Plans & Politics of Reconstruction
What does the term “reconstruct” mean
To rebuild.
Which amendment abolished slavery in the United States?
13th Amendment
What were the Southern laws designed to restrict the freedom and rights of freedpeople after the Civil War?
Black Codes
What terrorist organization formed during Reconstruction and used violence and intimidation against African Americans?
Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
In what year did Reconstruction officially end?
1877
Under Lincoln’s Reconstruction plan, what percentage of a state’s voters had to pledge allegiance to the Union before the state could be readmitted?
10 percent.
Which amendment established citizenship for people born or naturalized in the United States?
14th Amendment
What name was given to Northerners who moved South during Reconstruction?
Carpetbaggers
What federal agency was created to help former slaves make the transition from slavery to freedom?
Freedmen’s Bureau
Who were the two presidential candidates involved in the disputed Election of 1876?
Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden
After Lincoln’s assassination, who became president and took control of Reconstruction policy?
Andrew Johnson
Which amendment prohibited denying citizens the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude
15th Amendment
What name was given to white Southerners who supported Reconstruction?
Scalawags
What law did President Andrew Johnson violate when he dismissed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton?
Tenure of Office Act
What agreement resolved the disputed Election of 1876?
Compromise of 1877
Under President Johnson’s Reconstruction plan, what group had to personally request amnesty before regaining their rights?
Wealthy Southern landowners.
Besides establishing citizenship, what two protections did the 14th Amendment guarantee?
Equal protection of the laws and due process of law.
What farming system allowed freedpeople to rent land and pay the landowner with a portion of their crop?
Sharecropping
President Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives. Why was he not removed from office?
The Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority required to remove him.
As part of the Compromise of 1877, what happened to the federal troops stationed in the South?
Federal troops were removed from the South.
Lincoln, Johnson, and the Radical Republicans had different approaches to Reconstruction. Identify one major feature of each plan that shows how their approaches differed.
The three Reconstruction Amendments changed the legal status of African Americans in different ways. Using the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, explain the progression from freedom → citizenship → political participation.
Chapter 2 shows that the end of slavery did not always result in economic independence. Using sharecropping and debt peonage, explain how a freedperson could legally be free but still become economically tied to a landowner
A freedperson could become a sharecropper, farming a landowner’s property in exchange for a share of the crop. If the sharecropper owed the landlord money for cash loans or the use of tools, the worker could not leave until the debt was paid, trapping many workers in debt peonage.
Reconstruction expanded African-American political rights, but organized groups attempted to prevent African Americans from exercising those rights. Identify the constitutional amendment that protected Black voting rights and identify two groups named in Chapter 2 that used violence and intimidation against African Americans.
Connect the Election of 1876 to the later restriction of African-American political rights and name two methods identified in Chapter 2 that were later used to restrict African-American voting.
The disputed election was resolved through the Compromise of 1877. African-American voting was later restricted through methods including poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses.