What did the Reconstruction Act accomplish?

 In 1867, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act, which imposed a much more strict settlement on the former Confederacy. The act divided the former Confederacy into five military districts, each of which was under the command of a U.S. Army general. U.S. troops were stationed in each district to protect black Southerners, so that they could vote and exercise other rights. Also, the act required Southern states to write new state constitutions, which would guarantee black men the right to vote, before they could rejoin the Union.

With U.S. troops in the South to protect the polls, black men began voting in large numbers. In states across the South, between 70 and 90 percent of black men voted in elections to choose delegates to state conventions to write new state constitutions, and then in general elections to choose federal, state, and local officials. Within a few years, two black men, Hiram Revels of Mississippi and Blanche K. Bruce of Virginia, were elected to the U.S. Senate. Sixteen black men were elected to the House of Representatives, and roughly 600 black men were elected to state legislators. Many white Southerners resented the presence of U.S. troops, which they considered an unnecessary and unjust occupation, but the results of the Reconstruction Act revealed that the federal government could produce remarkable, swift changes in Southern politics.