What were the federal government’s goals for Reconstruction, and what steps did they take to achieve those goals?

The main goal of Reconstruction was to reunify the North and South.  Each state in the former Confederacy had to develop a new constitution that prohibited slavery.  The federal government had somewhat ambiguous goals for extending rights to the former slaves, granting them their freedom in 1865, citizenship in 1868, and suffrage for black males over the age of 21 in 1870.  When state governments in the South tried to get in the way of the black suffrage movement, the North started military Reconstruction under Grant, and this would continue until 1877.  There was also the goal of creating stable state governments in the South that were pro-Union, and this meant granting many former Confederate leaders such as Alexander Stevens their American citizenship.  This was controversial, as many considered the first Reconstruction president, Andrew Johnson, to be soft on the ex-Confederates.  The final and most important goal of Reconstruction was that it should end--the American people did not intend for the federal army to occupy the South forever.  Reconstruction ended with the Compromise of 1877 when the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the White House on the condition that the occupation army left the South, thus leaving the former slaves on their own.