Chapter 15-Reconstruction 1865-1877

Question 0

What was the Union League, which began in the late 1860s?

Answer 0

A powerful political club for grassroots Radical Republicans

→ Beginning in the late 1860s, the Union League served as a powerful political club for grassroots Radical Republicans.

Question 1

What did the Supreme Court rule in the case of Minor v. Happersett (1875)?

Answer 1

Suffrage rights were not inherent in citizenship.

→ Suffrage advocate Virginia Minor of Missouri had argued that the registrar who rejected her had violated her rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, but the Supreme Court responded that suffrage was a privilege, not a right of citizenship.

Question 2

Which statement best describes the constitutional revolution associated with Reconstruction?

Answer 2

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments laid the foundation for the civil rights movement of the twentieth century.
→ Reconstruction had shaken the legal and political framework that had made the United States a white man’s country. Although hostile courts and political opponents undercut it, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were never repealed, and the civil rights movement of the twentieth century would later build on this framework.

Question 3

Refer to the map Reconstruction

to answer the following question. Click the image to view full-size.

In which state did Reconstruction-era governments last the longest?

Answer 3

Louisiana
→ The state was readmitted to the Union in 1868, and its radical Reconstruction government lasted for nine years until 1877, longer than the other states.

Question 4

What did the Democrats and former Confederates of the South label northerners who participated in rebuilding the South?

Answer 4

Carpetbaggers
→ Ex-Confederates viewed the Union League, Freedmen’s Bureau, and Republican Party as illegitimate forces in southern affairs, and they resented the political education of freedpeople. They denounced northern whites as carpetbaggers, self-seeking interlopers who carried all their property in cheap suitcases called carpetbags.

Question 5

Why did the economic troubles brought on by the panic of 1873 hit southern governments particularly hard?

Answer 5

The southern economy had already been growing slowly before the downturn.
→ The South’s economy grew more slowly than Republicans had hoped during Reconstruction, and after 1873, growth screeched to a halt. State debts mounted rapidly, and as crushing interest on bonds fell due, public credit collapsed.

Question 6

Refer to the map Reconstruction

to answer the following question. Click the image to view full-size.

What group was behind the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which divided the conquered South into the five military districts shown here?

Answer 6

Radical Republicans
→ After the 1866 congressional elections, power shifted to the so-called Radical Republicans who promptly set about transforming the defeated South through the Reconstruction Act of 1867.

Question 7

African Americans constituted a majority in the lower house of which state legislature in 1868?

Answer 7

South Carolina
→ As the reconstructed governments began to function in 1867, African American politicians increased their advocacy to reform the South. Although never proportionate to their numbers in the population, blacks became officeholders across the South. In South Carolina, African Americans constituted a majority in the lower house of the legislature in 1868.

Question 8

In which scandal did President Grant appear to have perjured himself to protect Orville Babcock, his private secretary, from conviction?

Answer 8

Whiskey Ring
→ The Whiskey Ring scandal was a network of liquor distillers and treasury agents who defrauded the government of millions of dollars of excise taxes on whiskey. The ringleader was Grant’s private secretary, Orville Babcock. Others went to prison, but Grant stood by Babcock, possibly perjuring himself to protect Orville Babcock from conviction.

Question 9

Who assassinated Abraham Lincoln in April 1865?

Answer 9

John Wilkes Booth

→ Booth, a southern sympathizer, shot Abraham Lincoln.

Question 10

During Reconstruction, where in the South did African Americans become officeholders?

Answer 10

Across the South
→ Over the course of Reconstruction, twenty African Americans served in state administrations as governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, or lesser offices. More than six hundred served as state legislators and sixteen served as congressmen.

Question 11

Nathan Bedford Forrest was best known during the Civil War for commanding southern troops that carried out what action?

Answer 11

Massacring black Union troops at Fort Pillow
→ Confederate General Forrest on April 12, 1864, led his troops to commit one of the war’s worst atrocities, the massacre of unarmed black Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tennessee. Forrest’s troops refused to take prisoners, instead shooting down black soldiers as they tried to surrender.

Question 12

Race riots that occurred in 1866 in which of the following cities increased Republicans’ determination to reform the South?

Answer 12

Memphis
→ In Memphis in April 1866, when some black veterans celebrated the end of their army service by drinking, violence broke out. For three days, whites burned black neighborhoods, churches, and schools, raped several African American women, and killed dozens of black residents. These race riots increased Republican determination to reform the South.

Question 13

What characteristics did the freedmen and scalawags of the Republican governments of the South share?

