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)
Civil Rights Act of 1875
- African Americans cannot be prohibited from public places/transportations/jury services.
- Reinforced the equal protection clause guaranteed by the 14th amendment.
- Last great moment of Reconstruction.
Election of 1876
- Republican: Rutherford B. Hayes.
- Democrat: Samuel Tilden.
- Tilden won more popular votes, but some southern states both parties claimed they won creating 20 disputed votes requiring it to go to Congress
- Hayes wins
Compromise of 1877
- Hayes recieved all 20 votes by agreeing to remove federal troops from the South
- ended ending Reconstruction and put it in the hands of state govs.
- Corrupt bargain once again.
- Reason reconstruction ultimately failed.
Jim Crow Legislation
Republican party beginning to split allowed Democrats and ‘moderate’ Republicans to pass laws that segregated African Americans and whites. Effects last for 75+ years. “Seperate-but-equal”
Sharecropping
popular method of placing African Americans, in the South, to be bound to a contract which they were unable to escape; places African Americans and poor whites in debt because they can’t pay for basics like food, tools, and shelter; slavery 2.0
Civil Rights Cases of 1883
Supreme Court find the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional because it infringed the rights of private businesses
Black Codes
A series of laws that were established to limit the rights of African Americans in public and private establishments
Literacy Test
A required test citizens had to pass in order to vote
Poll Taxes
A required tax citizens had to pay in order to vote
Grandfather Clause
A requirement for all those voting, that their grandfather must have voted in a previous election in order to vote
Voting Roadblocks
Southern states started making rules about who could qualify to vote: If failed Literacy Test, then they could pay Poll Tax. If can’t pay Poll Tax, but could pass Grandfather Clause then could vote. (Targets African Americans)
Ku Klux Klan
Established by Nathan Bedford Forrest, a terrorist organization designed to enforce segregation in the South. Anonymous, emerges in cycles, thousands of African Americans killed (sometime for doing something simple like smiling at a white person). Had previoulsy been limited because of fed troops in South
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Homer Plessy (1/8 African American) was arrested and found guilty for sitting in a “White’s Only” rail car, suing John H. Ferguson (judge). Supreme Court declared seperate-but-equal facilities constitutional and ruled the that the 14th amendment only applied to political and civil rights like voting and jury sevice, not “social rights”. True end of Reconstruction (failed)
Goals of Reconstruction
Re-enter Southern states into the country, rebuild the South (physically), integrate newly freed Blacks into American Society
Radical Republicans
- Equality + Rights for African Americans
- Federal Programs/Projects
Moderate Republicans
- Less federal power
- Reconsturction should be in the hands of states
Democrats
- Less federal power
- Wanted to restore southern conditions (previous to the war)
