History- Vocab Reconstruction

Question 1

“10” percent Reconstruction plan.

Answer 1

Introduced by President Lincoln, it proposed that a state be readmitted to the Union once 10 percent of its voters had pledged loyalty to the United States and promised to honor emancipation.

Question 2

Wade-Davis bill

Answer 2

Passed by Congressional Republicans in response to Abraham Lincoln’s “10 percent plan,” it required that 50 percent of a state’s voters pledge allegiance to the Union, and set stronger safeguards for emancipation. Reflected divisions between Congress and the President, and between radical and moderate Republicans, over the treatment of the defeated South.

Question 3

Andrew Johnson

Answer 3

Lincoln’s Vice President who replaced Lincoln after Lincoln was shot. He was an anti-secession Southerner who wanted former Confederate leaders to be punished but was against equality for black people.

Question 4

Thirteenth Amendment

Answer 4

Constitutional amendment prohibiting all forms of slavery and involuntary servitude (other than if one has been convicted of a crime). Former confederate States were required to ratify the amendment prior to gaining reentry into the Union.

Question 5

Freedmen’s Bureau

Answer 5

Created to aid newly emancipated slaves by providing food, clothing, medical care, education and legal support.

Question 6

Black Codes

Answer 6

Laws passed throughout the South to restrict the rights of emancipated black people, particularly with respect to negotiating labor contracts. Increased Northerner’s criticisms of President Andrew Johnson’s lenient Reconstruction policies.

Question 7

Civil Rights Bill

Answer 7

Passed over Andrew Johnson’s veto, the bill aimed to counteract the Black Codes by conferring citizenship on African Americans and making it a crime to deprive black people of their rights to sue, testify in court, or hold property.

Question 8

Tenure of Office Act

Answer 8

Required the President to seek approval from the Senate before removing appointees. When Andrew Johnson removed his secretary of war in violation of the act, he was impeached by the house but remained in office when the Senate fell one vote short of removing him.

Question 9

Reconstruction Act

Answer 9

Also known as “Military Reconstruction”, it was passed by the newly-elected Republican Congress. It divided the South into five military districts, disenfranchised former confederates, and required that Southern states both ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and write state constitutions guaranteeing freedmen the franchise (vote) before gaining readmission to the Union.

Question 10

Carpetbaggers

Answer 10

Pejorative term (or slur) used by Southern whites to describe Northern businessmen and politicians who came to the South after the Civil War to work on Reconstruction projects, help protect the rights of the newly freed black people, or invest in Southern Infrastructure.

Question 11

Scalawags

Answer 11

Derogatory term (or slur) for Southerners who helped the Republican party with Reconstruction and assisted the Federal Government in protecting the rights of newly freed black people. Southern Democrats accused them of plundering the resources of the South in collusion with Republican Government after the Civil War.

Question 12

Fourteenth Amendment

Answer 12

Constitutional amendment that extended civil rights to freedmen and prohibited states from taking away such rights without due process.

Question 13

Fifteenth Amendment

Answer 13

Prohibited states from denying citizens the franchise ( the right to vote) on account of race. While it gave black men the right to vote, it disappointed women’s suffrage advocates who wanted the Amendment to include women’s right to vote, as well.

Question 14

Uylsses S. Grant

Answer 14

Former Union General who became President after Andrew Johnson. Worked to implement policies to protect the rights of African Americans in the South during Reconstruction.

Question 15

Ku Klux Klan

Answer 15

An extremist, paramilitary, right-wing secret society founded in the mid-nineteenth century. Its members, cloaked in sheets to conceal their identities, terrorized freedmen and sympathetic whites throughout the South after the Civil War. By the 1890’s, Klan-style violence and Democratic legislation succeeded in disenfranchising virtually all Southern black people.

Question 16

Force Acts

Answer 16

These acts were passed in 1870 and 1871. They were created to put a stop to the torture and harassment of black people by white people, especially by terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. These acts gave power to the government to use the force of the US army to stop the KKK and protect rights of newly freed black people.

Question 17

Amnesty Act of 1872

Answer 17

Ended office-holding disqualifications against most of the Confederate leaders and other former civil and military officials who had rebelled against the Union in the Civil War.

Question 18

Civil Rights act of 1875

Answer 18

The last of the major Reconstruction laws. It guaranteed African Americans equal treatment in public facilities and public accommodations and service on juries. The Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional in the Civil Rights cases (1883) which permitted segregation in restaurants, theaters, etc.

Question 19

Compromise of 1877

Answer 19

The compromise took place during the electoral standoff in 1876 between Hayes (Republicans) and Tilden (Democrat). The Compromise of 1877 meant that the Democrats reluctantly agreed that Hayes would take office if he ended Reconstruction in the South.

Question 20

Sharecropping

Answer 20

After the Civil War (and even more after Reconstruction) former landowners “rented” plots of land to black people and poor whites in such a way that the reenters were always in debt and therefore tied to the land. Sharecropping was little better than life as a slave. as they did not own the land but paid shares of the crops. Sharecroppers were often in debt to the landlord.

Question 21

Jim Crow Laws

Answer 21

The systematic practice of discriminating against and segregating Black people, especially as practiced in the American South from the end of Reconstruction to the mid-20th century.

Question 22

Plessy Vs Ferguson

Answer 22

Supreme Court case that ruled that segregation in government-provided facilities did not violate the 14th Amendment and was Constitutional. Established the “separate but equal” doctince.

Question 22

Plessy Vs Ferguson

Answer 22

Supreme Court case that ruled that segregation in government-provided facilities did not violate the 14th Amendment and was Constitutional. Established the “separate but equal” doctince.