Deck 11: Promises and Pitfalls of Reconstruction

Question 1

With regard to politics,black women during Reconstruction

A)briefly enjoyed the right to vote at the height of congressional radicalism.
B)vocally expressed their opinion on important matters and tried to influence political decisions.
C)had no engagement with and little interest in political affairs,like all women of the time.
D)sometimes attempted to quietly influence their male relations,but carefully avoided overstepping the established bounds of women's political participation.

Answer 1

vocally expressed their opinion on important matters and tried to influence political decisions.

Question 2

Which of the following statements about South Carolina politician Robert Brown Elliott is LEAST accurate?

A)For two years he served as speaker of the state's legislature.
B)He was elected as the state's attorney general.
C)He rose to prominence despite having been born a slave on a South Carolina plantation.
D)He lost political power as Reconstruction came to an end and died in poverty.

Answer 2

He rose to prominence despite having been born a slave on a South Carolina plantation.

Question 3

The Black Codes implemented by southern states under Presidential Reconstruction did all of the following EXCEPT

A)deny blacks the right to vote.
B)deny blacks the right to testify against whites in courts of law.
C)permit judges to take black children away from "unfit" parents and give them over as "apprentices" to white employers.
D)deny blacks the right to enter into contracts.

Answer 3

deny blacks the right to enter into contracts.

Question 4

Which constitutional amendment ostensibly guaranteed black men throughout the nation the right to vote on an equal basis with white men?

A)Thirteenth
B)Twelfth
C)Fourteenth
D)Fifteenth

Question 5

When he ascended to the presidency in 1865,Andrew Johnson

A)extended pardons to thousands of Confederates.
B)used his executive powers to punish the plantation elite whom he blamed for the Civil War.
C)became a staunch champion of freedpeople's political and civil rights.
D)signed into law the Wade-Davis Bill which Lincoln had earlier rejected.

Question 6

What was the only ex-Confederate state to be exempted from the Reconstruction Act of 1867?

A)Mississippi
B)Virginia
C)Tennessee
D)Arkansas

Question 7

What is the claim to fame of Hiram Revels and Blanche K.Bruce?

A)They were the only black men to serve as state governors in the nineteenth century.
B)They were the only black men to serve in the U.S.Senate until the second half of the twentieth century.
C)They were the first black men to serve in a presidential cabinet,under Grant and Hayes respectively.
D)They cast the deciding votes which resulted in President Johnson's impeachment.

Question 8

Which of the following statements about the Union League of America is LEAST accurate?

A)It attracted supporters with its ritualism and its aura of secrecy as well as its devotion to liberty and equality.
B)It was an openly partisan organization,drumming up southern support for the Republican Party.
C)It was originally founded during Reconstruction by black New England soldiers who wanted to expand black rights in the North.
D)As it spread throughout the South,the League gained the support of large numbers of black men who turned to it for political guidance.

Question 9

Which of the following statements about conditions in the South in late 1865 and early 1866 is LEAST accurate?

A)Terrorist bands of white southerners calling themselves Regulators and Jayhawkers attacked black people with impunity.
B)The U.S.Congress affirmed the policies of Presidential Reconstruction,thus allowing the worst abuses against southern blacks to continue unchecked.
C)Elections in the South in late 1865 sent dozens of leading Confederate figures to Congress,including the former vice president of the Confederacy.
D)In early 1866 the U.S.Congress repudiated the federal elections held in the South in late 1865.

Question 10

All of the following groups supported the enfranchisement of southern blacks in 1866 EXCEPT

A)black and white abolitionists.
B)northern Republicans.
C)industrialists.
D)Johnson and his supporters in Congress.

Question 11

The Reconstruction Act of 1867 did all of the following EXCEPT

A)divide the ex-Confederate states into five districts governed by martial law.
B)require ex-Confederate states to appoint a certain number of black citizens to offices in the state governments.
C)require ex-Confederate states to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as a condition of being readmitted to the Union.
D)require ex-Confederate states to hold new constitutional conventions with delegates chosen by universal male suffrage.

Question 12

During Reconstruction,black men in Mississippi served in all of the following positions in the state government EXCEPT

A)governor.
B)secretary of state
C)speaker of the house.
D)lieutenant governor.

Question 13

Which of the following statements about Lincoln's Reconstruction policy is LEAST accurate?

