Deck 16: Reconstruction, 1863-1877

Question 1

Why did many slaves travel immediately after gaining freedom?

A) Planters no longer wanted their work.
B) They refused to work.
C) Planters threatened them with violence.
D) They wanted to reunite their families.

Answer 1

They wanted to reunite their families.

Question 2

How did moderate Republicans and Republican Radicals differ in 1865?

A) Moderates championed black equality, while Radicals wanted to limit the rights of black Americans.
B) Moderates supported states' rights and limited federal involvement in the economy, while Radicals wanted to expand federal powers.
C) Moderates supported Andrew Johnson's reconstruction plan, while Radicals wanted to write their own.
D) Moderates did not actively support black voting rights and the distribution of confiscated lands to the freedmen, while Radicals did.

Answer 2

Moderates did not actively support black voting rights and the distribution of confiscated lands to the freedmen, while Radicals did.

Question 3

In Lincoln's plan for reconstruction, what did a Confederate state need to do to qualify for readmission into the Union?

A) The state legislature had to guarantee the right to vote to all former slaves.
B) Fifty percent of the voting population needed to pledge allegiance to the United States before forming a new government.
C) Ten percent of the voting population needed to take an oath of allegiance before forming a new government.
D) High-ranking Confederate officials had to renounce their allegiance to the government in Richmond.

Answer 3

Ten percent of the voting population needed to take an oath of allegiance before forming a new government.

Question 4

Abraham Lincoln's and Andrew Johnson's reconstruction plans shared an emphasis on

A) full amnesty to all former rebel soldiers.
B) limited voting rights for blacks.
C) the confiscation of rebel property.
D) ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Question 5

What was the result of President Johnson's plan to unite white opponents against the Fourteenth Amendment for the election of 1866?

A) The Democratic party made unlikely gains.
B) The National Union party won all northern states.
C) The Republicans won a resounding victory.
D) Northern whites turned against Reconstruction.

Question 6

What was the goal of the Wade-Davis bill?

A) To guarantee freedmen equal protection before the law
B) To confiscate the property of ex-Confederates
C) To force three-fourths of voters in a former rebel state to take a loyalty oath
D) To grant forty acres and a mule to every male ex-slave

Question 7

Union general Carl Schurz believed that to protect themselves from white oppression, newly freed blacks would need

A) voting rights.
B) access to an unbiased judicial system.
C) employment contracts.
D) social equality.

Question 8

Who opposed President Andrew Johnson's reconstruction plan?

A) Democratic legislators
B) Southern newspaper editors
C) Republican legislators
D) Southern planters

Question 9

Why did many slaves flee the biracial Methodist church soon after emancipation?

A) They disagreed with its theological teachings.
B) They wanted religious autonomy.
C) The Methodist Church rejected the newly freed blacks.
D) They associated Christianity with slavery and therefore abandoned it.

Question 10

The purpose of the black codes passed in 1865 was to

A) provide blacks with economic opportunities.
B) extend civil rights, although limited, to freedmen.
C) extend to blacks the same rights that whites enjoyed.
D) subordinate blacks to whites.

Question 11

Although Johnson had left the Democratic party before becoming president, he seemed more a Democrat than a Republican as president because he

A) advocated limitations on federal power.
B) vetoed the Wade-Davis bill and supported federal subsidies.
C) refused to support any aspect of Lincoln's reconstruction plan.
D) attempted to empower the Freedmen's Bureau.

Question 12

Who was disappointed in the voting rights provisions in the Fourteenth Amendment?

A) Northern members of the Republican party
B) Advocates of female suffrage
C) Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists
D) Ex-slaves in the South

Question 13

What did President Johnson do after Mississippi's rejection of legislation that outlawed slavery and South Carolina's refusal to renounce secession?

A) He refused to intervene.
B) He denied the states' new constitutions.
C) He refused to pardon planters and Confederate officials.
D) He sent the military into Mississippi and South Carolina.

Question 14

Why was the Civil Rights Act of 1866 extraordinary?

