The
Reconstruction Amendments are the
Thirteenth,
Fourteenth, and
Fifteenth amendments to the
United States Constitution, adopted between 1865 and 1870, the five years immediately following the
Civil War. The amendments were important in implementing the
Reconstruction of the American South after the war. Their proponents saw them as transforming 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.