Answer 13

They were both southern born and opposed ex-slaveholders’ power.
→ Freedmen and scalawags were both southern born and opposed the political and economic power of the ex-slaveholders. They were Republicans and played an important role in Reconstruction politics because they could vote.

Question 14

As of 1876, which state no longer had any U.S. military units remaining?

Answer 14

Mississippi

→ Democratic “redeemers” took control of Mississippi by 1875.

Question 15

Refer to the table Primary Reconstruction Laws and Constitutional Amendments

to answer the following question. Click the image to view full-size.

What general trend can be seen in the Reconstruction measures shown in this table?

Answer 15

Increasing congressional efforts to ensure the rights of African Americans
→ All of the acts listed except the Tenure of Office Act were focused on protecting the civil rights of African Americans.

Question 16

Why did some African Americans in the Reconstruction South resist the idea of desegregated schools?

Answer 16

Fear for children’s safety
→ Although some black leaders pressed for desegregation, they were keenly aware of the backlash this was likely to provoke. Other blacks made it clear that they preferred their children to attend all-black schools, especially if they encountered hostile or condescending white teachers and classmates. Many had pragmatic concerns. Asked whether she wanted her boys to attend an integrated school, one woman in New Orleans said no: “I don’t want my children to be pounded by dem white boys. I don’t send them to school to fight, I send them to learn.”

Question 17

How was Reconstruction taught in American children schools at least until the 1960s?

Answer 17

As the illegitimate regime of lazy blacks
→ After “Redemption,” generations of schoolchildren were taught that ignorant, lazy blacks and corrupt whites had imposed illegitimate Reconstruction “regimes” on the South.

Question 18

Why did Congress pass the Fourteenth Amendment?

Answer 18

To provide constitutional protection for freedmen’s civil rights
→ The Fourteenth Amendment was intended to give some protection for civil rights by declaring all the former slaves citizens and guaranteeing them protection under the law.

Question 19

Republican policies in the South during Reconstruction emphasized what policies?

Answer 19

Modernizing and democratizing southern institutions
→ Southern Republican governments tried to modernize the South with public schools, roads, and railroads and opened up democracy by eliminating property qualifications for voting and making more offices elective. They did not want white supremacy; they accepted but did not create sharecropping; and they raised taxes to pay for their social programs.

Question 20

Which former Confederate general was the first leader of the Ku Klux Klan?

Answer 20

Nathan Bedford Forrest

→ A former Confederate general, Nathan Bedford Forrest was the first leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

Question 21

What position did Frederick Douglass assume on the issue of women’s voting rights during Reconstruction?

Answer 21

Douglass asked women to allow black male suffrage to take priority.
→ At a convention of the Equal Rights Association, Douglass pleaded for white women to understand the plight in which former slaves found themselves, and to allow black male suffrage to take priority, saying, “When women, because they are women, are hunted down, . . . dragged from their homes and hung upon lampposts, . . . then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot equal to our own.”

Question 22

Race riots that occurred in 1866 in which of the following cities increased Republicans’ determination to reform the South?

Answer 22

Memphis
→ In Memphis in April 1866, when some black veterans celebrated the end of their army service by drinking, violence broke out. For three days, whites burned black neighborhoods, churches, and schools, raped several African American women, and killed dozens of black residents. These race riots increased Republican determination to reform the South.

Question 23

Which adjective accurately describes Republican state governments in the Reconstruction South?

Answer 23

Ambitious in goals
→ Reconstruction governments were ambitious indeed, trying to undertake impressive reforms in public education, family law, social services, commerce, and transportation

Question 24

What was the name of the paramilitary force that was founded in Tennessee and used violence against Republicans and blacks across the South?

Answer 24

Ku Klux Klan
→ The Ku Klux Klan was a paramilitary force that was founded in Tennessee and used violence against Republicans and blacks across the South.

Question 25

Refer to the map Reconstruction

to answer the following question. Click the image to view full-size.

What group was behind the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which divided the conquered South into the five military districts shown here?

Answer 25

Radical Republicans
→ After the 1866 congressional elections, power shifted to the so-called Radical Republicans who promptly set about transforming the defeated South through the Reconstruction Act of 1867.

Question 26

Refer to the map The Barrow Plantation, 1860 and 1881

to answer the following question. Click the image to view full-size.

What does the map suggest about the nature of southern black institutions during Reconstruction?

Answer 26

They had to form beyond the borders of plantations.
→ The central institutions of the black community—the church and the school—were built outside the boundaries of the Barrow Plantation.

Question 27

Why were Supreme Court decisions of the 1870s and 1880s regarding the Civil War amendments and civil rights acts significant?

