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What did the Supreme Court rule in the case of Minor v. Happersett (1875)?
Suffrage rights were not inherent in citizenship.
Suffrage advocate Virginia Minor of Missouri had argued that the registrar who rejected her had violated her rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, but the Supreme Court responded that suffrage was a privilege, not a right of citizenship.
What was the name of the paramilitary force that was founded in Tennessee and used violence against Republicans and blacks across the South?
Ku Klux Klan
Which provision did the Senate remove from the original civil rights bill of 1870 when it passed the law in 1875?
The requirement for integration of churches
Some sympathetic Republicans feared a backlash if the federal government tried to regulate churches. In the end, the Senate removed Sumner's provision for integrated churches, and the House removed the clause requiring integrated schools.
Why were Supreme Court decisions of the 1870s and 1880s regarding the Civil War amendments and civil rights acts significant?
They restricted the impact of these amendments and rulings.
Despite the loss of power to "Redeemers" in the southern states, Reconstruction could have had lasting impact if landmark constitutional amendments and federal laws had remained in force. But in a series of rulings, the Supreme Court closed off this avenue for the pursuit of justice.
Why were the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) and the Civil Rights Cases (1883) significant for later champions of civil rights?
They limited future advocates' ability to legally use the Fourteenth Amendment and the 1875 Civil Rights Act, which these cases stripped.
If the Supreme Court had left these intact, subsequent generations of civil rights advocates could have used the federal courts to combat racial discrimination and violence. Instead, the Court closed off this avenue for the pursuit of justice, just as it dashed the hopes of women's rights advocates.
The disputed 1876 presidential election differed from previously disputed results of the electoral college in 1800 and 1824 because the 1876 election
was decided by an electoral commission.
The issue in 1800 and 1824 was that no candidate won a majority in the electoral college, a situation for which the Constitution prescribes a state-by-state vote in the House of Representatives. The event in 1876 was based on two sets of returns coming from Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina. The electoral commission had to decide which set of returns from those three states to accept.
In which scandal did President Grant appear to have perjured himself to protect Orville Babcock, his private secretary, from conviction?
Whiskey Ring
The Whiskey Ring scandal was a network of liquor distillers and treasury agents who defrauded the government of millions of dollars of excise taxes on whiskey. The ringleader was Grant's private secretary, Orville Babcock. Others went to prison, but Grant stood by Babcock, possibly perjuring himself to protect Orville Babcock from conviction.
What benefit did sharecropping offer African Americans over the old institution of slavery?
As sharecroppers, freedmen and freedwomen managed to resist gang labor and work on their own terms.
Which of the following best assesses the significance of the election of 1876 for the South?
It made little immediate difference in the South, where Redeemers had already assumed power.
In the short run, the political events of 1877 had little impact on most southerners. Much of the work of "Redemption" had already been done.
What made the failure of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company (FSTC) in 1874 so tragic?
This bank was predominantly used by black farmers, charities, and small businesses.
Former slaves associated the bank with the party of Lincoln, and thousands had responded to the call for thrift and savings. They had brought their small deposits and opened up accounts. In the early 1870s, the bank directors sank the money into risky loans and speculative investments. The bank failed in June 1874.
Which provision was part of the Wade-Davis Bill of July 1864, the first congressional plan for Reconstruction?
Those who had fought against the United States could not form new governments.
The Wade-Davis Bill provided that new governments could only be formed by those who had never taken up arms against the North.
Refer to the image "Out in the Cold"to answer the following question. Click the image to view full-size. What irony is the artist attempting to demonstrate to white men in 1870s America?
Their wives and daughters could not vote even though Irish people and African Americans could.
While the white woman seeks entrance to the polling place, two groups demeaned by white society—African Americans and Irish people—are inside, inferring they can vote.
By the late 1870s, how did the majority of freedmen and freedwomen in the South live?
In poverty with uncertain political rights
The majority of freedpeople remained in poverty, and by the late 1870s, their political rights were also eroding.
