The 'Reconstruction Amendments' are the
Thirteenth,
Fourteenth, and
Fifteenth amendments to the
United States Constitution, passed between 1865 and 1870, the five years immediately following the
Civil War. This group of Amendments are sometimes referred to as the Civil War Amendments.
The Amendments were intended to restructure the United States from a country that was (in
Abraham Lincoln's words) "half
slave and half free" to one in which the constitutionally guaranteed "blessings of liberty" would be extended to the entire populace, including the former slaves and their descendants.
The Thirteenth Amendment (proposed and ratified in 1865) abolished slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868 included the
Privileges or Immunities Clause,
Due Process and
Equal Protection Clauses. The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, grants voting rights regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude".