Deck 15: Reconstructing a Nation, 1865-1877

Question 1

Who led the Freedmen's Bureau?

Answer 1

General Oliver Otis Howard.

Question 2

What percentage of voters in 1860 did President Lincoln require to swear loyalty to the Union before initiating Reconstruction in a state?

Answer 2

10 percent.

Question 3

Explain the significance of the Wade-Davis Bill.

Answer 3

This was the first radical plan for Reconstruction.

Question 4

Other than the Freedman's Bureau, what group sent educators to the South to teach literacy skills to former slaves?

Question 5

What laws passed by southern legislatures attempted to establish rules for former slaves?

Question 6

Southern whites who collaborated with Republicans during Reconstruction were called what?

Question 7

What system developed to employ former slaves in agricultural jobs in the South?

Question 8

How did Credit Mobilier trigger the Panic of 1873?

Question 9

Who was the Democratic Party's nominee for president in 1872?

Question 10

What was the model for "redeeming" southern states from Republican control?

Question 11

Although the Freedmen's Bureau mostly dealt with labor relations, these often spilled over into matters of

A) Civil rights.
B) Taxation.
C) Reparations.
D) Criminal justice.

Question 12

What prompted moderate Republicans to grow increasingly more radical during Reconstruction?

A) The incompetence of the Freedmen's Bureau.
B) The economic crisis in the North.
C) The corruption among Southern blacks.
D) The violence aimed at freed people.

Question 13

What labor system for former slaves developed soon after plantation owners reclaimed their land after the Civil War?

A) Crop lien system.
B) Share tenant system.
C) Sharecrop system.
D) Wage employment.

Question 14

According to the Banks Plan,

A) Citizens of New Orleans must show respect to Union soldiers.
B) Former slaves signed year-long contracts and earned a small percentage of the crop, or $3 per month.
C) Residents of Louisiana were exempt from federal taxation.
D) Union soldiers would invade Texas via the Red River.

Question 15

What group had the most to gain from the Banks Plan?

A) Established planters, who obtained guaranteed labor for little cost.
B) Former slaves, whose labor was compensated for the first time.
C) Residents, who avoided paying taxes.
D) Unionists along the Red River, who were liberated from the Confederacy.

Question 16

Why did General Nathaniel Banks issue stringent regulations for plantations in Louisiana?

A) He wanted to maintain productivity for the Confederacy.
B) He feared that loose labor relations would give slaves the opportunity to flee.
C) He wanted to cut the loss of black lives in contraband camps.
D) He did not trust the civil government to handle plantation matters competently.

Question 17

President Lincoln's plan for Reconstruction required 10 percent of what group to swear future loyalty to the United States?

A) Current residents of a state.
B) Elected officials who had served in Confederate governments.
C) Former Confederate soldiers and sailors.
D) Voting population of a state in 1860.

Question 18

Those who advocated a harsh peace for the South and citizenship for former slaves were called what?

A) Grand Old Party.
B) Liberal Republicans.
C) Mugwumps.
D) Radical Republicans.

Question 19

How many voters would have had to swear allegiance to the Union under the Wade-Davis Bill?

A) A majority.
B) 15 percent.
C) 4 percent.
D) One-quarter.

Question 20

How did President Lincoln dispose of the Wade-Davis Bill?

A) He asked Supreme Court Justice Salmon Portland Chase to declare the bill unconstitutional.
B) He convinced Benjamin Wade to withdraw the bill.
C) Elihue Washburne defeated the bill in the House of Representatives.
D) He used the pocket veto.

Question 21

What group first organized educators to teach literacy skills to former slaves?

A) American Missionary Association.
B) Love in the Name of Christ.
C) United Apostles of Christ.
D) United Jewish Appeal.

Question 22

What changes did former slave women face in their personal relationships with husbands during Reconstruction?

A) Freedom meant that fewer former slave women married.
B) Marriages contracted during slavery were no longer legal.
C) Most traded slavery for patriarchy.
D) Slave women were eligible for child support for the first time.

Question 23

Why did Congress create the Freedmen's Bureau in 1865?

A) To assist in the distribution of confiscated land to former slaves.
B) To oversee labor-management contracts of former slaves.
C) To supervise elections to ensure freedmen could vote.
D) To take care of legal issues for freedmen.

