Lesson 3: Reconstruction and Southern Society

Question 1

Carpetbagger Definition

Answer 1

an uncomplimentary nickname for a Northerner who went to the South after the Civil War

Question 2

Hiram Rhodes Revels Definition

Answer 2

(1827–1901) the nation’s first African American senator

Question 3

Ku Klux Klan Definition

Answer 3

a secret society organized in the South after the Civil War to reassert white supremacy by means of violence

Question 4

Scalawag Definition

Answer 4

a white Southerner who supported the Republicans during Reconstruction

Question 5

Sharecropper Definition

Answer 5

a person who rents a plot of land from another person and farms it in exchange for a share of the crop

Question 6

Before the Civil War, which groups of people held the most political power in the South? How did Reconstruction change that?

Answer 6

Before the Civil War, a small group of rich planters had dominated southern politics. During Reconstruction, however, new groups tried to reshape southern politics. The state governments created during Radical Reconstruction were different from any governments the South had known before. The old leaders had lost much of their influence. Three groups stepped in to replace them.

Question 7

What was the new political group in the South known as Scalawags?

Answer 7

One group to emerge consisted of white southerners who supported the new Republican governments. Many were businesspeople who had opposed secession in 1860. They wanted to forget the war and get on with rebuilding the South. Many whites in the South felt that any southerner who helped the Republicans was a traitor. They called the white southern Republicans scalawags, a word used for small, scruffy horses.

Question 8

What was the new political group in the South known as Northerners or Carpetbaggers?

Answer 8

Northerners who came to the South after the war were another important force. White southerners accused the new arrivals of hoping to get rich from the South’s misery. Southerners jested that these northerners were in such a hurry to move south that they had time only to fling a few clothes into cheap suitcases, or carpetbags. As a result, they became known as carpetbaggers. In fact, northerners went south for various reasons. A few did hope to profit as the South was being rebuilt. Many more, however, were Union soldiers who had grown to love the South’s rich land. Others, both white and black, were teachers, ministers, and reformers who sincerely wanted to help the freedmen.

Question 9

What was the new political group in the South known as African Americans or Freedmen? Who was Hiram Rhodes Revels? Who was Blanche K. Bruce?

Answer 9

African Americans were the third major new group in southern politics. Before the war, they had no voice in southern government. During Reconstruction, they not only voted in large numbers, but they also ran for and were elected to public office in the South. African Americans became sheriffs, mayors, and legislators in the new state and local governments. Sixteen African Americans were elected to Congress between 1869 and 1880. Two African Americans, both representing Mississippi, served in the Senate. Hiram Rhodes Revels, a clergyman and teacher, became the nation’s first black senator in 1870. He completed the unfinished term of former Confederate president Jefferson Davis. In 1874, Blanche K. Bruce became the first African American to serve a full term in the Senate. Revels’s election had a powerful impact. It was an important victory for African American politicians. He served on the Committee on Education and Labor, where he opposed legislation that would segregate, or separate, schools for African Americans and whites. He also promoted opportunities for African American workers.

Question 10

How did whites lie about the political influence of the Freedmen?

Answer 10

Freedmen had less political influence than many whites claimed, however. Only in South Carolina did African Americans win a majority in one house of the state legislature. No state elected a black governor.

Question 11

How were Conservatives resisting reform during Reconstruction?

Answer 11

Most white southerners who had held power before the Civil War resisted Reconstruction. These Conservatives resented the changes imposed by Congress and enforced by the military. They wanted the South to change as little as possible. Conservatives were willing to let African Americans vote and hold a few offices. Still, they were determined that real power would remain in the hands of whites. This tension caused social problems in the South during Reconstruction that impacted free African Americans and Conservatives. A few wealthy planters tried to force African Americans back onto plantations. Many small farmers and laborers wanted the government to take action against freedmen, who now competed with them for land and power. Most of these white southerners were Democrats. They declared war on anyone who cooperated with the Republicans. “This is a white man’s country,” declared one southern senator, “and white men must govern it.”

Question 12

Who were the Ku Klux Klan? What did they do?

Answer 12

Some white southerners formed secret societies to help them regain power. The most dangerous was the Ku Klux Klan, or KKK. The Klan worked to keep African Americans and white Republicans out of office. Dressed in white robes and hoods to hide their identities, Klansmen rode at night to the homes of African American voters, shouting threats and burning wooden crosses. When threats did not work, the Klan turned to violence. Klan members murdered hundreds of African Americans and their white allies.

Question 13

What were the social and political impacts of the Ku Klux Klan?

