Download Reconstruction Review Sheet 1) As a result of the Civil War, what

Reconstruction Review Sheet
1) As a result of the Civil War, what level of government is given the greatest amount of power?
Federal Government
2) How was the Northern economy helped by the Civil War?
The Federal Government provided a large amount of money to the Northern industries as
the federal government purchased war goods and built railroads. The increase in capital
(money) and the expanded production (the fact that they were used to producing more goods)
allowed the Northern businesses to greatly expand after the Civil War. This is a major cause of
the Age of Big Business (a.k.a. the Gilded Age) during the late 1800’s.
3) When did the following time periods/events occur?
3a) Sectionalism (Causes of the Civil War)? 1820’s - 1860
3b) Civil War? 1861 - 1865
3c) Reconstruction? 1865 - 1877
4) What was President Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction? The Ten Percent Plan. It was very
lenient. It allowed all of the Southern states to rejoin the Union as long as 10% of the state’s
population swore allegiance to the US on the Constitution.
5) What was the nickname of Lincoln’s Reconstruction Plan?
The Ten Percent Plan.
6) Why was Lincoln’s Plan so lenient? Lincoln’s #1 goal during the Civil War was to unite the
Union as quickly as possible. He also felt that the Southern States never left the Union because
the citizens of those Southern States never voted to secede, only the state legislators did.
7) What was President Johnson’s Plan for Reconstruction? It was also lenient. It was based
upon Lincoln’s plan. An addition was the requirement of each Southern state was the
ratification of the 13th Amendment.
8) What caused the impeachment of Johnson? His disagreements with the Radical Republicans
over the plans for Reconstruction.
9a-b) What were the primary goals of the Radical Republicans in their plan for Reconstruction?
1) Protect the Freedmen
2) Punish the White Southerners
(The answers from 1 and 2 here are also the answers that go in 1 and 2 in the next question)
10) What was the Reconstruction Plan actually passed by the Radical Republicans?
1) Protect the Freedmen
10a) –The Freedman’s Bureau – Provided jobs, created schools, gave food &
clothing
10b) – The Civil Rights Act of 1866 – Attempted to end the use of discrimination
(i.e. Black codes) in the South
10c) – 14th Amendment – 1) Equal Rights to blacks (“Equal protection clause”)
2) Granted citizenship to people of color (specifically blacks)
3) Disenfranchised Southern whites
4) Due Process Clause – applies the Bill of Rights to the states
2) Punish the White Southerners
10d) – Military Reconstruction – Martial law
10e) – Forced whites to guarantee blacks equal rights
10f) – Had to ratify 14th & 15th Amendments
11) What are a person’s “civil rights”? their basic freedoms
12) The three Civil War / Reconstruction Amendments are listed below. Explain their affects on
the lives of African Americans:
12a) 13th Amendment – Ends slavery
12b) 14th Amendment – 1) Equal Rights to blacks (“Equal protection clause”)
2) Granted citizenship to people of color (specifically blacks)
3) Disenfranchised Southern whites
4) Due Process Clause – applies the Bill of Rights to the states
12c) The “due process” clause of the 14th Amendment is often cited in Supreme
Court cases. What does “due process” mean? Rules the government must follow
12d) 15th Amendment – gives blacks the right to vote
13a) When freedmen received the right to vote, who did these people of African descent almost
always vote for? Republican
13b) Why? The Republicans protected them –
Lincoln was a Republican and the Radical Republicans helped them.
14) Did these three Civil War / Reconstruction Amendments really protect the rights of
freedmen? Yes, at first, but the Black Codes, Voting Restrictions, and Jim Crow laws, stripped
away their rights.
15) What are Black Codes? Old Slave laws (i.e. no loitering, no congregating after dark, no
owning guns, …)
16) What is a “freedman”? Former slaves
17) What is a sharecropper? Farm workers that were typically former slaves that worked on the
same plantation where they were slaves. They were paid only when the harvest came in and
were charged for rent, food, … Often, the tenant farmers owed more money than they were paid
and they were tied to the land as much now as they were during the days of slavery.
18) What is a tenant farmer? Farmer that rented the land, had a chance to make more meny and
to get ahead.
19) Why is it better to be a tenant farmer than a sharecropper? You could actually make a profit,
tenant farmers were not as tied to the land or the plantation owner.
20a-c) Large plantations during Reconstruction started to grow large amounts of cash crops.
This resulted in what?
1) Overproduction of farm goods leads to
2) decline in prices of these crops
3) Less subsistence agriculture (grew only cash crops, had to buy
food to eat from other middlemen/merchants)
21) What was the:
21a) Poll Tax – Fee in order to vote
21b) Literacy Test – Test to see if blacks could read & write
21c) Grandfather Clause – allowed whites to vote without having to take
the Literacy test or pay the Poll tax if their ancestors voted before
1866.
22) All three of things tried to do what? Limit Blacks’ rights to vote, limit the rights guaranteed
by the 15th Amendment
23) What was the major beliefs of the following people and what did they create?
23a) Booker T. Washington – Vocational education, Tuskegee Institute
23b) W.E.B. DuBois – Equality NOW, NAACP
24) Why was the South called the “New South” after the Civil War? It now had industry,
factories, railroads, as well as the farms. It was a mixed economy.
25) What is the “Solid South”? Once whites were allowed to vote again, most of the whites
voted for Democrats. For 90 years, the Southern states would almost always vote for
Democrats.
26) Plessy v. Ferguson
26a) Background: Homer Plessy was 1/8 black and 7/8 white. He bought a first class
train ticket in New Orleans and was traveling in the state of Louisiana to another city, East
Covington. When Plessy boarded the first class train car, he announced to the ticket collector
that he was part black. The train employee asked Plessy to move to the “colored” section of the
train, but he refused. Plessy was forcibly removed from the train and arrested for violating the
Louisiana Act of 1890, a.k.a. the Separate Car Act. This law required all train cars in the state
of Louisiana to provide “separate but equal accommodations.” Plessy was conducting an act of
civil disobedience by challenging this law.
26b) Decision: In favor of Ferguson (the state of Louisiana)
26c) Why? 1) Plessy thought his 13th Amendment rights were violated but this had
nothing to do with slavery.
2) Plessy thought his 14th Amendment rights to “equal protection” were violated
but since there were other “colored cars” that were “equal”, his rights
were NOT violated. Equal does NOT require the facilities or
accommodations to be together.
3) Since the train trip was entirely within the state of Louisiana, it is “intrastate”
commerce. Therefore, the state can regulate it. This makes the Louisiana
Act of 1890 constitutional.
26d) Results? This decision gave constitutional support to Jim Crow laws.
27) What were Jim Crow laws? Segregation laws
28) What does “segregation” mean? Separate the races
29) The Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction. What were the stipulations of this
agreement? The Republicans would win the presidency but the Radical Republicans had to end
military Reconstruction in the South.