Which adjective accurately describes Republican state governments in the Reconstruction South?
Ambitious in goals
Reconstruction governments were ambitious indeed, trying to undertake impressive reforms in public education, family law, social services, commerce, and transportation.
What were the "Redemption" governments of the South in the late 1800s?
Governments formed of ex-Confederates
Ex-Confederates terrorized Republicans, especially in districts with large proportions of black voters. Black political leaders were shot, hanged, beaten to death, and in one case even beheaded. Many Republicans, both black and white, went into hiding or fled for their lives, and southern Democrats regained control of state governments, calling this process "Redemption."
In the election of 1876, on what grounds did Republican officials certify the states of Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina for Rutherford B. Hayes?
There was ample evidence of Democratic voter fraud.
Republican Party officials realized that the electoral vote stood at 184 to 165, with the 20 votes from Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana still uncertain. If Hayes took those votes, he would win by a margin of 1. Citing ample evidence of Democratic fraud and intimidation, Republican officials certified all three states for Hayes.
Which institutions were a central focus of African American culture in the Reconstruction South?
Churches
Independent churches quickly became central community institutions, as blacks across the South left white-dominated congregations, where they had sat in segregated balconies, and built churches of their own.
Which act divided the South into five military districts?
Reconstruction Act
The Reconstruction Act, passed in 1867, divided the South into five military districts.
How did Reconstruction alter African American religion?
Blacks built separate churches.
Independent churches quickly became central community institutions, as blacks across the South left white-dominated congregations, where they had sat in segregated balconies, and built churches of their own.
How do scholars now view Freedmen's Bureau officials?
As dedicated and idealistic
Scholars now view bureau officials as dedicated and often idealistic men who tried valiantly to reconcile opposing interests.
Refer to the map Reconstruction to answer the following question. Click the image to view full-size. What group was behind the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which divided the conquered South into the five military districts shown here?
Radical Republicans
After the 1866 congressional elections, power shifted to the so-called Radical Republicans, who promptly set about transforming the defeated South through the Reconstruction Act of 1867.
Why did some African Americans in the Reconstruction South resist the idea of desegregated schools?
Fear for children's safety
Although some black leaders pressed for desegregation, they were keenly aware of the backlash this was likely to provoke. Other blacks made it clear that they preferred their children to attend all-black schools, especially if they encountered hostile or condescending white teachers and classmates. Many had pragmatic concerns. Asked whether she wanted her boys to attend an integrated school, one woman in New Orleans said no: "I don't want my children to be pounded by dem white boys. I don't send them to school to fight, I send them to learn."
What statement describes Abraham Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan for Reconstruction?
It included general amnesty to all but high-ranking Confederates willing to pledge loyalty to the Union.
Lincoln's plan was a generous attempt to avoid violence and prolonged conflict while the South began the process of reintegrating its political and economic systems with the North. It included a general amnesty to all but high-ranking Confederates willing to pledge loyalty to the
Union and required that only 10 percent of white males take a loyalty oath for readmission.
Why did Congress pass the Civil Rights Act of 1875 after the bill had remained on Capitol Hill for five years?
Congress passed the law to honor its author, Charles Sumner, who had died the year before.
To honor the great Massachusetts abolitionist, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1875. However, most of it was found unconstitutional in the Civil Rights Cases of the 1880s.
What did American women's rights leaders hope to gain from Reconstruction?
Suffrage
Northern women had played key roles in the antislavery movement and the Union victory. Women's rights leaders, who had campaigned for women's voting rights since the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, fervently hoped that Reconstruction would bring votes for women as well as for black men.
Refer to the image "Out in the Cold" to answer the following question. Click the image to view full-size. Which of the following can be inferred from this political cartoon from the weekly magazine The Judge?
The artist sympathized with the anger and frustration of women.
Although the harsh way in which the woman is drawn suggests that the artist did not see political activism as
compatible with femininity, the racist images of African Americans and Asians suggest that the artist did not think blacks should have the vote if educated white middle-class women were left out.
