The name commonly given to the process of reorganizing, 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; Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 19 L. Ed. 227.
Black’s Law Online Dictionary