A) It made discrimination in state laws illegal.
B) It declared martial law in the South.
C) It expanded the states' authority to write their own civil rights laws.
D) It prolonged the life of the Freedmen's Bureau.

Question 15

What did former slaves hope to gain from the Reconstruction labor transformation?

A) Better wages
B) Fair contracts
C) Land ownership
D) Jobs for women

Question 16

Why did President Johnson's quick reconstruction of ex-Confederate states shock reformers?

A) His lenient terms for reconstruction belied his earlier states' rights stance.
B) He had long expressed a desire to destroy the southern planter aristocracy.
C) His harsh terms for reconstruction belied his earlier promises of leniency.
D) He failed to follow through on his promise to grant the freedmen voting rights.

Question 17

How did the Fourteenth Amendment deal with voting rights?

A) It explicitly granted all black adults the right to vote.
B) It gave Congress the right to reduce an intransigent state's representation.
C) It granted the vote to adult black males in all states.
D) It phased in voting rights for blacks over a five-year period.

Question 18

What did "Sherman land" and the establishment of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands demonstrate to southerners about Reconstruction?

A) That whites would soon regain their control over black laborers
B) That freedmen would have to work for their land
C) That ex-slaves would become independent landowners
D) That Congress was committed to punish former slaveholders

Question 19

What was outlawed under the army's system of compulsory free labor in the South during and after the Civil War?

A) Whipping
B) Wage labor
C) Social discrimination
D) Verbal abuse

Question 20

What was the significance of pardons granted to rebel soldiers under the terms of Lincoln's Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction?

A) The pardons permitted the rebels to return home with limited currency.
B) The pardons restored property (except slaves) to rebel soldiers.
C) The pardons kept ex-Confederate leaders from returning to political power.
D) The pardons forgave debts incurred during the war.

Question 21

By 1872, many Republican leaders had come to believe that which group offered the best hope for honesty, order, and prosperity in the South?

A) Educated African Americans
B) Upcountry yeoman farmers
C) Urban union leaders
D) Traditional white leadership

Question 22

What happened to most sharecroppers once they borrowed goods on a crop lien?

A) They made enough money to buy their own land.
B) They paid back their debt within a year.
C) They ended up in a cycle of debt.
D) They began growing food rather than cotton.

Question 23

To challenge Grant's reelection campaign in 1872, both the Liberty party and the Democratic party endorsed

A) Horatio Seymour.
B) Schuyler Colfax.
C) James A. Garfield.
D) Horace Greeley.

Question 24

The Fifteenth Amendment

A) prohibited the states from infringing on the rights of citizens.
B) defined U.S. citizenship.
C) extended black male suffrage to the entire nation.
D) outlawed slavery.

Question 25

What was the real result of the Fifteenth Amendment?

A) It effectively restructured political power in the South until 1920.
B) It was undermined by literacy and property qualifications in southern states.
C) It immediately allowed women to vote in national elections.
D) It made the United States the first nation with universal adult suffrage.

Question 26

The new southern state constitutions mandated by the Reconstruction Acts introduced which of the following reforms?

A) Mandatory education
B) Universal male suffrage
C) Wholesale disfranchisement of ex-rebels
D) The redistribution of property

Question 27

Why did African Americans prefer sharecropping to wage labor?

A) Sharecropping placed blacks on equal footing with whites.
B) Most black sharecroppers became very wealthy.
C) White landlords provided black sharecroppers with housing for life.
D) Sharecropping freed blacks from the day-to-day supervision of whites.

Question 28

After Ulysses S. Grant, the former Union general, was elected president in 1868, he

A) proved a decisive leader.
B) sought justice for blacks.
C) surrounded himself with skilled politicians.
D) became known for his anticorruption activities.

Question 29

What problem plagued the Republican governments of the Reconstruction South?

A) Lack of support from poor blacks
B) Indifference toward racial discrimination
C) Corruption
D) Lack of ambition

Question 30

How influential were African American politicians during the period southern whites derisively called "Negro domination"?

A) Only six percent of southerners in Congress during Reconstruction were black.
B) Blacks held a majority in over half the state legislatures for a short time.
C) African Americans held no elected office during Reconstruction.
D) Only states with black majorities elected blacks to office.

