Dmitry Trembovetskiy
Reconstruction questions, part 1
Period 1.3 12/8/19
1. What was Reconstruction?
Reconstruction was the attempt to rebuild and reform the South politically, economically, and socially after the Civil War, and to refashion race relations throughout the nation. In 1861, southern secession freed
Republicans from the pressure to compromise to preserve the Union.
2. What was the Proclamation of Amnesty & Reconstruction (1863)? What was the response of Radical
Republicans?
Lincoln's Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction plan proposed that if ten percent of a state's voter population swore allegiance to the future alliance of the United States as well as approving Emancipation, then Reconstruction would begin in that state.
3. What was the Wade-Davis Bill (1864)? How AND why did Lincoln respond?
The Wade-Davis Bill required that 50 percent of a state's white males take a loyalty oath to be readmitted to the Union. Lincoln continued to advocate tolerance and speed in plans for the reconstruction of the Union in opposition to the Congress.
4. Describe Johnson’s plans for Reconstruction.
In 1865 President Andrew Johnson implemented a plan of Reconstruction that gave the white South a free hand in regulating the transition from slavery to freedom and offered no role to blacks in the politics of the
South.
5. Why were black codes implemented? Give examples of black codes at the time.
The Black Codes were laws passed in 1865 and 1866 by Southern states in the United States after the
American Civil War in order to restrict African Americans' freedom, and to compel them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt.
6. Describe the two measures proposed by the Radical Republicans in 1866 to invalidate black codes.
The response to the Black Codes by Congress brought significant political change to the benefit of the
Freedmen. Most of the Southern states held new constitutional conventions in 1867 and 1868. Congress had insured that this time the ex-slaves voted and participated in the new state governments.
7. How did Johnson respond to the proposals from Congress in 1866? What were the results of his
actions?
During its years of operation, the Freedmen's Bureau fed millions of people, built hospitals and provided medical aid, negotiated labor contracts for ex-slaves and settled labor disputes. It also helped former slaves legalize marriages and locate lost relatives, and assisted black veterans.
8. What was Congressional Reconstruction? Which two men led the Radical Republicans in Congress?
In Congress, the most influential Radical Republicans were U.S. Senator Charles Sumner and U.S.
Representative Thaddeus Stevens. They led the call for a war that would end slavery. A congressional plan for postwar recovery that imposed harsh standards on the Southern states and supported newly freed slaves
(freedmen) in their pursuit of political, economic, and social opportunities.
9. Describe the Reconstruction Act of 1867.
The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 laid out the process for readmitting Southern states into the Union. The
Fourteenth Amendment (1868) provided former slaves with national citizenship, and the Fifteenth
Amendment (1870) granted black men the right to vote.
10. Describe how Congress tried to limit Johnson’s power.
The impeachment of President Andrew Johnson was the result of political conflict and the rupture of ideologies in the aftermath of the American Civil War. The Tenure of Office Act, passed over Johnson's veto in 1867, stated that a president could not dismiss appointed officials without the consent of Congress.
11. How did Johnson violate the Tenure of Office Act? Explain Congress’ response & effects to Johnson’s
action.

Dmitry Trembovetskiy Period 1.3 12/8/19
Tenure of Office Act, in the post-Civil War period of U.S. history, law forbidding the president to remove civil officers without senatorial consent. The law was passed over Pres. Andrew Johnson's veto by Radical
Republicans in Congress in their struggle to wrest control of Reconstruction from Johnson.
12. How did Reconstruction influence the women’s suffrage movement?
After the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 demanded women's suffrage for the first time, America became distracted by the coming Civil War. The issue of the vote resurfaced during Reconstruction. The Fifteenth
Amendment to the Constitution proposed granting the right to vote to African American males.
13. For what reasons did the Ku Klux Klan develop? How did the govt. respond?
The Ku Klux Klan dedicated itself to an underground campaign of violence against Republican leaders and voters (both black and white) in an effort to reverse the policies of Radical Reconstruction and restore white supremacy in the South. Congress passed the KKK act in response.
Terms to know:
Freedmen’s Bureau- Was established in 1865 by Congress to help millions of former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War.
13 th
Amendment- 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.
14 th
Amendment- granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves recently freed.
15 th Amendment- prohibited governments from denying U.S. citizens the right to vote based on race, color, or past servitude.