A)According to his policy,a state could return to the Union once one-tenth of its citizens who had been eligible to vote in 1860 swore an oath of loyalty to the United States.
B)Lincoln's policy required southern states to accept the abolition of slavery as a condition of returning to the Union.
C)Lincoln insisted that southern states grant voting rights to black Union veterans as a condition of returning to the Union.
D)Lincoln granted amnesty to most former Confederates,but not to certain high-ranking government and military figures.

Question 14

Which state elected the largest number of black members to the House of Representatives?

A)South Carolina
B)Louisiana
C)Virginia
D)Georgia

Question 15

Which of the following statements about southern blacks' political mobilization in 1865 and 1866 is LEAST accurate?

A)Blacks held conventions throughout the South at which they demanded the right to vote.
B)Black mobilization was especially strong in cities,where it built off the existing infrastructure of churches and fraternal societies.
C)Black mobilization was strongest in those areas of the South where federal troops had the longest presence.
D)The free black urban elite completely dominated black politics,preventing the voices of rural blacks from being heard.

Question 16

The Civil Rights Act,passed in 1875,stipulated that

A)African Americans could not be denied equal access to public houses and public transportation.
B)businesses which employed more than two dozen workers could not discriminate against African Americans in their hiring practices.
C)publicly funded schools must be equally open to both white and black students.
D)homeowners and landlords could not refuse to sell or rent their property to black citizens.

Question 17

How many black men served in the House of Representatives between 1869 and 1901?

A)12
B)20
C)36
D)45

Question 18

The Fourteenth Amendment divided the members of the abolitionist movement primarily because it

A)penalized states for abridging the voting rights of men but not those of women.
B)included no enforcement measures,essentially making it a dead letter.
C)failed to restore to African Americans the rights stripped from them by the Dred Scott case.
D)guaranteed naturalized citizens the same rights as native-born citizens.

Question 19

During Reconstruction,South Carolina witnessed

A)the election of a black man as governor of the state.
B)a majority of black representatives in the state's legislature.
C)a majority of black senators in the state's senate.
D)the fewest political gains for African Americans of any ex-Confederate state.

Question 20

What effect did the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment have on suffrage in the South?

A)It threatened to expand the influence of the southern states in the federal government by nullifying the Three-fifths Compromise.
B)It explicitly granted voting rights to black men though continuing to deny suffrage to all women,white or black.
C)It did not explicitly grant voting rights to black men,but did lessen the federal representation of states which denied the franchise to black men.
D)It cemented the dominance of the northern states by barring ex-Confederates from voting in federal elections or holding federal office.

Question 21

The two most powerful white supremacist terrorist organizations during Reconstruction were the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and

A)the Constitutional Union Guards.
B)the Pale Faces.
C)the White Brotherhood.
D)the Knights of the White Camelia.

Question 22

Which of the following statements about the Southern Homestead Act of 1866 is MOST accurate?

A)The act distributed public lands exclusively to freedpeople.
B)Black families gained the most land through the act in states with the largest black populations.
C)Although the act opened lands to both whites and blacks,it was blacks who benefitted the most.
D)Thanks in part to the act,roughly 6% of all freed families owned their own land by the mid-1870s.

Question 23

Which of the following statements about sharecropping is LEAST accurate?

A)The system proved to be an inefficient method of production,and the South never again produced as much cotton as it had before the war.
B)The system emerged as a compromise between masters and freedpeople,who preferred the semblance of freedom that it gave compared to the close supervision and uncertain recompense associated with wage labor.
C)The system did not give freedpeople direct ownership of land,but it did allow them to live on a given plot and keep a portion of the crop which they produced on it.
D)The system cast many freedpeople into a cycle of ever-growing debt from which they stood little chance of escaping.

Question 24

Which of the following statements about the Freedmen's Bureau is LEAST accurate?

A)It provided rations to freedpeople while ignoring the plight of white refugees.
B)It oversaw dozens of hospitals and contributed millions of dollars to providing health care for former slaves.
C)It was the first large-scale federal welfare program in the United States.
D)It supervised labor relations between ex-slaves and their employers.

Question 25

During Reconstruction,black churchgoers and ministers generally

A)sought to maintain an iron separation between religion and political activities.
B)fought to integrate churches and gain admittance to white-only congregations.
C)took a leading role in funding schools and providing social services.
D)abandoned evangelical denominations in large numbers.

Question 26

What contributed MOST to the collapse of the Freedmen's Bank in 1874?

