Reconstruction Unit Test Study Guide – Flashcards
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Freedmen's Bureau
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1865 - Agency set up to aid former slaves in adjusting themselves to freedom. It furnished food and clothing to needy blacks and helped them get jobs.
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black codes
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To keep African-Americans from their inalienable rights. They deprived blacks of life, liberty or property without due process of law. In 1866, a small group of leaders in the Radical Republican Party got Congress to pass a Civil Rights Act which eliminated it.
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Radical Republicans
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one of the congressional Republicans who, after the Civil War, wanted to destroy the political power of former slaveholders and to give African Americans full citizenship and the right to vote.
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scalawag
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white Southerner supporting Reconstruction policies after the Civil War usually for self-interest
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carpetbagger
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Northerners who went to the South during Reconstruction. They carried their belongings in carpetbags, and most intended to settle in the South and make money there. Part of the radical government, they passed much needed reforms.
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sharecropping
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Mostly Freedmen who had no tools or supplies, and worked, farmed, and lived on someone else's land. Borrowed what they needed on credit from the owner, it was a bad because the farmer always owed more money than they made on the farm, leaving them stuck in this system.
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poll taxes
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Small taxes levied on the right to vote that often fell due at a time of year when poor African-American sharecroppers had the least cash on hand. This method was used by most Southern states to exclude African Americans from voting. Poll taxes were declared void by the Twenty-fourth Amendment in 1964.
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grandfather clause
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Said that a citizen could vote only if his grandfather had been able to vote. At the time, the grandfathers of black men in the South had been slaves with no right to vote. Another method for disenfranchising blacks.
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lynching
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The practice of an angry mob hanging a percieved criminal without regard to due process. In the South, blacks who did not behave as the inferiors to whites might be lynched by white mobs.
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segregation
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The separation of blacks and whites, mostly in the South, in public facilities, transportation, schools, etc.
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Abraham Lincoln
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One of the most skillful politicians in Republican party. Lawyer. Tried to gain national exposure by debates with Stephen A. Douglas. The Lincoln-Douglas debates attracted much attention. Lincoln's attacks on slavery made him nationally known. He felt slavery was morally wrong, but was not an abolitionist. He felt there was not an alternative to slavery and blacks were not prepared to live on equal terms as whites. Won presidency in November election.
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Andrew Johnson
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A Southerner form Tennessee, as V.P. when Lincoln was killed, he became president. He opposed radical Republicans who passed Reconstruction Acts over his veto. The first U.S. president to be impeached, he survived the Senate removal by only one vote.
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Charles Sumner
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senator from Massachusetts who was attacked on the floor of the Senate (1856) for antislavery speech; he required three years to recover but returned to the Senate to lead the Radical Republicans and to fight for racial equality. Sumner authored Civil Rights Act of 1875.
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Thaddeus Stevens
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Radical rep. charmain of house of ways and means committee. wrote much of financial legislation that paid for war. critic against moderate actions against south: saw lincoln-johnson policies as too lenient. favored a war of extermination and resolution of the south. not only represented ideology of rep party but made it his personal initiative to see it carried through. fierce dedication can be seen in his battle with johnson, where radical reps and president would face off.
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Hiram Revels
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an African American who served in the Senate representing Mississippi, he was clergyman and teacher, became the nation's first black senator in 1870, he completed the unfinished term of former Confederate president, Jefferson Davis
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Ku Klux Klan
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An organization of white supremacists that used lynchings, beatings, and threats to control the black population in the United States. Expressed beliefs in respect for the American woman and things purely American [anti-immigrant]. Strongest periods were after the Civil War, a resurfacing in 1915 [on Stone Mountain, GA.] continuing through the 1920s, and another upsurge in the 1990s.
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Rutherford B. Hayes
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19th president of the united states, was famous for being part of the Hayes-Tilden election in which electoral votes were contested in 4 states, most corrupt election in US history. lost majority but won electoral by one vote
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Ten Percent Plan
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Lincoln's plan that allowed a Southern state to form its own government afetr ten percent of its voters swore an oath of loyalty to the United States
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Wade Davis Bill
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1864 Proposed far more demanding and stringent terms for reconstruction; required 50% of the voters of a state to take the loyalty oath and permitted only non-confederates to vote for a new state constitution; Lincoln refused to sign the bill, pocket vetoing it after Congress adjourned.
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Civil Rights Act 1866
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1866- Passed by the Radical Republicans who overrided Johnson's veto, the Civil Rights Act was their attempt to give blacks equal rights. Unfortunately, the plan failed to have effect on the South, as segregation still continued.
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13th Amendment
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neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction
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14th Amendment
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This amendment declared that all persons born or naturalized in the United States were entitled equal rights regardless of their race, and that their rights were protected at both the state and national levels.
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15th Amendment
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citizens cannot be denied the right to vote because of race, color , or precious condition of servitude
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Reconstruction Act
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It divided the South into 5 military districts, each commanded by a union general and policed by Union soldiers. It also required that states wishing to be re-admitted into the Union had to ratify the 14th Amendment, and that states' constitutions had to allow former adult male slaves to vote.
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Amnesty Act of 1872
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Removed the last of the restrictions on ex-Confederates, except for the top leaders, The chief political consequence of the Amnesty Act was that it allowed southern conservatives to vote for Democrats to retake control of state govts.
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Election of 1876
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Race for the presidency between Republican Rutherford B Hayes and Democrat Samuel J Tilden. The decision of the winner came down to congress but no one knew which house should vote because the Senate was Republican and the House of Reps was Democratic. Congress created a Special Electoral Commission consisting of 5 senators, 5 House Reps, and 5 justices from the Supreme court. Votes went 8-7 in favor of Hayes.
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Plessy v. Ferguson
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(1896) Plessy was made to sit in the black train car because he was an octoroon (1/8 black). Railroad company was on his side because they paid too much to maintain seperate cars. Established "seperate but equal" clause
