Grant 1869 - 1877 Flashcards
Beginning with the plans of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, this deck describes Northern attempts to remake the South and ensure African American civil rights. The deck concludes with the presidential election of 1876 and the removal of the last federal troops from the South. (41 cards)
In 1868, a revolution broke out in Cuba against Spain. How did President Grant react when he took office in 1869?
When Congress attempted to recognize the Cuban rebels, Grant sent a message to Congress reasserting his administration’s position of neutrality. Grant did attempt to negotiate the purchase of Cuba from Spain, but was rebuffed. Spain eventually put down the Cuban insurrection.
What conduct was the Fifteenth Amendment (1869) designed to protect?
The Fifteenth Amendment was designed to protect the right to vote, and disallowed any state to abridge voting “on account of race, color, creed, or previous condition of servitude.”
In part, Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment in response to Grant’s narrow victory in the 1868 election, which had been due to the 500,000 votes Grant received from black voters.
Who was Hiram Revels?
Hiram Revels was the first black person elected to Congress and represented Mississippi in Congress in 1870 and 1871. A second black Congressman, Blanche K. Bruce, represented Mississippi from 1875-1880.
Revels was elected to fill Jefferson Davis, the former Confederate President’s former seat.
How did suffragettes react to the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment?
Many suffragettes espoused abolition and supported the granting of civil rights to blacks.
They used the Amendment’s passage to argue that they deserved the same rights which the nation had extended to Black men.
Which country did Ulysses S. Grant propose annexing in 1870?
Grant proposed annexing the Caribbean nation of Santo Domingo, now known as the Dominican Republic. Both Grant and the government of Santo Domingo supported annexation, but Congress refused to authorize it.
Define:
Crop lien system
During Reconstruction, many Southern farmers were strapped for cash. Under the crop lien system, farm workers estimated the value of their forthcoming crops, and borrowed against it.
Sample crop liens proved dangerous to farmers, as the failure of a crop would result in foreclosure of the farm and dispossession of the farmer.
What was the Ku Klux Klan?
Founded by former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Klan was a terroristic white supremacist organization, that sought to intimidate newly freed Blacks by torture, rape, lynchings, whippings, and destroying Black-owned businesses. During Reconstruction, they ran wild until Congress passed laws ordering the army to hunt them down.
The Klan operated in secret, with membership wearing distinctive white hoods.
How did the federal government under President Grant respond to the KKK?
The Government passed a series of four separate Force Acts that were passed between 1871 and 1875.
The acts were the government’s attempt to make sure that racist white southerners were abiding by the new constitutional provisions found in the 14th and 15th amendments, which were designed to protect the rights of Black people.
Explain one example of how the Force Act was used by the government.
In October of 1971, President Grant proclaimed 9 counties in the southern state of South Carolina in open rebellion, using the military to suppress violence there, as well as allowing the indefinite detention of suspected rebels without trial.
Suspending the writ of habeas corpus allowed President Grant the authority to do this.
Actions like these around the south proved valuable as the government destroyed the KKK.
Complete the sentence:
_____ were Northerners who came South after the War to operate the Reconstruction governments; _____ were Southerners who cooperated with them.
Carpetbaggers; Scalawags
Both groups met with widespread derision from the local populace.
The term “Carpetbaggers” refers to carpetbags, a popular suitcase of the time. Critics contended that Carpetbaggers tossed their few possessions in a bag, then headed South to take advantage of the defeated Confederacy.
Define:
Union Leagues
The Union Leagues were organizations in various Southern cities during Reconstruction, mostly headed by Northern blacks. In addition to providing education and political discussions, the Union Leagues registered voters and encouraged them to vote for Republican candidates.
Complete the sentence:
In 1872, Congress passed the _____ _____, which granted to all but top-ranking Confederates their civil rights, including the right to vote.
Amnesty Act
Re-enfranchised voters throughout the South promptly elected Democrats to their state governments.
Complete the sentence:
The process of pumping air through molten iron is known as the _____ _____.
Bessemer Process
By removing impurities, the Bessemer Process converts iron into steel, a stronger building material than iron alone. The Process revolutionized the making of steel by significantly lowering the cost of its production.
Who was Andrew Carnegie?
- Carnegie was the owner of the Carnegie Steel Company.
- Supplied half of all steel used worldwide.
- Made use of vertical integration.
- Used the Bessemer process.
He also used the “Bessemer Process”, a technique to create cheap steel at a good quality, which he learned while in England, which made him enormously wealthy.
What is vertical integration?
Under vertical integration, all the aspects of production for a manufactured good are owned by a single person or trust. For instance, Andrew Carnegie’s steel company owned the iron mines where steel originated, the distribution network where steel was sold, and everything in between.
Define:
Bimetallism
Bimetallism is a monetary standard by which the value of the monetary unit is defined as both the value of an amount of silver and the value of an amount of gold.
Why did farmers and small businessmen support the continuation of Greenbacks as national currency during the later half of the 1800s?
Greenbacks were issued as currency during the Civil War. Since Greenbacks were not backed by specie they were worth less than their value in gold (i.e. $1 in Greenbacks bought less than $1 in gold).
Farmers and small businessmen continued to advocate their use after the end of the War because it was cheaper to pay debt using Greenbacks rather than gold. Further, those who supported Greenbacks believed their use increased the price of farm products.
Many in the Republican Party opposed the continued use of Greenbacks during the 1860s and 1870s. Why?
Greenbacks were not backed by specie (gold or silver). Believing that specie-backed dollars would better hold their value, bankers, investors, and established businessmen argued against Greenbacks, contending that dollars backed by specie would better hold their value against inflation.
In 1873, Congress passed the Comstock Law, which prevented what activity?
The Comstock Law, championed by Anthony Comstock, prevented the mailing of “obscene” materials via U.S. mail.
As a postal inspector, Comstock took it upon himself to determine whether materials were obscene, and included in his list not only pornography but materials discussing abortion and birth control.
What did soft-money advocates term “The Crime of ‘73”?
“The Crime of ‘73” refers to the Coinage Act of 1873. Signed by President Grant, the Coinage Act ended bimetallism, placing the United States once more on the gold standard.
Farmers and small businessmen considered the Act a crime because it would increase interest rates and restrict the money supply. Instead, they supported both Greenbacks and bimetallism.
How did farmers and Northern laborers propose to bring the United States out of the economic depression that followed the Panic of 1873?
Farmers and Northern laborers wanted to increase the money supply by having the government print more Greenbacks and coin silver. President Grant disagreed and threatened to veto any legislation to that effect.
By increasing the money supply, the farmers hoped that it would cause inflation. Inflation is good for people who owe a lot of debt, since it’s easier to pay off debt, since debt doesn’t grow with inflation.
What were the major effects of the Panic of 1873?
- New York Stock Exchange stopped trading for the 1st time in history
- Unemployment hit 14%
- 18,000 businesses failed
- 25% of all railroads shut down
What was the Greenback Party?
The Greenback Party was an alliance of reform-minded farmers and organized labor.
Founded in 1873, the Greenback Party advocated for the printing of Greenbacks to ease the economic depression, labor reforms, and government regulation of the railroads.
Although it failed to become a lasting political force, the Greenback Party did win a few state and Congressional elections. Several of the Party’s leaders, however, went on to be prominent voices in the Populist Party.
What led to the establishment of Black colleges during Reconstruction?
The earliest Black colleges, such as Fisk, Morehouse, and Howard, were established to train ministers and teachers to staff the new churches and schools proliferating in the South.
In addition, many of these communities provided Black people relief from the everyday racism of white people that was a constant part of their life.
