17) Presidential and congressional Reconstruction, its accomplishments and failures

Question 1

13th Amendment (1865)

Answer 1

• Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude

- Completed the work of the Emancipation Proclamation

Question 2

14th Amendment (1868)

Answer 2

• Made former slaves citizens (invalidating Dred Scot decision)
• Provided for equal protection of the laws for ALL citizens
• Enforced congressional legislation guaranteeing civil rights to former slaves

Question 3

15th Amendment (1870)

Answer 3

• Provided suffrage for Black males

Question 4

Radical Reconstruction - Causes

Answer 4

1. Former Confederates were elected to Congress
2. Black Codes were enacted in Southern states
3. Race riots broke out in New Orleans and Memphis
4. Attempts in South to undermine 14th Amendment

Question 5

Andrew Johnson’s Plans for Reconstruction

Answer 5

• Promoted states rights in determining voting requirements or other questions at state level
• Southern governments were given free reign to build themselves

Question 6

Black Codes

Answer 6

• Enacted in many southern states

- Designed to restrict freed blacks’ activity and ensure their availability as a labor force

Question 7

Reconstruction Act of 1867

Answer 7

• temporarily divided the South into five military districts - military occupation of the South was permitted
• Outlined how governments based on universal male suffrages were to be organized
• Required states to ratify 14th Amendment

Question 8

Achievements of Radical Reconstruction

Answer 8

• Public school systems in Southern states were improved

- African Americans were elected to House and Senate

Question 9

Compromise of 1877

Answer 9

• Democrats agreed not to block Hayes’ victory
• Republicans agreed to withdraw all federal troops form the South (consolidated Democratic control over the South)
• Florida, Louisiana, and SC became Democratic states once again
• Effectively ended the Reconstruction era

Question 10

Sharecroppers

Answer 10

• The majority of freedmen entered sharecropping arrangements with their former masters
• Sharecropping led to a cycle of debt and depression for Southern tenant farmers

Question 11

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Answer 11

• A-A train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow car, breaking Louisiana law
• Upheld the constitutionality of segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine
• Led to the establishment of separate school systems for African Americans