Chapter 22 & 23 Reading Comprehension Questions
Ch.22 The Ordeal of Reconstruction 1865-1877; Ch.23 Political Paralysis of the Gilded Age 1869-1896
(p. 509 – 513)
Directions: You may print these questions out and handwrite the answers either on notebook paper
with each question clearly labeled by page number or in order, or by using this document to space out
each question and write by hand. Typed responses will not be accepted.
p. 479 What four questions faced the nation during Reconstruction?
p. 479 How would Confederate leaders be treated?
p. 479 What significance does this quote from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address have?
p. 480 What specific aspects of the South (economic and social) were destroyed?
p. 480 Describe the attitudes of defiant Southerners.
p. 481 Define the meaning of freedom for blacks in 1865.
p. 482 What did some blacks do post-Emancipation? (include Exodusters and churches)
p. 484 Describe the importance of Education. (Include Freedmen’s Bureau)
p. 484-5 What are important characteristics of Andrew Johnson’s personality?
p. 485-486 Explain the split over “readmission” between Lincoln and Congress.
p. 486 Identify the components of President Johnson’s Plan.
p. 487 What were Black Codes?
p. 487 Explain how sharecropping illustrated race relations in the “New South.”
p. 488 What were the political repercussions of readmission?
p. 489 What successes did the Republican “supermajority” achieve in 1866? What limitations were
there?
p. 490 Describe Thaddeus Stevens and his role (including the Joint Committee on Reconstruction).
p. 491 Identify the three states to end Reconstruction with the Hayes-Tilden Compromise (also known
as the Compromise of 1877). How was Reconstruction “ended?”
p. 492 Describe the Congressional legislation known as Military Reconstruction, including the
Reconstruction Act of 1867, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
p. 494 What political advances did African Americans make between 1868-1876. Who is Hiram Revels?
p. 495 What are “scalawags” and “carpetbaggers?”
p. 496 Describe the rise of the KKK. How effective was it? What were the Force Acts passed by
Congress in 1870-71?
p. 497 What did the Senate vote in the Impeachment Trial of Andrew Johnson?
p. 498 How did balance of power reflect Russia’s intentions in the purchase of Alaska? (also known as
“Seward’s Folly”)
p. 499 What political effect occurred when the book states: “Reconstruction conferred only fleeting
benefits on blacks and virtually extinguished the Republican Party in the South for nearly one hundred
years.”
p. 499 What are the four reasons listed for the failure of Reconstruction?
p.509 What was the origin of the phrase ‘Gilded Age’ and what did it describe in terms of politics?
p.509 What explains the paradoxical relationship between ‘political consensus and partisan fervor’
during the Gilded Age?
p.509/510 How did Gilded Age politics defy sectionalism?
p.510 What was patronage? Who were the ‘stalwarts’ and the ‘half-breeds’ in this political battle?
p.511 What was the ‘Compromise of 1877’? (This requires a detailed explanation.) What dispute did it
try to resolve?
p.512 Describe how life changed for freedmen in the American South after 1877?