A)The bank could not secure deposits because not enough blacks made enough money to keep the bank afloat.
B)The federal government refused to take any action to assist the bank when it hit hard times after the Panic of 1873.
C)Rich industrialists manipulated the bank for their own profit,weakening the bank's finances before a general depression brought it down.
D)As president of the bank,Frederick Douglass insisted on loaning out money to freedpeople who had no collateral,quickly exhausting the bank's funds.

Question 27

Which of the following statements about gender and race in the Reconstruction South is MOST accurate?

A)Almost half of black families in this period lacked a male head of household.
B)In black families,matriarchal authority was more prevalent than patriarchal authority.
C)When dealing with the Freedman's Bureau,men tended to complain about individual mistreatment whereas women complained about the mistreatment of members of their families.
D)Whites criticized black women who emulated white women by staying at home instead of working for wages.

Question 28

Which of the following statements BEST captures attitudes toward the education of freedpeople during Reconstruction?

A)Although the Freedmen's Bureau tried to interest freedpeople in education,most southern blacks were more concerned with earning a living than with schooling.
B)The Freedmen's Bureau almost single-handedly established,funded,and supervised a school system for southern blacks.
C)Although freedpeople eagerly sought education,the agents of the Freedmen's Bureau refused to support their goals,and required all former slaves-men,women,and children-to enter into labor contracts.
D)Freedpeople often took the initiative of creating their own schools,but depended on financial assistance from the Freedmen's Bureau and northern churches.

Question 29

In the mid 1870s,a black militia maintained by Governor Adelbert Ames clashed frequently with paramilitary White Leagues in an intermittent civil war fought in which state?

A)South Carolina
B)Louisiana
C)Georgia
D)Alabama

Question 30

After gaining their freedom,black families preferred that female members

A)work side by side with men in the fields.
B)find work as domestics in white households.
C)stay home and tend to their household.
D)find jobs in the new factories being built by northern capitalists.

Question 31

Economically,most freedpeople in agricultural regions associated freedom primarily with

A)the ownership of land.
B)the right to earn good wages.
C)the right to enter into contracts.
D)the right to learn a skilled trade.

Question 32

The three southern states whose governments the Republican Party still controlled in 1876 included all of the following EXCEPT

A)Georgia.
B)Florida.
C)South Carolina.
D)Louisiana.

Question 33

Which of the following statements about the education of freedpeople in the Reconstruction era is LEAST accurate?

A)The schools established to educate freedpeople sought to inculcate the values of the free labor system.
B)Many white teachers focused as much on altering blacks' dialects and worship behaviors as on teaching them to read and write.
C)Large numbers of northerners traveled south to educate freedpeople,and the majority of white teachers in black schools were from the North.
D)The movement to educate freedpeople was crippled from the outset by the refusal of the federal government to provide money or other assistance to black schools.

Question 34

Which of the following statements about white supremacist organizations in the 1870s such as the Ku Klux Klan is MOST accurate?

A)The organizations had to operate in secrecy because they had little support among the broader white community.
B)Despite initial resistance to terrorist tactics from blacks,the organizations' terrorist methods proved increasingly effective at subverting black political participation.
C)Frustrated with the slow pace of progress in the South and the costs of Reconstruction,the federal government took no action to thwart the rise of white supremacist groups.
D)Local governments were fully capable of ending these organizations' activities,but none showed the desire to do so.

Question 35

All of the following factors contributed to the end of Reconstruction EXCEPT

A)the Republican Party's new generation of political leadership proved even more radical than its predecessor,and sacrificed political support in favor of ideological purity.
B)Democrats used revelations of political corruption in Republican-dominated governments on the state and national levels to discredit the Republican Party.
C)the U.S.Supreme Court eviscerated many of the congressional protections established to protect blacks' rights,and strictly limited the application of the Reconstruction Amendments.
D)white supremacists' use of terrorist tactics made political participation too dangerous for large numbers of black southerners.

Question 36

A persistent rumor spread through the South in 1865 and 1866 that the federal government would provide freedpeople with

A)ten dollars for every year they had been slaves.
B)forty acres of land and a mule.
C)free transportation to northern industrial centers.
D)their own territory in the Southwest.

Question 37

Which black southern university was named after the head of the Freedmen's Bureau?

A)Fisk University
B)Hampton Institute
C)Howard University
D)Biddle Memorial Institute

Question 38

Compared to the 2% of married white women who worked for wages,what percentage of married black women were employed outside the home in 1870?

A)10%
B)40%
C)60%
D)80%