Reconstruction period (1865-77)

Question 1

what was reconstruction?

Answer 1

Reconstruction (1865-1877) was the period after the Civil War focused on rebuilding the South and integrating freed African Americans into society.

Question 2

What were the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments?

Answer 2

• 13th Amendment: Abolished slavery.
• 14th Amendment: Granted citizenship.

15th Amendment: Guaranteed voting rights regardless of race.

Question 3

Who were the Radical Republicans?

Answer 3

Radical Republicans, like Thaddeus Stevens, wanted strict Southern reform and equal rights for African Americans.

Question 4

What were the Black Codes?

Answer 4

• Laws in Southern states restricting the freedom of African Americans
• e.g. limiting their rights to work, travel, and own property.

Question 5

What was the Freedmen’s Bureau?

Answer 5

A government agency that helped former slaves with food, education, and legal issues. It faced opposition and had limited funding.

Question 6

when did the freedmens bureau close down

Answer 6

1972 due to limited funding

Question 7

How did African Americans participate in politics?

Answer 7

Nearly 2,000 Black men served in public office, but white backlash was severe, leading to groups like the KKK targeting Black politicians.

Question 8

What was the Compromise of 1877?

Answer 8

• Hayes was elected president provided Northern army left the south
• allowing white southerners to take control

Question 9

What was the role of the KKK during Reconstruction?

Answer 9

The KKK used violence to intimidate African Americans and their allies, undermining Reconstruction efforts.

Question 10

What were the economic issues during Reconstruction?

Answer 10

trapping many African Americans in poverty through sharecropping.

Question 11

What were the Enforcement Acts?

Answer 11

• Laws passed to combat KKK violence and protect African Americans’ voting rights
• they were weakly enforced

Question 12

Why did Reconstruction fail?

Answer 12

• white resistance,
• Northern apathy
• economic issues.

Question 13

what were there restrictions against african americans voting

Answer 13

• literacy tests
• the “grandfather clause” which prevented people from voting if their grandparents couldn’t.

Question 14

who were the two black senators during this period

Answer 14

Hiram K revels , Blanche K Bruce

Question 15

what % of state legislatures were black

Answer 15

15%

Question 16

who was the president after lincon?

Answer 16

Andrew Johnson

Question 17

when did he start and end his presidency

Answer 17

1865 - 1869

Question 18

what were carpetbaggers

Answer 18

• A northerner who went to the South immediately after the Civil War
• especially one who tried to gain political advantage or other advantages from the disorganized situation in southern states

Question 19

what were scalawags

Answer 19

A derogatory term for Southerners who were working with the North to buy up land from desperate Southerners

Question 20

what were the jim crow laws?

Answer 20

Laws designed to enforce segregation of blacks from whites in most Southern states after Reconstruction

Question 21

what was plessy v ferguson

Answer 21

• 1896
• Court Case brought by African American, Homer Plessy, who was arrested for sitting in the “white only” section on a railroad car.
• Supreme Courts ruled that separate but equal (segregation) was legal. Jim Crow Laws upheld as legal.

Question 22

who was Ulysses S. Grant

Answer 22

an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869-1877)

Question 23

who was Rutherford B. Hayes

Answer 23

• 19th president of the United States,
• famous for being part of the Hayes-Tilden election, most corrupt election in US history.
• Became president after Compromise of 1877.

Question 24

what was Civil Rights Act of 1866

Answer 24

Federal law granting citizenship to former slaves; passed over Johnson’s veto.

Question 25

What was reconstruction Act of 1867

Answer 25

• Plan established by Radical Republicans to readmit the Southern states into the Union. Required the states to:
  1) be divided into military districts.
  2) no Confederates could serve on Constitutional Convention
  3) Ratify the 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment
  4) Military there to ensure African American men could vote

Question 26

what was Sharecropping

Answer 26

• type of farm system in which landowners rent out land and supplies to a family
• In return the family pays the landowner a percentage/ share of the crop as payment.

Question 27

what was Share-Tenancy

Answer 27

Much like sharecropping, except that the farmer chose what crop he would plant and bought his own supplies

Question 28

What was Tenant Farming

Answer 28

System in which a farmer paid rent to a landowner for the use of the land