Reconstruction Flashcards
Lincoln’s 10% Plan
10% of voters who voted in the 1860 have to swear alliegance and accept the 13th amendment before a seceding state could re-enter the country
Wade Davis Bill
- The Radical Republican’s harsher alternative to Lincoln’s 10%
- Plan: 50% of voters who voted in the 1860 election have to swear alliegance before the state can re-enter
Freedmen’s Bureau
- Established in 1865 by Lincoln to provide assistance to newly freed slaves and poor white people who were struggling after the Civil War.
- Goals: to employ, build hospitals, schools, housing and food to those who were in need
13th Amendment
Abolished slavery
14th Amendment
Granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African Americans/enslaved people who had been emancipated after the Civil War
15th Amendment
guranteed African American men the right to vote
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Shot by John Wilkes Booth on April 15, 1865
Andrew Johnson
- VP Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency after Lincoln’s assassination.
- Impeached for violating the Tenure of Office Act (battled and fired Lincoln’s Cabinet members) and becomes a lameduck President
The Tenure of Office Act
Prevents a non-elected President from removing cabinet members/apppointed
Impeachment
- The House of Representatives votes to ‘impeach’ the President which means the President goes on trial in front of the U.S. Senate.
- Senate votes on whether or not the President should be removed from office
Election of 1868
Grant wins electoral vote in a landslide but the popular vote was very close. Even won some states in the South because African Americans can now vote
Grant’s Presidency
attempts to protect the rights of African Americans by sending federal troops to the South and passing laws but is unsuccessful because of his corrupt cabinet and economic challenges
Panic of 1873
Companies had a surplus of war goods they could no longer sell causing their companies to fail and banks to fail. Unemployment and debt went up
Hiram Revels
- First African American to be elected to Congress (Senate) in 1870, filling Jefferson Davis’s (president of former Confedercay) seat
- Focused on improvements in education particulary in the South, to help educate poorer populations
Blanche Bruce
- 2nd African American to be elected to Congress (Senate)
- Attempted to desegregate the military and focused on improving federal goverment projects, particularly in disaster situtations (giving fed gov more power)