Answer 27

They restricted the impact of these amendments and rulings.
→ Despite the loss of power to “Redeemers” in the southern states, Reconstruction could have had lasting impact if landmark constitutional amendments and federal laws remained in force. But in a series of rulings, the Supreme Court closed off this avenue for the pursuit of justice

Question 28

What was radical about the Fourteenth Amendment?

Answer 28

It defined citizenship in national rather than state terms.
→ In a stunning increase of federal power, the Fourteenth Amendment declared that when people’s essential rights were at stake, national citizenship henceforth took priority over citizenship in a state.

Question 29

Which statement best describes the constitutional revolution associated with Reconstruction?

Answer 29

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments laid the foundation for the civil rights movement of the twentieth century.
→ Reconstruction had shaken the legal and political framework that had made the United States a white man’s country. Although hostile courts and political opponents undercut it, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were never repealed, and the civil rights movement of the twentieth century would later build on this framework.

Question 30

Why did the freedmen insist that they needed to receive grants of land?

Answer 30

As the only way to guarantee their freedom
→ The freedmen wanted both political freedom and economic autonomy and needed land in order to achieve the latter. Without land, former slaves were left poor and vulnerable.

Question 31

Which political leader supported reparations for slaves in the form of the planters’ land?

Answer 31

Thaddeus Stevens
→ Stevens had argued that freed slaves had already earned the right to the land, through what Lincoln once referred to as “four hundred years of unrequited toil.” Stevens proposed the large southern plantations be treated as “forfeited estates of the enemy” and broken up into small farms for the former slaves.

Question 32

What did American women’s rights leaders hope to gain from Reconstruction?

Answer 32

Suffrage
→ Northern women had played key roles in the antislavery movement and the Union victory. Women’s rights leaders, who had campaigned for women’s voting rights since the Seneca Falls convention of 1848, fervently hoped that Reconstruction would bring votes for women as well as for black men.

Question 33

What former slave became Mississippi’s second black U.S. senator in 1874?

Answer 33

Report this questionGreat job! The correct answer is
Blanche K. Bruce
→ In 1874, Blanche K. Bruce became Mississippi’s second black U.S. senator.

Question 34

Why was the outcome of the 1876 election given to an electoral commission to determine?

Answer 34

Electoral votes from three states were disputed.
→ Citing ample evidence of Democratic fraud and intimidation, Republican officials certified the electoral votes of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina for Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. “Redeemer” Democrats who had taken over the states’ governments submitted their own electoral votes for Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. When Congress met in early 1877, it confronted two sets of electoral votes from those states, for which there was no provision in the Constitution.

Question 35

What position did Frederick Douglass assume on the issue of women’s voting rights during Reconstruction?

Answer 35

Douglass asked women to allow black male suffrage to take priority.
→ At a convention of the Equal Rights Association, Douglass pleaded for white women to understand the plight in which former slaves found themselves, and to allow black male suffrage to take priority, saying, “When women, because they are women, are hunted down, . . . dragged from their homes and hung upon lampposts, . . . then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot equal to our own.”

Question 36

Which provision did the Senate remove from the original civil rights bill of 1870 when it passed the law in 1875?

Answer 36

The requirement for integration of churches
→ Some sympathetic Republicans feared a backlash if the federal government tried to regulate churches. In the end, the Senate removed Sumner’s provision for integrated churches, and the House removed the clause requiring integrated schools.

Question 37

Republican policies in the South during Reconstruction emphasized what policies?

Answer 37

Modernizing and democratizing southern institutions
→ Southern Republican governments tried to modernize the South with public schools, roads, and railroads and opened up democracy by eliminating property qualifications for voting and making more offices elective. They did not want white supremacy; they accepted but did not create sharecropping; and they raised taxes to pay for their social programs.

Question 38

Under President Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction plan, how could high-ranking Confederate military officers regain their property and win amnesty?

Answer 38

By petitioning the president
→ Johnson demanded that high-ranking officials go beyond the oath he required of everyone else and petition directly to him for a pardon.

Question 39

According to the Fourteenth Amendment, which of the following granted U.S. citizenship?

Answer 39

The federal government
→ By identifying a nationwide birth right to citizenship, the Fourteenth Amendment for the first time created a national standard for citizenship.

Question 40

In early 1877, who replaced Supreme Court Justice David Davis on the electoral commission empowered to settle the disputed presidential election of 1876?

Answer 40

Joseph P. Bradley
→ Republican justice Bradley made it possible for the election commission to cast its vote on the president and, on party lines, voted 8 to 7 for Hayes.