In early 1877, who replaced Supreme Court justice David Davis on the electoral commission empowered to settle the disputed presidential election of 1876?
Joseph P. Bradley
Republican justice Bradley made it possible
for the election commission to cast its vote on the president and, on party lines, voted 8 to 7 for Hayes.
Ten Percent Plan
A plan proposed by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, but never implemented, that would have granted amnesty to most ex-Confederates and allowed each rebellious state to return to the Union as soon as 10 percent of its voters had taken a loyalty oath and the state had approved the Thirteenth Amendment. (p. 434)
Wade-Davis Bill
A bill proposed by Congress in July 1864 that required an oath of allegiance by a majority of each state's adult white men, new governments formed only by those who had never taken up arms against the Union, and permanent disenfranchisement of Confederate leaders. The plan was passed but pocket vetoed by President Abraham Lincoln. (p. 434)
Black Codes
Laws passed by southern states after the Civil War that denied ex-slaves the civil rights enjoyed by whites, punished vague crimes such as "vagrancy" or failing to have a labor contract, and tried to force African Americans back to plantation labor systems that closely mirrored those in slavery times. (p. 435)
Feedmen's Bureau
Government organization created in March 1865 to aid displaced blacks and other war refugees. Active until the early 1870s, it was the first federal agency in history that provided direct payments to assist those in poverty and to foster social welfare. (p. 435)
Civil Rights Act of 1866
Legislation passed by Congress that nullified the Black Codes and affirmed that African Americans should have equal benefit of the law. (p. 435)
Fourteenth Amendment
Constitutional amendment ratified in 1868 that made all native-born or naturalized persons U.S. citizens and prohibited states from abridging the rights of national citizens, thus giving primacy to national rather than state citizenship. (p. 436)
Reconstruction Act of 1867
An act that divided the conquered South into five military districts, each under the command of a U.S. general. To reenter the Union, former Confederate states had to grant the vote to freedmen and deny it to leading ex-Confederates. (p. 437)
Thirteenth Amendment (December 1865*)
Prohibited slavery
Civil Rights Act of 1866 (April 1866)
Defined citizenship rights of freedmen
Authorized federal authorities to bring suit against those who violated those rights
Fourteenth Amendment (June 1866†)
Established national citizenship for persons born or naturalized in the United States
Prohibited the states from depriving citizens of their civil rights or equal protection under the law
Reduced state representation in House of Representatives by the percentage of adult male citizens denied the vote
Reconstruction Act of 1867 (March 1867)
Divided the South into five military districts, each under the command of a Union general
Established requirements for readmission of ex-Confederate states to the Union
Tenure of Office Act (March 1867)
Required Senate consent for removal of any federal official whose appointment had required Senate confirmation
Fifteenth Amendment (February 1869‡)
Forbade states to deny citizens the right to vote on the grounds of race, color, or "previous condition of servitude"
Ku Klux Klan Act (April 1871)
Authorized the president to use federal prosecutions and military force to suppress conspiracies to deprive citizens of the right to vote and enjoy the equal protection of the law
Fifteenth Amendment
Constitutional amendment ratified in 1870 that forbade states to deny citizens the right to vote on grounds of race, color, or "previous condition of servitude." (p. 439)
American Women Suffrage Association (AWSA)
A women's suffrage organization led by Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and others who remained loyal to the Republican Party, despite its failure to include women's voting rights in the Reconstruction amendments. Stressing the urgency of voting rights for African American men, AWSA leaders held out hope that once Reconstruction had been settled, it would be women's turn. (p. 440)
National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA)
A suffrage group headed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony that stressed the need for women to lead organizations on their own behalf. The NWSA focused exclusively on women's rights?—?sometimes denigrating men of color in the process?—?and took up the battle for a federal women's suffrage amendment. (p. 440)
Minor v. Happersett
A Supreme Court decision in 1875 that ruled that suffrage rights were not inherent in citizenship and had not been granted by the Fourteenth Amendment, as some women's rights advocates argued. Women were citizens, the Court ruled, but state legislatures could deny women the vote if they wished. (p. 440)
Beecher-Tilton scandal
A trial, triggered by revelations made by free love advocate and journalist Victoria Woodhull, that exposed unconventional sexual relationships among a leading New York abolitionist pastor and his congregants, discrediting radical Reconstruction by associating some of its advocates with alleged sexual immorality. (p. 440)
Victoria Woodhull
This free-love advocate became a controversial figure in the 1870s as she campaigned for universal voting rights, denounced marriage laws for enslaving women, and urged women to work for economic independence.