Question 31

Within months of the end of the Civil War, about one-third of black women in the South

A) moved to the North.
B) filed for divorce.
C) obtained a factory job.
D) abandoned fieldwork.

Question 32

What was the result of the impeachment trial of President Johnson?

A) The Court found him guilty of violating the Tenure of Office Act.
B) He was found guilty of the misuse and abuse of constitutional powers.
C) He no longer interfered in Reconstruction.
D) A not guilty verdict made him more powerful than ever.

Question 33

Andrew Johnson was impeached on what charge?

A) That he attempted to block Republican Reconstruction plans
B) That he undermined the Freedmen's Bureau
C) That he violated the Tenure of Office Act
D) That he replaced Union generals with conservative officials in the South

Question 34

Who was disappointed in the Military Reconstruction Act of 1867?

A) Radical Republicans who supported black suffrage
B) Those who believed the law should not provide blacks with their own land
C) Black men who did not own enough property to meet voting requirements
D) Those who advocated the redistribution of southern plantations to ex-slaves

Question 35

What was the result of Republican campaigns for public education in the South during the Reconstruction period?

A) Very few blacks had the opportunity to attend school.
B) Literacy rates rose sharply across the South.
C) Southern schools had the same funding as northern schools.
D) The South desegregated its public schools.

Question 36

The Ku Klux Klan developed into a paramilitary organization, but it began as

A) a group of yeoman farmers who were angry about Radical Reconstruction.
B) a fraternity in Tennessee that wanted to intimidate blacks.
C) an elitist order that wanted to destroy the Republican party by lynching blacks.
D) a social club for Confederate veterans who wanted to restore white supremacy.

Question 37

How did Congress respond to southern Republicans' pleas for federal protection from the racism and violence of the Ku Klux Klan?

A) It passed the Ku Klux Klan Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
B) It failed to respond because lawmakers felt they lacked the power to do anything.
C) It ignored the request for fear of alienating southern Democrats.
D) It passed the Compromise of 1877 in an attempt to stop Klan violence.

Question 38

According to the Military Reconstruction Act of 1867, what did a state have to do before gaining readmission to Congress?

A) Allow men and women to vote on a new constitution
B) Write a new constitution that guaranteed black suffrage
C) Elect a Republican governor
D) Guarantee permanent employment for African Americans

Question 39

How did passage of the Fifteenth Amendment shape future Republican policy?

A) It allowed Republicans to ignore black rights in the future.
B) It encouraged Republicans to take on southern labor policies.
C) The Republican party turned to land redistribution as its new central issue.
D) It ensured that the Republicans would become a primarily southern political party.

Question 40

Who made up the majority of the Republican party in the South in the late 1800s?

A) Scalawags
B) Owners of small businesses
C) Carpetbaggers
D) African Americans

Question 41

What was the result of the election of 1874?

A) Republicans maintained slight majorities in both houses of Congress.
B) Democrats won a majority in Congress and took most state governorships.
C) Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives.
D) Democrats won a majority of seats in the Senate.

Question 42

By the early 1870s, the congressional reconstruction goals of 1866

A) had been mostly met.
B) had been mostly abandoned by northerners.
C) had been expanded to include women's suffrage.
D) were still the nation's first priority.

Question 43

Identify and briefly explain two Supreme Court cases that essentially undermined Reconstruction.

Question 44

List differences in the perspectives of moderate Republicans and the Republican Radicals in Congress during the mid-to-late 1860s.

Question 45

How did southern Democrats appeal to white small farmers in the early 1870s?

A) They convinced poor whites that they paid taxes for blacks.
B) They promised to enlarge the government budget to help their plight.
C) They gave them the confiscated property of Confederate leaders.
D) They promised to raise taxes on blacks and on rich whites.

Question 46

After emancipation, what did freedom mean to former slaves in terms of their work, family, religion, and education?

Question 47

What happened to the whites who killed eighty-one blacks during the Colfax massacre?