Question 41

Disappointed that the Fifteenth Amendment did not extend the right to vote to women, leading suffragists such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed what group?

Answer 41

The National Woman Suffrage Association
→ Disappointed that the Fifteenth Amendment did not extend the right to vote to women, leading suffragists such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association.

Question 42

What did the presidential candidates of 1876, Samuel J. Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes, have in common?

Answer 42

Both supported the idea of southern home rule.
→ New York governor Samuel J. Tilden was a Wall Street lawyer who favored home rule for the South. Hayes did, too, just more discreetly.

Question 43

Why did Congress believe it was important for military commanders in the occupied South to supervise new state constitutional conventions?

Answer 43

Congress wanted to ensure that new constitutions guaranteed black suffrage.
→ Under the Reconstruction Act of 1867, southern states would rewrite their constitutions while under military occupation. Part of the military’s objective was to prevent ex-Confederates from resuming leadership and to ensure that African Americans had protected access to political participation.

Question 44

African American colleges and universities, like Fisk, Tougaloo, and the Hampton Institute, which formed during Reconstruction, first focused on training freedmen for what purpose?

Answer 44

Teaching
→ These institutions focused first on training teachers. By 1869, there were over three thousand teachers instructing freedmen in the South. More than half were themselves black.

Question 45

Which of the following best assesses the role of Ulysses S. Grant in the impeachment crisis of 1868?

Answer 45

Grant had stepped down as secretary of war in favor of Edwin Stanton, precipitating the crisis.
→ Andrew Johnson had suspended Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a Radical Republican, and replaced him with Union General Ulysses S. Grant. But when the Senate overruled the suspension, Grant resigned and asked Stanton to resume his post. Johnson’s subsequent firing of Stanton led to the vote to impeach him.

Question 46

Who was the first historian to challenge white supremacist interpretations of Reconstruction?

Answer 46

W. E. B. Du Bois
→ In Black Reconstruction in America (1935), Du Bois meticulously documented the history of African American struggle, white vigilante violence, and national policy failure, but other historians ignored his work for decades. Not a single scholarly journal reviewed Du Bois’ important book

Question 47

Why did some Republicans in the Senate vote to acquit President Andrew Johnson of criminal misconduct at the end of his impeachment trial?

Answer 47

They thought that removing a president over a policy dispute would be a dangerous precedent.
→ Dissenting Republicans were afraid of setting the precedent of removing a president over policy disputes, which seemed to violate the system of checks and balances of the Constitution.

Question 48

Why did the Democratic loser of the contested 1876 election, Samuel Tilden, urge Democratic House members to go along with the decision of the electoral commission?

Answer 48

Republican candidate Hayes had indicated his willingness to offer substantial patronage to the South.
→ Hayes had promised federal funds for education, internal improvements, and economic growth.

Question 49

What was the Union League, which began in the late 1860s?

Answer 49

A powerful political club for grassroots Radical Republicans

→ Beginning in the late 1860s, the Union League served as a powerful political club for grassroots Radical Republicans.

Question 50

The Black Codes instituted by southern state governments created under Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction plan aimed to achieve what goal?

Answer 50

Place African Americans in a situation as close to slavery as possible
→ Whites in the South tried to construct a system that was as close to slavery as possible, enacting laws known as the Black Codes that were designed to drive former slaves back to the plantations and deny them elementary civil rights.

Question 51

During Reconstruction, the term “scalawag” referred to what group of southern whites?

Answer 51

Those who supported Reconstruction
→ Ex-Confederates viewed the Republican Party as illegitimate in southern affairs and viewed southern whites who supported Reconstruction as scalawags, an ancient Scots-Irish term for worthless animals.

Question 52

Nathan Bedford Forrest was best known during the Civil War for commanding southern troops that carried out what action?

Answer 52

Massacring black Union troops at Fort Pillow
→ Confederate General Forrest on April 12, 1864, led his troops to commit one of the war’s worst atrocities, the massacre of unarmed black Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tennessee. Forrest’s troops refused to take prisoners, instead shooting down black soldiers as they tried to surrender.

Question 53

What did Republicans in Congress do in 1865 to block implementation of President Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction plan?

Answer 53

They refused to admit southern delegates to Congress.
→ Under the Constitution, Congress is “the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members” (Article 1, Section 5). With this power, Republican majorities in both houses simply refused to admit southern delegations elected under Johnson’s Reconstruction plan when Congress convened in December 1865.

Question 54

How did the Supreme Court ruling in U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876) weaken the Fourteenth Amendment?

