Reconstruction Vocabulary

Question 1

reform

Answer 1

amended by removal of faults, abuses, etc.

Question 2

nativist

Answer 2

a person who urges the promotion of the interests of inhabitants born in a country over those of immigrants

Question 3

steam engine

Answer 3

an engine worked by steam, typically one in which a sliding piston in a cylinder is moved by the expansive action of the steam generated in a boiler.

Question 4

reform movement

Answer 4

an uncommon variant of removal.

Question 5

Suffrage

Answer 5

the right to vote, especially in a political election.

Question 6

Co-Education

Answer 6

the education of students of both sexes together.

Question 7

Abolitionist

Answer 7

a person who favors the abolition of a practice or institution, especially capital punishment or (formerly) slavery.

Question 8

Casualty

Answer 8

a member of the armed forces lost to service through death, wounds, sickness, capture, or because their whereabouts or condition cannot be determined.

Question 9

Revolt

Answer 9

to break away from or rise against constituted authority, as by open rebellion; cast off allegiance or subjection to those in authority; rebel; mutiny

Question 10

Prohibition

Answer 10

the act of prohibiting.

Question 11

Three Fifths Compromise

Answer 11

settled how enslaved people would be counted for purposes of representation and taxation

Question 12

Underground Railroad

Answer 12

Also called underground railway. a railroad running through a continuous tunnel, as under city streets; subway.

Question 13

Dred Scott Decision

Answer 13

See under Scott

Question 14

Bleeding Kansas

Answer 14

Kansas entered the Union as a free state on January 29.

Question 15

Union Troops

Answer 15

the land force that fought to preserve the collective Union of the states

Question 16

Confederacy

Answer 16

an alliance between persons, parties, states, etc., for some purpose.

Question 17

Abraham Lincoln

Answer 17

served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861

Question 18

Jefferson Davis

Answer 18

served as the first and only president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865

Question 19

Secession

Answer 19

an act or instance of seceding.

Question 20

Militia

Answer 20

a body of citizens enrolled for military service, and called out periodically for drill but serving full time only in emergencies

Question 21

Battle of Fort Sumter

Answer 21

opening the Civil War, which redefined American freedom

Question 22

Battle of Bull Run

Answer 22

the first full-scale battle of the Civil War.

Question 23

Battle of Shiloh

Answer 23

ended the Confederacy’s hopes of blocking the Union advance into Mississippi and doomed the Confederate military initiative in the West.

Question 24

Battle of Antietam

Answer 24

one of the key turning points of the American Civil War

Question 25

Battle of Gettysburg

Answer 25

the war’s turning point

Question 26

Gettysburg Address

Answer 26

the notable short speech made by President Lincoln on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the national cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa.

Question 27

Appomattox Court House

Answer 27

A village in Virginia where General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865, effectively ending the American Civil War.

Question 28

Surrender

Answer 28

to yield (something) to the possession or power of another; deliver up possession of on demand or under duress:
to surrender the fort to the enemy; to surrender the stolen goods to the police.

Question 29

Emancipation Proclamatio

Answer 29

the proclamation issued by President Lincoln on September 22, 1862, that freed the people held as slaves in those territories still in rebellion against the Union from January 1, 1863, forward.

Question 30

13th Amendment

Answer 30

an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865, abolishing slavery.

Question 31

US Civil War

Answer 31

War was a civil war in the United States between the Union (“the North”) and the Confederac

Question 32

Reconstruction

Answer 32

the act of reconstructing, rebuilding, or reassembling, or the state of being reconstructed:
the gigantic task of reconstruction after a fire.

Question 33

Jim Crow Laws

Answer 33

any state law discriminating against Black persons.

Question 34

Segregation

Answer 34

the act or practice of segregating; a setting apart or separation of people or things from others or from the main body or group:
gender segregation in some fundamentalist religions.

Question 35

Reconstruction Act of 1867

Answer 35

outlined the terms for readmission to representation of rebel states

Question 36

Amnesty

Answer 36

a general pardon for offenses, especially political offenses, against a government, often granted before any trial or conviction.

Question 37

Ten Percent Plan

Answer 37

allow Confederate states to establish new state governments after 10 percent of their male population took loyalty oaths

Question 38

Freedman

Answer 38

a man who has been freed from slavery.

Question 39

Integrate

Answer 39

to bring together or incorporate (parts) into a whole

Question 40

Sharecropping

Answer 40

A system of farming that developed in the South after the Civil War, when landowners, many of whom had formerly held slaves, lacked the cash to pay wages to farm laborers, many of whom were former slaves. The system called for dividing the crop into three shares — one for the landowner, one for the worker, and one for whoever provided seeds, fertilizer, and farm equipment.

Question 41

Lynching

Answer 41

to put to death, especially by hanging, by mob action and without legal authority:
In the 19th and 20th centuries, thousands of southern African Americans were lynched by white mobs.