Question 24

Who headed the Freedmen's Bureau?

A) Abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
B) Congressman Thaddeus Stevens.
C) General Ben Hur Heston.
D) General Oliver Otis Howard.

Question 25

Which amendment to the Constitution officially ended slavery, or "involuntary servitude," in the United States?

A) Eighteenth Amendment.
B) Fifteenth Amendment.
C) Fourteenth Amendment.
D) Thirteenth Amendment.

Question 26

Black Codes

A) Stipulated clearly the new freedoms and liberties of freedmen.
B) Introduced segregation of public facilities to Southern jurisdictions.
C) Were guidebooks that helped African Americans navigate the challenges of liberty.
D) Confined black freedoms with laws that singled out blacks for unequal treatment.

Question 27

After the Civil War, North Carolina witnessed

A) A wave of black property crimes.
B) A series of murders of wealthy white men.
C) A period of black revenge killings of former overseers and planters.
D) A wave of violent assaults against black people.

Question 28

What effect did reports of violence against freed people have on Congress?

A) Conservative Democrats sided with the Republican do-nothing policy.
B) Conservative Republicans refused to raise taxes to help.
C) Liberal Democrats were outraged.
D) Moderate Republicans were radicalized.

Question 29

What criticism did radical Republicans have of the Freedmen's Bureau?

A) Agents sided with landowners against the interests of freed people too often.
B) No provision was made for freedwomen.
C) Operational costs were too high for yield in reconciliation.
D) Southern whites intimidated its officers.

Question 30

The Civil Rights bill of 1866

A) Reaffirmed the Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott.
B) Extended the life of Freedmen's Bureau.
C) Marked the first time the federal government intervened in the due process of states.
D) Promised universal suffrage.

Question 31

Why did President Andrew Johnson say he vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866?

A) Congress was attempting to infringe on executive powers.
B) He doubted whether blacks were qualified for citizenship.
C) Enforcement would have been impossible.
D) No additional affirmative action legislation was needed.

Question 32

What first symbolized the transfer of initiative in Reconstruction from the executive to the legislative branch?

A) Congress overriding President Johnson's veto of the Civil Rights Act and the extension of the Freedmen's Bureau.
B) Congress reducing the military appropriation for 1866.
C) The impeachment of President Johnson.
D) The Supreme Court ruling in the case of Ex parte Milligan.

Question 33

What was the first accomplishment of the Fourteenth Amendment?

A) It formally ended slavery in the United States.
B) It guaranteed the right to vote regardless of race.
C) It overruled the Dred Scott case defining citizenship.
D) It required former Confederates to petition for a pardon.

Question 34

Who of the following was the first Republican senator to challenge Abraham Lincoln's reconstruction ideas implemented in Louisiana?

A) Andrew Johnson.
B) William H. Seward.
C) Edwin Stanton.
D) Benjamin F. Wade.

Question 35

What was President Johnson's stand on the Fourteenth Amendment?

A) He asked Secretary of State Seward not to certify the amendment's ratification.
B) He reluctantly accepted the amendment to end Reconstruction.
C) He said he would accept a state that ratified the amendment but would not require them to do so.
D) He vetoed a civil rights bill that provided the basis for the amendment.

Question 36

What did the Reconstruction of Act of March 2, 1867, provide?

A) It established former Confederate states as territories and divided them into military districts.
B) It extended the Freedmen's Bureau over President Johnson's veto.
C) It impeached President Andrew Johnson for "high crimes and misdemeanors."
D) It required ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Question 37

What was accomplished by the Second Reconstruction Act passed in July 1867?

A) It convicted President Johnson of contempt of Congress.
B) It ensured black suffrage by placing the army in charge of voter registration.
C) It overrode President Johnson's veto of the Civil Rights Act.
D) It required ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment.

Question 38

Military voting registrars

A) Did not accomplish their duties in time for elections in 1868.
B) Refused to register anyone who was accused of being a Democrat.
C) Registered more blacks than whites in the South.
D) Were just as discriminatory against blacks as elected white officials.