Answer 54

By saying it did not apply to the actions of private citizens
→ In Cruikshank, the Court ruled that voting rights remained a state matter unless the state itself violated those rights. If former slaves’ rights were violated by individuals or private groups (including the Klan), that lay beyond federal jurisdiction.

Question 55

African Americans constituted a majority in the lower house of which state legislature in 1868?

Answer 55

South Carolina
→ As the reconstructed governments began to function in 1867, African American politicians increased their advocacy to reform the South. Although never proportionate to their numbers in the population, blacks became officeholders across the South. In South Carolina, African Americans constituted a majority in the lower house of the legislature in 1868.

Question 56

What set classical liberals apart from other Republicans in the early 1870s?

Answer 56

They believed in free trade, small government, and limited voting rights.
→ Classical liberals objected to the activist federal government that had emerged with Reconstruction and called for a small government, free trade, and an end to the expansion of suffrage.

Question 57

Which of the following best assesses the significance of the election of 1876 for the South?

Answer 57

It made little immediate difference in the South, where Redeemers had already assumed power.
→ In the short run, the political events of 1877 had little impact on most southerners. Much of the work of “Redemption” had already been done.

Question 58

With what was President Andrew Johnson charged when he was impeached in 1868?

Answer 58

Engaging in misconduct and infringing on the powers of Congress
→ The Republican majority in the House of Representatives brought eleven counts of misconduct against Johnson, most relating to infringement of the powers of Congress.

Question 59

What did the Democrats and former Confederates of the South label northerners who participated in rebuilding the South?

Answer 59

Carpetbaggers
→ Ex-Confederates viewed the Union League, Freedmen’s Bureau, and Republican Party as illegitimate forces in southern affairs, and they resented the political education of freedpeople. They denounced northern whites as carpetbaggers, self-seeking interlopers who carried all their property in cheap suitcases called carpetbags.

Question 60

In which scandal did President Grant appear to have perjured himself to protect Orville Babcock, his private secretary, from conviction?

Answer 60

Whiskey Ring
→ The Whiskey Ring scandal was a network of liquor distillers and treasury agents who defrauded the government of millions of dollars of excise taxes on whiskey. The ringleader was Grant’s private secretary, Orville Babcock. Others went to prison, but Grant stood by Babcock, possibly perjuring himself to protect Orville Babcock from conviction.

Question 61

How did sharecropping develop as an agricultural system in the post–Civil War South?

Answer 61

By way of strained, need-based negotiations between landlords and freedmen
→ Sharecropping emerged as a system negotiated between whites who had little cash for wages and blacks who wanted to work their own land but could not afford to purchase it.

Question 62

What was significant about the results of the 1866 congressional elections?

Answer 62

Republicans won enough seats to override President Andrew Johnson’s vetoes.
→ Johnson opposed ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, but public opinion had swung against him. In the 1866 congressional elections, voters gave Republicans a three-to-one majority in Congress, enough votes to override Johnson’s vetoes on many questions.

Question 63

Why did Congress pass the Civil Rights Act of 1875 after the bill had remained on Capitol Hill for five years?

Answer 63

Congress passed the law to honor its author, Charles Sumner, who had died the year before.
→ To honor the great Massachusetts abolitionist, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1875. However, most of it was found unconstitutional in the Civil Rights Cases of the 1880s.

Question 64

What characteristics did the freedmen and scalawags of the Republican governments of the South share?

Answer 64

They were both southern born and opposed ex-slaveholders’ power.
→ Freedmen and scalawags were both southern born and opposed the political and economic power of the ex-slaveholders. They were Republicans and played an important role in Reconstruction politics because they could vote.

Question 65

Why did some Republicans begin to revolt against the Grant administration in the early 1870s?

Answer 65

They lost faith in their party because of the economic depression.
→ Economic troubles and disappointments with an increasingly activist state prompted some Republicans to reject Grant and advocate a classical liberalism of minimum government and individualism.

Question 66

What did President Andrew Johnson’s opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment succeeded in achieving?

Answer 66

Helping Republicans win an overwhelming majority in Congress in 1866
→ Johnson’s opposition to and active campaigning against the Fourteenth Amendment only made matters worse for the Democrats and contributed to the huge Republican majority in the 1866 election.

Question 67

Why did the economic troubles brought on by the panic of 1873 hit southern governments particularly hard?

Answer 67

The southern economy had already been growing slowly before the downturn.
→ The South’s economy grew more slowly than Republicans had hoped during Reconstruction, and after 1873, growth screeched to a halt. State debts mounted rapidly, and as crushing interest on bonds fell due, public credit collapsed.