Should former confederate leaders be allowed to vote and hold office

When the Civil War ended, leaders turned to the question of how to reconstruct the nation. One important issue was the right to vote. Hotly debated were rights of black American men and former Confederate men to vote.

In the latter half of the 1860s, Congress passed a series of acts designed to address the question of rights, as well as how the Southern states would be governed. These acts included the act creating the Freedmen's Bureau, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and several Reconstruction Acts. The Reconstruction Acts established military rule over Southern states until new governments could be formed. They also limited some former Confederate officials' and military officers' rights to vote and to run for public office. (However, the latter provisions were only temporary and soon rescinded.