A) African Americans broke them out of jail and killed them.
B) They received lifetime prison sentences.
C) They went free because nobody would prosecute them.
D) The Supreme Court found them guilty on all charges.

Question 48

Supreme Court decisions in the years following the Civil War largely

A) promoted the Republican Radicals' agenda for civil rights.
B) expanded the power of the federal government.
C) undermined Reconstruction.
D) expanded voting rights.

Question 49

The election controversy ended with the Compromise of 1877, in which

A) the Republican party was promised majority rule in Congress, and the Democratic party was promised lower taxes and home rule in the South.
B) southern Democrats accepted a Republican president in exchange for federal subsidies and the removal of federal troops from the South.
C) Republicans accepted Democratic rule in the White House in exchange for majority rule in Congress.
D) Republicans won lasting control of Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana in exchange for supporting a Republican president.

Question 50

Who were the Redeemers in the South?

A) Reformers who hoped to establish public education in the South
B) Politicians who believed Confederate dollars should be redeemed for U.S. dollars
C) Ministers who hoped to heal the breach between northern and southern churches
D) Southern Democrats who wanted to restore white supremacy in the South

Question 51

Explain the following statement: "By 1870, northerners had begun a retreat from the ideals of Reconstruction."

Question 52

The Reconstruction Acts required southern states to draw up new constitutions. Identify the two general categories in southern life that were extensively changed by these constitutions, and cite two examples from each category.

Question 53

Explain the reason for the appointment of a special presidential electoral commission in 1877 and state the outcome of its vote. Identify the effect of the informal understanding known as the Compromise of 1877 on Reconstruction.

Question 54

Identify three important provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Question 55

Explain why women's suffrage advocates were unhappy with the wording of the Fifteenth Amendment.

Question 56

From the perspective of white southerners, what were the stated purposes and goals of the black codes?

Question 57

What was the result of the presidential election of 1876?

A) Samuel Tilden won the popular vote but fell one vote short of victory in the Electoral College.
B) Congress declared that Tilden defeated Rutherford B. Hayes.
C) Hayes went to court to challenge the popular vote in Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana.
D) Hayes won the election with the majority of the popular votes.

Question 58

What was the result of the Supreme Court's ruling in the Slaughterhouse cases (1873)?

A) It limited the authority of federal courts in cases involving the civil rights of state citizens.
B) It extended the Fourteenth Amendment's due process protections to make state governments compliant.
C) It extended the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause to education.
D) It reinforced that the rights of national citizenship took precedence over the rights of state citizenship.

Question 59

Identify the positive and negative outcomes of the ambitious economic development programs launched by Republican governments in the South.

Question 60

What was the result of the Compromise of 1877?

A) It ended the political momentum of the Redeemers.
B) It allowed the Republicans to dominate southern politics.
C) It allowed the Democrats to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment.
D) It spelled the end of Reconstruction.

Question 61

Use the following to answer questions :
Select the word or phrase from the Terms section that best matches the definition or example provided in the Definitions section.
Name taken by southern Democrats who harnessed white rage in order to overthrow Republican rule and black political power and thus, they believed, save southern civilization.

A)black codes
B)carpetbagger
C)Civil Rights Act of 1866
D)Compromise of 1877
E)Fifteenth Amendment
F)Fourteenth Amendment
G)Freedmen's Bureau
H)Ku Klux Klan
I)Military Reconstruction Act
J)Redeemers
K)scalawag
L)sharecropping

Question 62

Use the following to answer questions :
Select the word or phrase from the Terms section that best matches the definition or example provided in the Definitions section.
A derogatory term that southerners applied to southern white Republicans, who were seen as traitors to the South. Most were yeoman farmers.