Answer 13

Many moderate southerners condemned the violence of the Klan. Yet, they could do little to stop the Klan’s reign of terror. Freedmen turned to the federal government for help. In Kentucky, African American voters wrote to Congress:

“We believe you are not familiar with the Ku Klux Klan’s riding nightly over the country spreading terror wherever they go by robbing, whipping, and killing our people without provocation.”

—Records of the U.S. Senate, April 11, 1871

In 1870, Congress made it a crime to use force to keep people from voting. Although Klan activities decreased, the threat of violence remained. Some African Americans continued to vote and hold office, but others were frightened away from the ballot box.

Question 14

What had the Southern Reconstruction governments accomplished? What hindered their progress?

Answer 14

Reconstruction governments tried to rebuild the South. They built public schools for both black and white children. Many states gave women the right to own property. In addition, Reconstruction governments rebuilt railroads, telegraph lines, bridges, and roads. Between 1865 and 1879, the South laid 7,000 miles of railroad track. However, political problems due to controversial government policies and political corruption impacted southerners and hindered progress.

Question 15

How did higher taxes affect southerners’ views on Reconstruction governments? Why were Confederate officials being taxed without representation?

Answer 15

Rebuilding cost money. Before the war, southerners paid low taxes. Reconstruction governments raised taxes sharply. This created discontent among many southern whites. Many former Confederate officers and officials were denied voting rights during Reconstruction and thus were being taxed without representation. The tax increases also caused some landowners to lose their land.

Question 16

How did corruption in the National and State governments influence the South’s discontent towards Reconstruction?

Answer 16

Southerners were further angered by widespread corruption in the Reconstruction governments. One state legislature, for example, voted $1,000 to cover a member’s bet on a horse race. Other items billed to the state included hams, perfume, and a coffin. Corruption was not limited to the South. After the Civil War, dishonesty plagued northern governments, as well. Most southern officeholders, however, served their states honestly.

Question 17

How successful were State Legislative Reform Programs in the South?

Answer 17

State legislative reform programs in the South met with mixed success. New state constitutions allowed all adult men to vote, removed restrictions for holding office, and made public officials elected rather than appointed. Executive branches were also given increased power to provide government services. However, legislation to enroll voters was hindered by new voting restrictions that kept many African Americans from making use of their new voting rights. Many of the laws preventing former Confederates from voting and holding office did not last. In Georgia, African Americans were forced from the state legislature.

Question 18

Remember: In the first months after the war, freedmen left the plantations on which they had lived and worked. They found few opportunities, however.

Answer 18

In the first months after the war, freedmen left the plantations on which they had lived and worked. They found few opportunities, however.

Question 19

What were attempts to help Freedmen in terms of opportunity? What ended up happening?

Answer 19

Some Radical Republicans talked about giving each freedman “40 acres and a mule” as a fresh start. This idea stemmed from a field order given by General William Tecumseh Sherman in 1865. Thaddeus Stevens suggested breaking up big plantations and distributing the land. Most Americans opposed the plan, however. In the end, former slaves received—in the words of a freedman—“nothing but freedom.” Through hard work or good luck, some freedmen were able to become landowners. Most, however, had little choice but to return to where they had lived in slavery. At the same time, some large planters found themselves with land but nobody to work it.

Question 20

How did the Civil War disrupt the Southern economy?

Answer 20

Before the Civil War, Southern planters enjoyed prosperity because of strong demand for cotton, tobacco, and other farm products in the North and in Britain. During the war, a Union blockade had prevented the South from selling most of its products in those markets. As a result, prices for those products rose, and suppliers in Latin America, India, and other parts of the world began producing more tobacco, cotton, sugarcane, and rice. When the war ended and southern farmers returned to the market, they faced much greater competition from foreign producers, resulting in lower prices according to the laws of supply and demand. Meanwhile, the war had destroyed many of the South’s cities and factories. Southern planters had lost their enslaved workers, who were often planters’ main investment. The South had little money to invest in industry. As a result, it remained dependent on farming at a time when farming brought less income.

Question 21

What was sharecropping? Why was it detrimental to those who participated within it?

Answer 21

During Reconstruction, many freedmen and poor whites went to work on the large plantations. These sharecroppers rented and farmed a plot of land. Planters provided seed, fertilizer, and tools in return for a share of the crop at harvest time. To many freedmen, sharecropping offered a measure of independence. Many hoped to own their own land one day. In fact, this arrangement had a damaging impact on these groups. Most sharecroppers and small landowners became locked in a cycle of poverty. Each spring, they received supplies on credit. In the fall, they had to repay what they had borrowed. As you have read, southern farm products were worth less after the Civil War. If the harvest did not cover what they owed, they sank deeper into debt. Many farmers lost their land and became sharecroppers themselves.