Reading Quiz (p.161-172) Terms

Question 1

Military Reconstruction Act (1867)

Answer 1

Divided the South into five military districts and gave the commander of each district the right to declare martial law in order to preserve order, protect blacks, and begin the process of restoring the former Confederate states to the Union. Called new constitutional conventions, elected by blacks and those whites who had not participated in the rebellion, which must guarantee black suffrage and ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. Johnson vetoed the bill, and Congress overrode it on March 2, 1867.

Question 2

Supplementary Reconstruction Acts

Answer 2

Directed the military commanders to begin the enrollment of voters, and after a proper constitution had been written and approved by the reformed electorate, to put it into operation. Congress reserved to itself the exclusive right to review each new constitution, end military rule at the proper time, and accept states back into the Union and seat their representatives.

Question 3

Army Appropriations Act

Answer 3

Directed that the President, in his capacity as commander in chief, must issue all military orders through the General of the Army, U. S. Grant, whose office could not be moved from Washington without Senate approval.

Question 4

Tenure of Office Act

Answer 4

Congress further restricted presidential authority from removing officials approved by the Senate without first obtaining the consent of the Senate.

Question 5

Scalawags and Carpetbaggers

Answer 5

Scalawag—A white Southerner who collaborated with black freedmenandnorthern Republicans during Reconstruction, often for personal profit. The term was used derisively by white Southern Democrats who opposed Reconstruction legislation.
Carpetbagger—a person from the northern states who went to the South after the Civil War to profit from the Reconstruction.

Question 6

Which states had a majority of blacks?

Answer 6

Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and South Carolina. (700,000 vs. 60,000)

Question 7

Fourteenth Amendment

Answer 7

Defined citizenship in a manner that included black males and forbade any state from infringing the rights of citizens without due process of law. It abrogated the three-fifths clause of the Constitution.

Question 8

States restored to Union, granting ratification of 14th Amendment.

Answer 8

By June 1868, six of the former Confederate states were admitted, and with their approval the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified on July 28, 1868. The six included Arkansas (June 22), Florida (June 25), North Carolina (July 4), Louisiana (July 9), South Carolina (July 9), and Alabama (July 13). Georgia was readmitted on July 15, 1870.

Question 9

Johnson vs. Stanton

Answer 9

On August 12, 1867, President Johnson dismissed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and replaced him with General Grant. In complying with the Tenure of Office Act, Johnson submitted to the Senate his reasons for suspending Stanton, which the upper house rejected, 36 to 6, in January 1868. Grant was persuaded by the Radicals to relinquish his office, and Stanton resumed his position.
Undaunted and still defiant, Johnson sacked Stanton a second time on February 21, 1868, accusing Grant of treachery, and appointed Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas to take Stanton’s place.Thisultimately led to Johnson being impeached by the House of Representatives.When Johnson’s impeachment wasacquitted, Stanton resigned.

Question 10

Articles of Impeachment against Johnson

Answer 10

On March 2 theJoint Committee on Reconstructionbrought in nine charges against Johnson. These articles dealt mainly with alleged violations of the Tenure of Office Act, but they also included accusations of a conspiracy by intimidation and threats to prevent Stanton from holding office. The following day the House added two more articles: one accusing the President of “violent utterances” and the other a catchall called the omnibus article.

Question 11

Presidential election of 1868

Answer 11

the Republicans nominated Ulysses S. Grant asits presidential candidate, along with Schuyler Colfax, the Radical Speaker of the House of Representatives, as his running mate. The Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour, former governor of New York, and Francis P. Blair of Missouri, who were defeated by a lopsided vote in the electoral college (80 to 214) by the Republican ticket.

Question 12

Fifteenth Amendment and ratification

Answer 12

Passed on February 26, 1869, this amendment forbade any state to deny a citizen the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. All unreconstructed states had to ratify this amendment before they could be considered ready for readmission to the Union. Virginia (January 26, 1870), Mississippi (February 23); and Texas (March 30) were restored. The Fifteenth Amendment was declared ratified on March 30, 1870.

Question 13

African-Americans in Congress during Reconstruction

Answer 13

Reconstructed southern states sent the first of a long line of African-Americans to Congress as both representatives and senators. Hiram Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, took a seat in the Senate on February 25, 1870. In the House, the first African-American to gain election was Joseph Rainey, a Republican from South Carolina, who was sworn in on December 12, 1870. In May 1874, Rainey became the first African American to preside over the House of Representatives as Speaker.
A total of sixteen African-Americans served in Congress during Reconstruction, but each served only one or two terms.