sharecropping
The labor system by which landowners and impoverished southern farmworkers, particularly African Americans, divided the proceeds from crops harvested on the landowner's property. With local merchants providing supplies?—?in exchange for a lien on the crop?—? they pushed farmers into cash-crop production and often trapped them in long-term debt. (p. 444)
convict leasing
Notorious system, begun during Reconstruction, whereby southern state officials allowed private companies to hire out prisoners to labor under brutal conditions in mines and other industries. (p. 448)
Civil Rights Act of 1875
A law that required "full and equal" access to jury service and to transportation and public accommodations, irrespective of race. (p. 450)
classical liberalism
The political ideology of individual liberty, private property, a competitive market economy, free trade, and limited government. The ideal is a laissez faire or "let alone" policy, in which government does the least possible, particularly in reference to economic policies such as tariffs and incentives for industrial development. Attacking corruption and defending private property, late-nineteenth-century liberals generally called for elite governance and questioned the advisability of full democratic participation. (p. 293)
Crédit Mobilier
A sham corporation set up by shareholders in the Union Pacific Railroad to secure government grants at an enormous profit. Organizers of the scheme protected it from investigation by providing gifts of its stock to powerful members of Congress. (p. 452)
Ku Klux Klan
Secret society that first undertook violence against African Americans in the South after the Civil War but was reborn in 1915 to fight the perceived threats posed by African Americans, immigrants, radicals, feminists, Catholics, and Jews. (p. 453
Enforcement Laws
Acts passed in Congress in 1870 and signed by President U. S. Grant that were designed to protect freedmen's rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Authorizing federal prosecutions, military intervention, and martial law to suppress terrorist activity, the Enforcement Laws largely succeeded in shutting down Klan activities. (p. 453)
Slaughter-House Cases
A group of decisions begun in 1873 in which the Court began to undercut the power of the Fourteenth Amendment to protect African American rights. (p. 456)
Civil Rights Cases (1883)
A series of 1883 Supreme Court decisions that struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, rolling back key Reconstruction laws and paving the way for later decisions that sanctioned segregation. (p. 456)
What position did Frederick Douglass assume on the issue of women's voting rights during Reconstruction?
Douglass asked women to allow black male suffrage to take priority.
At a convention of the Equal Rights Association, Douglass pleaded for white women to understand the plight in which former slaves found themselves, and to allow black male suffrage to take priority, saying, "When women, because they are women, are hunted down, . . . dragged from their homes and hung upon lampposts, . . . then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot equal to our own."
Who was the first historian to challenge white supremacist interpretations of Reconstruction?
W. E. B. Du Bois
In Black Reconstruction in America (1935), Du Bois meticulously documented the history of African American struggle, white vigilante violence, and national policy failure, but other historians ignored his work for decades. Not a single scholarly journal reviewed Du Bois's important book.
What service, in addition to religious services, did churches provide African Americans after the Civil War?
They served as social centers.
Churches served as social centers, community gathering points, and schools. The central importance of the church in the African American community would be a key factor in the way the civil
rights movement developed in the 1950s.
Which statement best describes the constitutional revolution associated with Reconstruction?
The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments laid the foundation for the civil rights movement of the twentieth century.
Reconstruction had shaken the legal and political framework that had made the United States a white man's country. Although hostile courts and political opponents undercut them, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were never repealed, and the civil rights movement of the twentieth century would later build on this framework.