A)black codes
B)carpetbagger
C)Civil Rights Act of 1866
D)Compromise of 1877
E)Fifteenth Amendment
F)Fourteenth Amendment
G)Freedmen's Bureau
H)Ku Klux Klan
I)Military Reconstruction Act
J)Redeemers
K)scalawag
L)sharecropping

Question 63

None of the many shortcomings of Reconstruction disappointed former slaves more than the failure of the U.S. government to provide them with land of their own. Discuss events and legislation that occurred during the latter part of the Civil War and immediately following the Union victory (1864-65) and explain how they indicated to freedmen that the federal government intended to make some form of land ownership available to former slaves. Contrast those early promises with the realities of the later Reconstruction era, which in effect placed land ownership beyond the reach of all but a small fraction of blacks.

Question 64

When the South returned to the Union, it did so as a junior partner; however, southerners did have a distinct impact on the various Reconstruction plans implemented after the war. Identify the viewpoints of white southerners during this time period and explain how and why they were able to influence the transition in the South from slavery to freedom. Include their opinions about the behavior of ex-slaves and the impact of Reconstruction on their way of life.

Question 65

Use the following to answer questions :
Select the word or phrase from the Terms section that best matches the definition or example provided in the Definitions section.
Labor system that emerged in the South during Reconstruction. Under this system, planters divided their plantations into small farms that freedmen rented, paying with a share of each year's crop. The system gave blacks some freedom, but they remained dependent on white landlords and country merchants.

A)black codes
B)carpetbagger
C)Civil Rights Act of 1866
D)Compromise of 1877
E)Fifteenth Amendment
F)Fourteenth Amendment
G)Freedmen's Bureau
H)Ku Klux Klan
I)Military Reconstruction Act
J)Redeemers
K)scalawag
L)sharecropping

Question 66

Use the following to answer questions :
Select the word or phrase from the Terms section that best matches the definition or example provided in the Definitions section.
A social club of Confederate veterans that quickly developed into a paramilitary organization supporting Democrats. With too few Union troops in the South to control the region, the group went on a rampage of violence to defeat Republicans and restore white supremacy.

A)black codes
B)carpetbagger
C)Civil Rights Act of 1866
D)Compromise of 1877
E)Fifteenth Amendment
F)Fourteenth Amendment
G)Freedmen's Bureau
H)Ku Klux Klan
I)Military Reconstruction Act
J)Redeemers
K)scalawag
L)sharecropping

Question 67

The collapse of Reconstruction began in 1868, when Ulysses S. Grant was elected president. Explain how Grant's inept administration, his lack of political willpower, and the economic depression that occurred during his administration empowered southern Democrats to adopt home rule and end the Reconstruction experiment.

Question 68

Use the following to answer questions :
Select the word or phrase from the Terms section that best matches the definition or example provided in the Definitions section.
Government organization created in March 1865 to distribute food and clothing to destitute southerners and to ease the transition of slaves to free persons. Early efforts by the organization to distribute land to the newly freed blacks were later overturned by President Johnson.

A)black codes
B)carpetbagger
C)Civil Rights Act of 1866
D)Compromise of 1877
E)Fifteenth Amendment
F)Fourteenth Amendment
G)Freedmen's Bureau
H)Ku Klux Klan
I)Military Reconstruction Act
J)Redeemers
K)scalawag
L)sharecropping

Question 69

Reconstruction represents a tragedy of enormous proportions based on many divisive issues. The various Reconstruction plans faced problems such as northern apathy, southern defiance, and a lack of unity from northern politicians. Identify and compare the different goals for Reconstruction and the specific actions taken by Lincoln, Johnson, and Congress. In addition, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each of these plans.

Question 70

Use the following to answer questions :
Select the word or phrase from the Terms section that best matches the definition or example provided in the Definitions section.
Laws passed by state governments in the South in 1865 that sought to force freedmen back to the plantations and keep ex-slaves subordinate to whites.

A)black codes
B)carpetbagger
C)Civil Rights Act of 1866
D)Compromise of 1877
E)Fifteenth Amendment
F)Fourteenth Amendment
G)Freedmen's Bureau
H)Ku Klux Klan
I)Military Reconstruction Act
J)Redeemers
K)scalawag
L)sharecropping

Question 71

Use the following to answer questions :
Select the word or phrase from the Terms section that best matches the definition or example provided in the Definitions section.
Congressional act of March 1867 that initiated military rule of the South. Congressional reconstruction divided the ten unreconstructed Confederate states into five military districts, each under the direction of a Union general. It also established the procedure by which unreconstructed states could reenter the Union.