“Waving the bloody shirt”- a phrase used to ridicule opposing politicians who made emotional calls to avenge the blood of the northern soldiers that died in the Civil War.
Enforcement Acts- They were criminal codes which protected African-Americans' right to vote, to hold office, to serve on juries, and receive equal protection of laws.
Reconstruction questions, pt. 2
1. Describe the three groups that made up the Republican population in the South after the war.
Three groups made up Southern Republicanism. Carpetbaggers, or recent arrivals from the North, were former Union soldiers, teachers, Freedmen's Bureau agents, and businessmen.
2. What were the main goals of most freedmen after the war? What difficulties faced the freedmen that hindered their abilities to reach their goals?
The Freedmen's Bureau provided food, housing and medical aid, established schools and offered legal assistance. It also attempted to settle former slaves on land confiscated or abandoned during the war. Many white Southerners, as well as President Andrew Johnson, challenged the Bureau's legitimacy, sparking racial violence in the South and the ultimate failure of the Bureau.
3. Describe the sharecropping system that developed in the South post-war. What was the impact for landowners?
By the early 1870s, the system known as sharecropping had come to dominate agriculture across the cottonplanting South. Under this system, black families would rent small plots of land, or shares, to work themselves; in return, they would give a portion of their crop to the landowner at the end of the year
4. What was the crop-lien system? What was the impact on the farmers?
The crop-lien system and sharecropping contributed to the greater shift in Southern agriculture towards onecrop farming. Because of their growing indebtedness and sharecropping, many farmers had to turn from subsistence agriculture, which had once been the norm, to cash crops, in order to pay off their loans.
5. What problems were northerners more concerned with than Reconstruction of the South during that era?

Dmitry Trembovetskiy Period 1.3 12/8/19
Between 1870 and 1876 all but three Southern states turned back Reconstruction efforts. When Rutherford B.
Hayes agreed to remove federal soldiers, he was simply putting an end to an already dying effort.
6. For what 4 reasons was Grant’s time in office known as the “Era of Good Stealing’s”? (Cross-reference
AMSCO for assistance)
A feature of the campaign of 1868 in which Republicans popularized Grant by reviving war-time memories.
Many whites supported Seymour while Grant had 500,000 black voters. Era of Good Stealing’s. post-Civil
War period marked by corruption in the railroad industry, stock market, politics, and judicial system.
7. What caused the Depression of 1873? What were the impacts of the depression?
The Panic of 1873 started on the back of the economic depression that was engulfing Europe resulting from the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). The effects of the European depression, and the resultant failure of foreign investment in the US, led to the ruin of the banking firm called Jay Cook and Company.
8. Who were “redeemers”? What were some methods they would use to redeem the South?
Redeemers were the Southern wing of the Bourbon Democrats, the conservative, pro-business faction in the
Democratic Party. They sought to regain their political power and enforce white supremacy. Numerous educated blacks and free people of color moved to the South to work for Reconstruction.
9. Describe the situation/crisis regarding the Election of 1876. How did Congress respond?
The United States presidential election of 1876 was one of the most disputed presidential elections in
American history. Samuel J. Tilden of New York outpolled Ohio's Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote, and had 184 electoral votes to Hayes' 165, with 20 votes uncounted.
10. Describe the Compromise of 1877.
The Compromise of 1877 was an informal, unwritten deal, that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election. It resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the
South, and formally ended the Reconstruction Era.
Terms to know:
Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873- A citizen’s privileges and immunities were limited to those spelled out in the
Constitution and did not include many rights given by the individual states.
Civil Rights Act of 1875 It guaranteed equal access to all citizens to public accommodations, but it failed to have a lasting effect. The Supreme Court ruling that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional paved the way for the future of segregation and discrimination.
Civil Rights Cases of 1883- The Civil Rights Cases were a group of five cases in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments did not empower Congress to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals.
“New South”- a phrase that has been used intermittently since the American Civil War to describe the
American South, after 1877. The term "New South" is used in contrast to the Old South and the slaverybased plantation system of the antebellum period.
Special Field Order 15/”Forty Acres & a Mule” – The order redistributed the roughly 400,000 acres of land to newly freed black families in forty-acre segments.
Thomas Nast- a German-born American caricaturist and editorial cartoonist often considered to be the
"Father of the American Cartoon". He was a critic of Democratic Representative "Boss" Tweed and the
Tammany Hall Democratic party political machine.