Amendments & Laws
Poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and literacy tests were used to get around this amendment.
What is the Fifteenth Amendment?
What influence is reflected by the dates of readmission to the Union and the return to conservative rule? (There is a map attached to this question.)
The Compromise of 1877 and the rise of white supremacist groups like the White League.
What happened in the Louisiana cities of Colfax, Opelousas, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans?
White paramilitary groups carried out massacres against African Americans and their supporters.
Why did Congress need to decide the outcome of the 1876 election?
Because several Southern electoral votes were in dispute.
What court case stated the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to actions by individuals?
U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876)?
These laws legalized segregation across the South.
What are Jim Crow laws?
Secret society whose members wore white sheets and hoods and terrorized African Americans in the South.
Who was the Ku Klux Klan?
What was the effect of the Louisiana massacres on Southern politics?
Fewer African Americans were elected to office.
What event led to the removal of federal troops from the South?
The Compromise of 1877.
What is the main idea of the U.S. v. Cruikshank decision?
The Fourteenth Amendment only protects against state actions, not individual acts of violence.
What was the main purpose of discriminatory laws like poll taxes and literacy tests?
To prevent African Americans and poor whites from voting.
Formed in Louisiana as a political club; became a paramilitary group responsible for widespread violence against Republicans.
What did African Americans in the 1870s who wanted to vote face? (There is a cartoon attached to this question.)
The threat of violence.
Who became president as a result of the Compromise of 1877?
Rutherford B. Hayes?
According to Cruikshank, who is responsible for protecting citizens’ rights?
The individual states, not the federal government.
Which set of Amendments does Frederick Douglass refer to in his quote about law and justice?
What are the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments?
Heavily armed, loosely organized groups that claimed to be social clubs but used violence and intimidation to support Democrats.
Who were the Red Shirts?
How were Southern Democrats able to reclaim power during and after Reconstruction?
Through violence, voter suppression, and political compromise.
What was the effect of removing federal troops on Southern politics?
Republican governments collapsed; Democrats regained control.
What principle of republican government is discussed in the Cruikshank excerpt?
The equality of the rights of citizens.
What claim does Frederick Douglass’s quote support about the amendments?
That they were not being enforced properly.
How did groups like the KKK and White League affect the political culture of the South?
They used violence and fear to suppress Black voters and Republicans.
What major social and political shift did groups like the Ku Klux Klan and White League help cause?
The collapse of Reconstruction governments and return of white Democratic control.
How did the compromise affect African Americans in the South?
It left them unprotected from discrimination and violence.
How did rulings like U.S. v. Cruikshank weaken Reconstruction efforts?
They limited federal power to protect African Americans from violence and discrimination.