A)black codes
B)carpetbagger
C)Civil Rights Act of 1866
D)Compromise of 1877
E)Fifteenth Amendment
F)Fourteenth Amendment
G)Freedmen's Bureau
H)Ku Klux Klan
I)Military Reconstruction Act
J)Redeemers
K)scalawag
L)sharecropping

Question 72

Use the following to answer questions :
Select the word or phrase from the Terms section that best matches the definition or example provided in the Definitions section.
Constitutional amendment passed in 1866 that made all native-born or naturalized persons U.S. citizens and prohibited states from abridging the rights of national citizens. The amendment hoped to provide guarantee of equality before the law for black citizens.

A)black codes
B)carpetbagger
C)Civil Rights Act of 1866
D)Compromise of 1877
E)Fifteenth Amendment
F)Fourteenth Amendment
G)Freedmen's Bureau
H)Ku Klux Klan
I)Military Reconstruction Act
J)Redeemers
K)scalawag
L)sharecropping

Question 73

Use the following to answer questions :
Select the word or phrase from the Terms section that best matches the definition or example provided in the Definitions section.
Southerners' pejorative term for a northern migrant who sought opportunity in the South after the Civil War. Northern migrants formed an important part of the southern Republican party.

A)black codes
B)carpetbagger
C)Civil Rights Act of 1866
D)Compromise of 1877
E)Fifteenth Amendment
F)Fourteenth Amendment
G)Freedmen's Bureau
H)Ku Klux Klan
I)Military Reconstruction Act
J)Redeemers
K)scalawag
L)sharecropping

Question 74

Use the following to answer questions :
Select the word or phrase from the Terms section that best matches the definition or example provided in the Definitions section.
Informal pact in which Democrats agreed not to block Rutherford B. Hayes's inauguration and to deal fairly with freedmen. Hayes vowed not to use the army to uphold the remaining Republican regimes in the South and to provide the South with substantial federal subsidies for railroads. The agreement brought Reconstruction to an end.

A)black codes
B)carpetbagger
C)Civil Rights Act of 1866
D)Compromise of 1877
E)Fifteenth Amendment
F)Fourteenth Amendment
G)Freedmen's Bureau
H)Ku Klux Klan
I)Military Reconstruction Act
J)Redeemers
K)scalawag
L)sharecropping

Question 75

Although moderate Republicans did not champion black equality, southern obstinacy and President Johnson's leniency toward the South forged unity among Republican factions. Rather than accept Johnson's claim that the "work of restoration" was done, Congress challenged his executive power. Discuss Congress's passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments. What were the basic tenets of these amendments, and what were the reactions to them?

Question 76

Use the following to answer questions :
Select the word or phrase from the Terms section that best matches the definition or example provided in the Definitions section.
Constitutional amendment passed in February 1869 prohibiting states from depriving any citizen of the right to vote because of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It extended black suffrage nationwide but did not enfranchise women, which disappointed woman suffrage advocates.

A)black codes
B)carpetbagger
C)Civil Rights Act of 1866
D)Compromise of 1877
E)Fifteenth Amendment
F)Fourteenth Amendment
G)Freedmen's Bureau
H)Ku Klux Klan
I)Military Reconstruction Act
J)Redeemers
K)scalawag
L)sharecropping

Question 77

Use the following to answer questions :
Select the word or phrase from the Terms section that best matches the definition or example provided in the Definitions section.
Legislation passed by Congress that nullified the black codes and affirmed that black Americans should have equal benefit of the law. This expansion of black rights and federal authority drew a veto from President Johnson, which Congress later overrode.

A)black codes
B)carpetbagger
C)Civil Rights Act of 1866
D)Compromise of 1877
E)Fifteenth Amendment
F)Fourteenth Amendment
G)Freedmen's Bureau
H)Ku Klux Klan
I)Military Reconstruction Act
J)Redeemers
K)scalawag
L)sharecropping