The war devastated the South and posed serious questions of how it would be reintegrated into the Union. The war destroyed much of the South's wealth, in part because wealth held in enslaved people (at least $1,000 each for a healthy adult prior to the war) was wiped off the books. All accumulated investment in Confederate bonds was forfeited; most banks and railroads were bankrupt. The income per person dropped to less than 40 percent of that of the North, and that lasted into the 20th century. Southern influence in the
federal government, previously considerable, was greatly diminished until the second half of the 20th century. Reconstruction began during the war, with the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863, and it continued until 1877. It comprised multiple complex methods to resolve the outstanding issues of the aftermath, the most important of which were the three "
Reconstruction Amendments" to the Constitution: the
13th outlawing slavery (1865), the
14th guaranteeing citizenship to former slaves (1868), and the
15th prohibiting the denial of voting rights "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude" (1870). From the Union perspective, the goals of Reconstruction were to consolidate victory by reuniting the Union, to guarantee a "republican form of government" for the ex-Confederate states, and to permanently end slavery—and prevent semi-slavery status.