Ch.12
Reconstruction Study Guide
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What Reconstruction plan does Lincoln propose? How did it treat the South?
How does Congress react to Lincolns plan?
What did the Freedmen’s Bureau entail and why was it significant?
Who kills Lincoln and how does his death change the plan for Reconstruction?
What type of plan did Andrew Johnson propose for Reconstruction?
How does the South upset Congress and deter the freedom of blacks?
Who killed Lincoln?
Identify, define, and discuss the Black Codes. What were they designed to do? How did
Congress respond to the passage of the Southern Black Codes?
9. What did the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment accomplish?
10. Explain the congressional plan for Reconstruction. How did the Tenure of Office Act
and the Command of the Army Act factor into the Radicals' plan for reconstructing the
South?
11. Why was Congress able to assert their power after the election of 1866?
12. Why was President Andrew Johnson put on trial for impeachment? What was the
outcome of the impeachment process?
13. Define the terms: "scalawags"; "carpetbaggers". What role did each group play in the
Reconstruction process?
14. Define the terms "tenant" and "sharecropping." Was there a general redistribution of land
in the South following the Civil War? Explain!
15. Discuss the crop-lien system. What was it? Why was it almost impossible to escape from
the system and why did it further dessimate the South?
16. Explain the black response to Reconstruction. How did the black family reconstitute
itself after the war?
17. What was meant by "Grantism"?
18. What were some examples of scandal under the Grant Administration?
19. Explain the connection between the Panic of 1873 and the Specie Resumption Act of
1875.
20. Who were William H. Seward and Hamilton Fish? What did each man accomplish in the
field of foreign affairs?
21. Explain how Southern secret societies and paramilitary organizations attempted to
"redeem" the South. What were the Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871? Who were they
aimed at? Were the laws effective?
22. Why did the North gradually lose interest in propping up civil rights in the South?
23. Discuss, in full, the Compromise of 1877. Who were the candidiates in, and what was the
oucome of, the election of 1876?
23. Briefly summarize the legacy of Reconstruction. What was gained? What problems
weren't solved? Why was there a need for a "Second Reconstruction"?
24. What is meant by the term the "New South"?
25. Explain why tenantry and sharecropping increased in the South in the 1870s and 1880s.
26. Discuss the importance of the educational system to the black community in the South.
Who was Booker T. Washington and what was the gist of the Atlanta Compromise?
27. Expalin the significance of the "Plessy v. Ferguson" case. How did this Supreme Court
ruling pave the way for Jim Crow laws in the South? What were poll taxes, and "literacy"
or "understanding" tests? How did they help to disfranchise blacks?
28. Who was Ida B. Wells? Why did she launch an international antilynching movement?
Explain!