Aim: How do we review Reconstruction
& Westward Expansion for the U.S.
History Regents?
Do Now: Complete the Jumpstart Activity by filling
in the definitions below next to the correct term.
Manifest Destiny = the belief that the U.S. was destined by divine right
to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic
seaboard to the Pacific Ocean.
The Homestead Act = one of many U.S. federal laws that gave an
applicant freehold title up to 160 acres (1/4 section) of undeveloped land
outside of the original 13 colonies.
Carpetbagger = name for a northerner who went to the south during
Reconstruction to take government positions and jobs in hopes of
personal gain.
Essential Questions
• How successful was Reconstruction in
reforming the American South?
• How did Southern states limit the rights of
African-Americans during the Jim Crow
period?
• Should the American West be viewed as a
land of opportunity?
The Jim Crow laws of the post-Civil War
Era were attempts by
1. the Federal Government to improve the status of
African Americans and Native American Indians
2. state and local governments to restrict the freedoms
of African Americans
3. states to ban organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan
4. the Radical Republicans in Congress to carry out
Reconstruction plans
Reconstruction
• Prefix Re = to do again and Construct = to build
Which picture below best
represents how a collapsed
Jenga would look after
reconstruction? Why
Reconstruction
The victory of the North in the American Civil War put an
end to slavery and to the South's effort to secede from the
Union. However, for more than a decade after the Civil
War the status of the liberated slaves and the terms on
which the defeated states would be restored to the
Union—that is, the way in which the South and the Union
would be reconstructed—remained a source of conflict.
The years during which the Civil War settlement continued
to be contested are known as the Reconstruction period.
Reconstruction lasted roughly from the end of the war in
April 1865 to the withdrawal of the last federal troops
from the South in April 1877.
The dispute between President Andrew Johnson
and Congress during the Reconstruction Era
illustrates the constitutional principle of
1. equality of justice under the law
2. federalism
3. one man, one vote
4. separation of powers
Answer: Separation of Powers
• Republican president Andrew Johnson and the Radical
Republicans who controlled Congress, differed over how
to handle the task of reconstruction in the post-Civil War
South. Johnson favored a more forgiving plan outlined by
Lincoln prior to his assassination, the Radical Republicans
favor a punishing plan that occupied and controlled the
former Confederacy. The Radical Republicans
subsequently attempted to impeach Johnson and he
escaped removal by only 1 vote in the Senate. While still
president, Johnson was politically weakened by the attack
from his own party members and as such the radical
element enacted their own, harsh plan on the South.
"Although important strides were made,
Reconstruction failed to provide lasting
guarantees of the civil rights of the freedmen.”
Which evidence best supports this statement
1. passage of Jim Crow laws in the latter part of the 19th
century
2. ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments
3. refusal of Southern States to allow sharecropping
4. passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1866
Answer 1: passage of Jim Crow laws in
the latter part of the 19th century
• Jim Crow laws were legalized segregation.
Upheld as legal in the Plessy v. Ferguson case
of 1896, Jim Crow laws would persist in the
South up until the culmination of the black
civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60’s.
Poll taxes and grandfather clauses
were devices used to
1. deny African Americans the right to vote
2. extend suffrage to women and 18-year-old citizens
3. raise money for political campaigns
4. prevent immigrants from becoming citizens
Answer 1: deny African Americans the
right to vote
• Literacy tests and poll taxes were common
tactics used in southern states to suppress
voting by African-Americans. Grandfather
clauses were enacted as a way of allowing
poor, uneducated, white southerners to vote
despite the tests and taxes, based on their
grandfathers voting history.
In their plans for Reconstruction, both
President Abraham Lincoln and President
Andrew Johnson sought to
1. punish the South for starting the Civil War
2. force the Southern States to pay reparations to the
Federal Government
3. allow the Southern States to reenter the nation as
quickly as possible.
4. establish the Republican Party as the only political
party in the South.
ANSWER: They both wanted to allow the Southern
States to reenter the nation as quickly as possible.
Johnson favored a more forgiving plan outlined by
Lincoln prior to his assassination, the Radical Republicans
favor a punishing plan that occupied and controlled the
former Confederacy. The Radical Republicans
subsequently attempted to impeach Johnson and he
escaped removal by only 1 vote in the Senate. While still
president, Johnson was politically weakened by the
attack from his own party members and as such the
radical element enacted their own, harsh plan on the
South.
Which balloon best reflects the term
Expansion? Explain
WESTWARD EXPANSION
After the War of 1812 much of America's attention turned to
exploration and settlement of its territory to the West, which had
been greatly enlarged by the Louisiana Purchase and the idea of
Manifest Destiny. Families of pioneers swept westward and founded
new communities throughout what is now the Midwest, and between
1816 and 1821, six new states were admitted to the Union. The land
boom was fed by encouragement from the federal government and
the actions of land speculators, who bought up large tracts of land in
order to sell it in parcels to farmers at exorbitant prices. A major
aspect of the conquest of the West was the removal of the Indians
who dwelled there. Under the leadership of President Andrew
Jackson, many Indians were cruelly and violently driven from their
homes and concentrated in reservations leaving a Trail of Tears. By
the early twentieth century, the organization of the West was
completed, and the United States consisted of all 48 contiguous
states.
Q. What is the best title for this series of maps?
1.
2.
3.
4.
Industrialization of the United States
Sectional Conflicts in the United States
Transportation Revolution in the United States
Shifting Frontier of the United States
When President Thomas Jefferson acquired the Louisiana
Territory from France, he demonstrated that he had
modified his belief that the Constitution should be strictly
interpreted.
I want that land… maybe if we
loosely interpret (or read) the
Constitution I can get it!!!
The legal basis for the United States
purchase of the Louisiana Territory
was the
1.
2.
3.
4.
power granted to the President to make treaties
President’s power as Commander in Chief
authority of Congress to declare war
Senate’s duty to approve the appointment of
ambassador
Answer 1: power granted to the
President to make treaties
• Thomas Jefferson used the presidential power
of treaty making to make the Louisiana
Purchase from France. This action was
considered a loose interpretation of the
Constitution, which does not provide for the
presidential acquisition of territory. While
Jefferson was ideologically for a strict
interpretation of the Constitution, the
excellent opportunity offered by the Louisiana
Purchase was too good to pass up.
The Louisiana Purchase had great
geographic significance for the United
States because it
1. reduced British control of North America
2. focused the United States on westward expansion
3. extended United States control over Mexico
4. decreased tensions with Native American Indians
The phrase “by military conquest,
treaty, and purchase” best describes the
1. steps in the growth of American industry
2. methods used to expand the territory of the U.S.
3. major parts of President Woodrow Wilson’s
Fourteen Points
3. causes of the United States entry into the Korean
War