How did the Enforcement Laws temporarily restrain the Klan's power in the South between 1869 and 1871?
By bringing to bear the power of the federal government
The Klan was able to perpetrate its terror in
the South though effective control of state governments. By using federal powers—federal prosecutions, military intervention, and martial law—the federal government was able to restrain the Klan, at least temporarily.
Why did the Grant administration's reaction to the depression that began in 1873 deepen resentment toward Washington Republicans?
The administration rejected calls for providing relief for debt and
unemployment.
Grant's officials deepened public resentment toward their party when they rejected pleas to increase the money supply and provide relief from debt and unemployment.
Which of the following best assesses the role of Ulysses S. Grant in the impeachment crisis of 1868?
Grant had stepped down as secretary of war in favor of Edwin Stanton, precipitating the crisis.
Andrew Johnson had suspended Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a Radical Republican, and replaced him with Union general Ulysses S. Grant. But when the Senate overruled the suspension, Grant resigned and asked Stanton to resume his post. Johnson's subsequent firing of Stanton led to the vote to impeach him.
Why did wage labor not become common in cotton-producing areas of the South?
Landowners did not have the cash to pay wages.
Cotton planters lacked money to pay wages, and sometimes, in lieu of a wage, they offered a share of the crop. Freedmen, in turn, paid their rent in shares of the harvest.
The Beecher-Tilton scandal affected the women's suffrage movement in the 1870s because it
forced suffragists to practice and advocate strict sexual respectability.
The scandal, centered on sexual freedom, distanced the suffragist movement from
Victoria Woodhull and her "free love" movement.
Andrew Johnson was the first U.S. president to be
impeached in 1867
Why are the Republican Reconstruction governments of the South categorized as reforming governments?
They expanded education and health care.
Republicans viewed education as the foundation of a true democratic
order. By 1875, over half of black children were attending school in Mississippi, Florida, and South Carolina. In addition, they established hospitals and asylums for orphans and the disabled.
What was the primary reason Republican governments across the South fell one by one to Democrats in the mid-1870s?
Ex-Confederate politicians, using terrorism, silenced the black and Republican vote.
Why were the odds stacked against freedmen who became sharecroppers?
They could not escape debt.
Starting out penniless, sharecroppers had no way to make it through the first growing season without borrowing for food and supplies. Once indebted—typically to a storeowner—sharecroppers became easy targets for exorbitant prices, unfair interest rates, and crooked bookkeeping. As cotton prices declined in the 1870s, more and more
sharecroppers fell into permanent debt.
This image, a political cartoon from a northern periodical, Harper's Weekly, was created in direct reaction to
Military Reconstruction Act.
Why did some Republicans in the Senate vote to acquit President Andrew Johnson of criminal misconduct at the end of his impeachment trial?
They thought that removing a president over a policy dispute would be a dangerous precedent.
What was significant about the results of the 1866 congressional elections?
Republicans won enough seats to override President Andrew Johnson's vetoes.
The Black Codes instituted by southern state governments created under Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plan aimed to achieve what goal?
Place African Americans in a situation as close to slavery as possible
In the South of the late 1800s, sharecroppers found themselves tied to the land and in debt to landlords and merchants in a system of forced labor known as
peonage
With what was President Andrew Johnson charged when he was impeached in 1868?
Engaging in misconduct and infringing on the powers of Congress
How did the 1866 midterm election results allow Radical Republicans to assume control over Reconstruction?
Results gave Radical Republicans a large enough congressional majority to override any Johnson veto.
Why did Congress believe it was important for military commanders in the occupied South to supervise new state constitutional conventions?
Congress wanted to ensure that new constitutions guaranteed black suffrage.
What group was behind the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which divided the conquered South into the five military districts shown here?
Radical Republicans
How did President Lincoln's plan for reconstructing the South compare with Congress's 1864 plan for reconstruction, which was codified in the Wade-Davis Bill?
Lincoln's plan was more lenient.
Why was the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution so unique in Western Hemispheric history?
