Unit 4 - Chapters 13 - 15 - Provisions/Impacts

Question 1

Gadsden Purchase (1853)

Answer 1

Provisions

• The U.S. government paid Mexico $10 million in exchange for 29,670 square miles of territory.
• This territory included parts of the present-day U.S. states of Arizona and New Mexico.

Impact

• The Gadsden Purchase completed the continental expansion of the United States, fulfilling the idea of Manifest Destiny.
• The acquired land served the purpose of a southern transcontinental railroad route, advancing the transportation and communication network in the United States.

Question 2

Black Codes (1865-1866)

Answer 2

Provisions

• These were laws passed by Southern states during Reconstruction to restrict the freedom of African Americans and ensure their availability as a cheap labor force after the abolition of slavery.
• They defined racial boundaries, limited voting rights, and forbade interracial marriages.

Impact

• These codes attempted to return freed slaves to conditions similar to slavery and led to widespread discrimination against African Americans.
• The unfairness and cruelty of these laws helped galvanize support for stronger civil rights protection, leading to the 14th Amendment (1868), which granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African Americans.

Question 3

Wilmot Proviso (1846)

Answer 3

Provisions

• Proposed by Congressman David Wilmot, it suggested that any territory acquired from Mexico as a result of the Mexican-American War should be free of slavery.

Impact

• The Proviso was never passed into law, but it heightened tensions between the North and South over the issue of slavery, contributing to the sectional conflict that led to the American Civil War.

Question 4

Ku Klux Klan (Force) Acts (1870-1871)

Answer 4

Provisions

• These were three federal laws that empowered the President to use the armed forces to combat those who conspired to deny equal protection of the laws, primarily the Ku Klux Klan.
• They imposed penalties upon anyone who interfered with a citizen’s constitutional rights and allowed the federal government to intervene in state affairs to protect civil rights.

Impact

• These laws temporarily suppressed Klan violence and helped to protect the civil rights of African Americans in the South during the Reconstruction era.
• The Force Acts were among the earliest federal efforts to combat racially motivated domestic terrorism.

Question 5

Reconstruction Act of 1867

Answer 5

Provisions

• It divided the South into five military districts, each headed by a Union general.
• It required Southern states to draft new constitutions that were subject to Congressional approval and to provide suffrage to all male citizens, regardless of race.

Impact

• The Act established the means for readmitting the Southern states into the Union.
• It led to significant political changes in the South, including the election of numerous African American officials.

Question 6

Special Field Order No. 15 (1865)

Answer 6

Provisions

• Issued by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, it allocated 400,000 acres of land along the Atlantic coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida to freed slaves.
• Each family was to be given a plot of not more than 40 acres.

Impact

• The Order was an early effort to provide reparations to formerly enslaved people.
• Although it was rescinded later in the same year by President Andrew Johnson, it established the phrase “40 acres and a mule” in the American lexicon as a symbol of unfulfilled promises to African Americans.