RECONSTRUCTION

The name commonly given to the process of reorganising, by acts of congress and executive action, the governments of the states which had passed ordinances of secession, and of re-establishing their constitutional relations to the national government, restoring their representation in congress, and effecting the necessary changes in their internal government, after the close of the civil war. See Black Const. Law (3d Ed.) 48; Texaa v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 19 L. Ed. 227.