Reconstruction Study Guide
Name: Key
A. A New President (page 107, PPT Slides 1-10)
1. Andrew Johnson became president after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
2. Lincoln’s goal for reconstruction was to end the war quickly and preserve the Union.
3. Johnson had to carry out Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction- the rebuilding and healing of a
country after the war.
4. One of the first steps towards Reconstruction was to end slavery throughout the nation.
5. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States.
6. Under Johnson’s Plan, the southern states had to pledge to treat all African Americans fairly.
7. Johnson allowed the southern states to pass laws called black codes. Under these laws,
African Americans were denied rights such as to own land or vote.
8. Congress felt that Johnson’s Plan was too easy on the South.
B. Reconstruction Under Congress (page 108, PPT slides 11-15)
1. Congress passed the first Reconstruction Act in 1867 which divided the former Confederate
states into five military districts and sent federal troops to the South.
2. The Freedmen’s Bureau was established to help freedmen, or former slaves, after the war.
It built hospitals and schools for African Americans in the South.
3. For the first time in United States history African Americans became elected officials.
C. New Amendments and Johnson’s Impeachment (page 109, PPT slides 16-21)
1. The 14th amendment gave African Americans citizenship and the right to equal protection
of the law.
2. The 15th amendment gave all male citizens the right to vote.
3. Members of Congress wanted to remove Andrew Johnson by impeachment because he tried
to block laws that favored rights to African Americans.
D. Reconstruction Ends and Southern Efforts (pages 110-111, PPT slide 22-31)
1. By 1870 all of the former Confederate states had met the requirements of Reconstruction, and
in 1877 the remaining federal troops were withdrawn from the South.
2. After Reconstruction, white Southern Democrats regained their power in state governments
and passed laws that restricted the rights of African Americans.
3. Who were the carpetbaggers? Were the liked by white Southerners?
Carpetbaggers were Northerners who moved to the south to start businesses. They were
NOT liked by the southerners.
4. Southerners who supported Reconstruction were called scalawags.
5. The major goal of the Ku Klux Klan was to intimidate freedmen.
6. List four ways that Southerners tried to prevent African Americans from voting:
a) Set up voting booths far from African American communities or changed the location
b) Required a poll tax, or payment, to vote
c) Required a reading test to vote
d) A “grandfather clause” stated that men could only vote if their father/grandfather
voted before 1867.
7. Jim Crow Laws made separate facilities for African Americans mandatory, were passed by
all Southern states, and were supported by Plessy v Ferguson. Plessy v Ferguson was a court
ruling which stated that “separate but equal” facilities were constitutional.
8. Segregation is separation of the races.
9. Many African Americans had no choice but to return to the plantations were they had
worked as slaves.
10. After regaining their political control, the Southern elite were forced to find a new way to
work their land so they entered into sharecropping relationships with freedmen and poor whites.
11. Many African Americans and whites became trapped in a system called sharecropping.
12. Sharecropping forced both African Americans and poor whites to become dependent on
the landowner for land and credit.
13. Because of discrimination and racial tensions in the South, some African Americans
migrated to the North.
14. Compare segregation by law in the South with segregation by practice in the North.
In the South there were laws that required segregation. In the North, however, there were
no segregation laws but segregation still occurred.
E. Goals of Reconstruction (PPT slide 33)
1. Southerners’ Goals: To regain control of the government, rebuild, and continue life as it
was prior to the Civil War.
2. Goals of Congress: To rebuild the Union, abolish slavery, and provide citizenship rights
to African Americans
3. Southern African Americans’ Goals: To obtain rights and freedom and reunite with
family members
F. Timeline (PPT slide 34)
Directions: Place the following events in order by numbering them consecutively in order from
the beginning to the end of Reconstruction.
B - Abraham Lincoln is assassinated.
A - The Emancipation Proclamation is issued.
E - All federal troops are officially withdrawn from the South.
C - Andrew Johnson becomes President.
D - The Fourteenth Amendment is passed by Congress.
G. Review the Amendments and Food for thought (PPT slides 35-42)