Question 14

Ex parte milligan

Answer 14

The Supreme Court ruled that martial law was unconstitutional where civil courts were in operation. Fearful that the court might invalidate the Reconstruction Acts, Congress passed legislation in March 1868 that denied it jurisdiction in the matter.

Question 15

Texas v. White

Answer 15

The Supreme Court affirmed the argument by Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln that the Union was indissoluble and thatthe Constitutiondid not permit statesto unilaterally secedefrom the United States.

Question 16

Supreme Court

Answer 16

Upheld the right of Congress to reconstruct. Through a number of decisions, the Court slowly gained recognition as the final interpreter of the Constitution, a claim not specifically stated in the document itself.

Question 17

Ways the South disenfranchised blacks

Answer 17

When military reconstruction ended, Southern States enacted literacy, educational, and property tests, which effectively disenfranchised African-Americans and ultimately restored white rule in the South.
One of the more effective ways of preventing blacks from voting was by intimidation. The Ku Klux Klan, founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866, with the former Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest as the first Grand Wizard, aimed specifically at restoring white rule through violence and lawlessness by striking terror among blacks if they dared to vote. Lynchings and beatings became daily occurrences, especially during elections, and it has been estimated that approximately 400 hangings of African-Americans occurred between 1868 and 1871.

Question 18

Enforcement Acts (1870-71)

Answer 18

Congress passed three Enforcement Acts in 1870–1871, the first two of which outlawed the use of force or intimidation to prevent citizens from exercising their right of suffrage and provided federal supervisors to oversee the registration of voters. The third Enforcement Act, called the Ku Klux Klan Act, empowered the President to use the military to protect black voters from intimidation and violence and to suspend the writ of habeas corpus when necessary. Not until the Democrats returned to power some twenty years later were these “Force Acts” repealed.

Question 19

Reclaim of South by whites

Answer 19

As the Grant administration slowly moved away from employing military and courts to carry out Congressional Reconstruction, whites gradually “Redeemed” their states from Republican rule. More and more ex-Confederates were elected to Congress, and the South was slowly reclaimed by its former ruling class.

Question 20

Civili Rights Act of 1875

Answer 20

Prohibited racial discrimination in public accommodations, public transportation, and jury selection. The bill was passed and signed by President Grant on March 1, 1875.

Question 21

The Gilded Age

Answer 21

Mark Twain and coauthor Charles Dudley Warner described the new age in a book titled “The Gilded Age,” which depicted American society as profoundly corrupt. It was a “tale of today,” because it typified business operations throughout the nation following the Civil War. Henry Adams, an historian and a contemporary, described this era as “poor in purpose and barren in results. One might search the list of Congress, Judiciary, and Executive during the twenty-five years,1870–1895, and find little but damaged reputations.”

Question 22

Industrialization (1865-1900)

Answer 22

The industrialization of the country resulted in large measure from the direct and indirect support and subsidy given it by the national government. Railroads throughout the nation expanded from30,000to200,000miles of track.This expansion involved extensive public assistance, particularly land grants. Protective tariffs were another form of support and stimulated such manufactures as steel, copper, and wool. Federal banking and monetary policies attracted both foreign and domestic investors.
Money flowed, bringing great wealth. Of course, it came at a price. Bribery, conspiracy, conflict of interest, blackmail, and other assorted crimes were commonplace during the Gilded Age.

Question 23

Railroad corruption

Answer 23

Railroads offered free passes, stock in the company, and even cash to appropriate legislators, especially chairmen of key committees.Congressmen chose to accept the largess as gifts in appreciation and recognition of their status and importance. They liked to believe there was nothing wrong in providing favors through legislative action and then receiving appropriate acknowledgment for their efforts. Some congressmen even held executive positions or served on railroad boards.

Question 24

Jay Cooke

Answer 24

An American financier who helped finance the Union war effort during the American Civil War and the postwar development of railroads in the northwestern United States. He is generally acknowledged as the first major investment banker in the United States and creator of the first wire house firm. He regularly conferred financial favors on congressmen and even held the mortgage on the home of Speaker James Blaine.