By granting freedmen voting rights, the amendment gave ex-slaves full citizenship rights.
Which political leader supported reparations for slaves in the form of the planters' land?
Thaddeus Stevens
Why did President Johnson veto the extension to the Freedman's Bureau and the Civil Rights Act in 1866?
Johnson was racist.
These bills provoked bitter conflict with Johnson, who vetoed them both. Johnson's racism, hitherto publicly muted, now blazed forth: "This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am president, it shall be a government for white men."
As the illegitimate regime of lazy blacks
How was Reconstruction taught in American schools at least until the 1960s?
As the illegitimate regime of lazy blacks
After "Redemption," generations of schoolchildren were taught that ignorant,
lazy blacks and corrupt whites had imposed illegitimate Reconstruction "regimes" on the South.
Why did the freedmen insist that they needed to receive grants of land?
As the only way to guarantee their freedom
The freedmen wanted both political freedom and economic autonomy and needed land to achieve the latter. Without land, former slaves were left poor and vulnerable.
Which of the following describes Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan, which he announced in December 1863?
It specified that a state could return to the Union when 10 percent of its voters took an oath of loyalty to the Union.
Southern whites responded to the end of slavery by enacting
Black Codes
Under President Johnson's restoration plan, high-ranking Confederate leaders and wealthy southerners
could serve as delegates to conventions that were called to consider ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment
Which of the following statements describes the Freedmen's Bureau, which originated in 1865?
Created by Congress, it helped ex-slaves adjust to freedom and secure their basic civil rights
The Civil Rights Act of 1866
asserted that all former slaves would receive equal protection under the law.
Why did President Johnson veto the Freedmen's Bureau law and Civil Rights Act in 1866?
These two pieces of legislation posed too great a challenge to his deeply racist views
Which of these events spurred Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act in April 1866?
The eruption of antiblack violence in various parts of the South
Which of the following was the final outcome of the congressional campaigns and elections of 1866?
Johnson suffered a humiliating defeat as Republicans gained a three-to-one margin in Congress
Which of the following pairs identified with the Radical Republicans?
Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens
Which of the following was the official reason Congress cited for impeaching Andrew Johnson?
He infringed on the powers of Congress.
Through which of the following practices did white southerners avoid giving former slaves the right to vote?
Collecting poll taxes
Why was it necessary to add the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution following the Civil War?
The Constitution had condoned slavery and allowed states to set voting requirements
Why was it necessary to add the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution following the Civil War?
The Constitution had condoned slavery and allowed states to set voting requirements
Which of the following was Elizabeth Cady Stanton's response to the denial of women's suffrage while freedmen and immigrant men were being enfranchised?
She made a racist attack on the uneducated black men who could vote while educated white women could not
Granting suffrage to African American males caused
a split in the women's movement
Which of the following statements characterizes the women's suffrage movement after the Civil War?
Most suffragists agreed that they should concentrate on securing voting rights for African American men as a means to press for the same rights for all women
Expecting freedom from slavery near the end of the Civil War, most African Americans were eager to
vote and secure land for economic independence
Which of the following statements describes the resettlement of former slaves in the South?
Under Johnson's amnesty plan, ex-Confederates were allowed to recover their land, and freedmen were forced to work for them or leave
Why were many congressional leaders unwilling to consider breaking up plantations and distributing plots for independent farms to freed slaves?
They hoped to restore cotton cultivation and the export of American cotton
Which of these statements describes the status of African American women in the Reconstruction-era South?
Freedwomen valued their new right to marry legally and their opportunity to create a stable family life
The Republican state Reconstruction governments in the South made significant and long-lasting achievements in:
public education
One critical flaw of southern Reconstruction governments was their
support of the convict leasing system
Which of the following became critical community institutions for African Americans throughout the South during Reconstruction?
Churches
Those who participated in the creation and implementation of Radical Reconstruction intended to:
create a new South with full equality and without racism
Some southerners used the term scalawags to describe
southerners who supported the process of Reconstruction