to exercise it was dismantled. It took the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to give the amendment teeth.
On the board
15th: race can't bar the vote
1870, on paper
1877: enforcement withdrawn
Reconstruction ends
poll taxes, literacy tests
race-neutral wording, racial aim
paper right, no practice
teeth arrive 1965
Voting Rights Act
Answer
States built formally race-neutral barriers — poll taxes, literacy tests — once federal enforcement left, hollowing the right until 1965
A second one, in a different form
Put in order and connect: Lincoln's election, secession, Fort Sumter.
Lincoln elected, Nov 1860
pledged to stop slavery's spread
Southern states secede
seeing slavery's future threatened
Fort Sumter fired on, Apr 1861
secession turns to war
Answer
Election → secession → Sumter: each step caused the next
The usual mistake
Believing the Emancipation Proclamation freed everyone immediately. Its reach was limited by design.
Check yourself
Keep two ledgers for this era: what the law SAID (the amendments) and what practice ALLOWED (enforcement, then Jim Crow). Half the test questions live in the gap between the two ledgers.
Practice it
Reading a worked example is not the same as doing one. score145 generates fresh Social Studies questions on this and 19 other topics, scores them on the real 100–200 scale, and keeps every question you miss so it comes back. Try five questions free with no account; a plan opens the full practice tests $6.99 a month, 3 days free.
Try 5 questions free →