Question 25

Credit Mobilier scandal

Answer 25

Credit Mobilier was a dummy construction company formed by the Union Pacific Railroad to provide profits from the building of the line which were distributed to worthy congressmen in return for political favors. Republican Representative Oakes Ames of Massachusetts sold the stock below valued price to select members of the House, who were expected to use their political influence to benefit the company.
Thescandal wasuncovered by Charles A. Dana’sNew York Sunon September4,1872, and exposed the involvement of not only the former Speaker of the House and current Vice President of the United States, Schuyler Colfax, but Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, who succeeded Colfax as Grant’s running mate in the presidential election of1872. Also included George Boutwell, the secretary of the treasury, and at least a dozen congressmen.
Congress formed a committee to investigate the Credit Mobilier scandal.The Housechose merely to condemn Ames’ conduct.As for the other members mentioned in the scandal, the committee declared that they might have been “indiscreet” in accepting stock in the company, but that they were not guilty of criminal intent. In fact most of them returned the stock as soon as the scandal came to light and denied making any appreciable financial gain.

Question 26

Presidential election of 1872

Answer 26

Grant was reelected, and his running mate, Henry Wilson, won the Vice Presidency. They defeated the Liberal Republican ticket of Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, and B. Gratz Brown. This Liberal Republican faction had developed within the Republican Party in 1871 in an effort to provide needed civil service and tariff reforms. It was led by Senator Carl Schurz, a former Union general.The Democratic Party chose to endorse Greeley and Brown rather than name its own candidates. A Prohibition Party selected James Black and John Russell as its ticket. Throughout the campaign, Republicans “waved the bloody shirt” as a reminder of the recent rebellion and successfully linked the Liberal Republicans, who opposed federal intervention in the South, with unreconstructed southern rebels.

Question 27

Whiskey Ring

Answer 27

Exposed in the spring of 1875,theWhiskeyRing defrauded thegovernmentofmillions of dollars in taxes through the sale of forged revenue stamps. President Grant’s personal secretary, General Orville E. Babcock, allegedly directed the “Ring.” Indictments of more than 200 individuals resulted, many in the Treasury Department. Although indicted himself, Babcock escaped imprisonment through the intervention of the President.

Question 28

William Belknap

Answer 28

The Secretary of War, William W. Belknap, was impeached by the House on March 2, 1876, for accepting bribes for the sale of trading posts in the Indian Territory. He resigned to avoid a trial in the Senate.

Question 29

Departments involved in embezzlement and fraud

Answer 29

Treasury, War, Navy, and Interior Departments; the Freedmen’s Bureau; the Post Office; and the attorney general’s office all helped themselves to whatever largess they could identify, resulting in numerous indictments, resignations, and, on occasion, convictions.

Question 30

Salary Grab Act

Answer 30

Even Congress succumbed to temptation. It plundered the Treasury in March 1873 by passing the so-called “Salary Grab Act,” by which the President’s salary was doubled to $50,000 and the salaries of representatives and senators were raised from $5,000 to $7,500. The raise for congressmen was awarded retroactively, thereby giving each member a $5,000 bonus. The public reacted so vehemently that Congress promptly repealed the law at its very next session, except for the President’s increase and that of the judges of the Supreme Court.

Question 31

James Blaine

Answer 31

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives and now the minority leader and favored candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1876, Blaine was accused of offering worthless bonds as collateral for a loan of $64,000 which he had received from the Union Pacific Railroad and which he had never been asked to repay. Supposedly he had used his influence as Speaker to obtain for the railroad a generous land grant. In a dramatic speech from the floor of the House he denied the charges, and his effort was so convincing that his audience broke out in wild applause.

Question 32

Panic of 1873

Answer 32

An economic depression that hit hard and lasted from 1873 to 1879. Triggered by the wild speculation in railroads, dishonest banking practices, overexpansion in industry, commerce, and agriculture, and the failure of Jay Cooke’s banking firm, the Panic generated widespread suffering. Three million workers lost their jobs over the next five years, the stock market collapsed, banks closed, farm prices fell, and one in four railroads defaulted on its bonds.

Question 33

Coinage Act

Answer 33

To counter the depression, Congress released $26 million in green- backs. Previously, in February 1873, before the Panic struck, it had passed the Coinage Act, which eliminated silver coins from circulation and designated gold as the only coin to be minted.

Question 34

Species Resumption Act

Answer 34

In January 1875, Congress enacted the Specie Resumption Act,which increased the supply of greenbacks and made them redeemable in gold, starting in January1879. This was in aresponse to those who denounced the Coinage Act and favored soft (paper) money,demanding a further increase in the money supply through the coinage of silver.
Due to continued “soft money” pressure, Richard P. “Silver Dick” Bland of Missouri introduced a bill in the House providing for the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. But the Senate added an amendment, introduced by William B. Allison of Iowa, that the Treasury coin not more that $4 million and not less than $2 million in silver monthly. This passed, over a presidential veto, and only partially satisfied the advocates of soft money.