Question 39

Northerners who came south in the aftermath of the Civil War to introduce reforms or capitalize on opportunities were known as

A) Carpetbaggers.
B) Invaders.
C) Scalawags.
D) Sooners.

Question 40

Southerners who collaborated with northerners after the Civil War were known as

A) Carpetbaggers.
B) Scalawags.
C) Traitors.
D) Yellow dogs.

Question 41

What group formed the backbone of the Republican Party in the South during Reconstruction?

A) African Americans.
B) Carpetbaggers.
C) Radicals.
D) Scalawags.

Question 42

Most blacks who held elected office in southern states during Reconstruction

A) Had been free in the prewar period.
B) Had moved from the North to take advantage of the situation.
C) Were illiterate former slaves.
D) Were independent and difficult for radical Republicans to influence.

Question 43

Under the Republicans' "gospel of prosperity," southern state legislatures committed credit and funds to

A) Education.
B) Civil rights.
C) Industrial development.
D) Reparations.

Question 44

What did blacks most expect from government?

A) An end to war and social disorder.
B) Economic development so they would have better jobs.
C) More participation in the judicial process.
D) Public services, especially universal education.

Question 45

During Reconstruction, southern governments

A) Extended access to free public schools to African Americans.
B) Shut down public schools to avoid having to teach African Americans.
C) Responded to blacks' constitutional right to education with segregation laws.
D) Began to overtake northern states with their investment in public education.

Question 46

Why was there a shortage of agricultural workers in the South during Reconstruction?

A) The cessation of war reopened access to foreign markets.
B) Former slaves refused to work for former owners.
C) The demand for cotton, sugarcane, and tobacco increased.
D) Thousands of emancipated blacks left the South to pursue opportunities in the North.

Question 47

Under the sharecrop system,

A) Government subsidies made up the difference between agricultural prices and the cost-of-living index.
B) Landowners often received less than one half of the crops.
C) Landowners provided land, tools, seed, and work animals.
D) Sharecroppers received one half of the yield of crops.

Question 48

Under the sharecrop system,

A) Family units often worked the land.
B) Landowners paid sharecroppers a salary until crops were harvested.
C) Landowners shared labor expenses with the sharecropper.
D) Sharecroppers hired additional labor as needed.

Question 49

Other than getting laborers to work their land, how did the sharecrop system benefit landowners?

A) Government subsidies provided them with more income.
B) Profits were greater than under the slave labor system.
C) It provided employment for immigrants.
D) It reduced their risk when cotton prices were low.

Question 50

How did sharecropping help shape the social system of the postwar South?

A) It empowered former slaves to become capitalists.
B) It enabled rapid industrialization.
C) It kept the population from moving north for jobs.
D) It tied the southern economy to agriculture, particularly cotton.

Question 51

Why did radicals call for the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson?

A) They accused Johnson of revealing military secrets to the Confederates during the Civil War.
B) They charged that he had an improper relationship with an intern.
C) Johnson violated the Tenure of Office Act.
D) Radicals were angry with Johnson for vetoing the Civil Rights Act.

Question 52

What was the intent of the Dawes Severalty Act?

A) To break up reservations into separate plots for Indian families.
B) To give Indians citizenship and the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment.
C) To make Indians subject to the income tax and compulsory military service.
D) To separate Indians into tribes, each with its own reservation.

Question 53

What did the Republican Party's nomination of Ulysses Grant for president in 1868 signify?

A) A fear that the Democratic Party would nominate him if they did not.
B) A retreat of the Republican Party from radicalism.
C) That they were so confident of victory that they could nominate someone who had never held elective office before.
D) That the Civil War had left an angry scar on America.

Question 54

What was the principal goal of terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan?

A) To enable yeoman farmers to achieve prosperity.
B) To keep the carpetbag-scalawag-black coalition intact.
C) To prevent immigrants from taking jobs from American-born laborers.
D) To restore white supremacy in the South.

Question 55

The reservation system was intended to

A) Pay the Indians for their land.
B) Prevent outbreaks of violence between Indians and white settlers.
C) Create centralized locations across the West where Native peoples could work in factories.
D) Each statement is correct.

Question 56

The Fifteenth Amendment

A) Guaranteed all citizens the right to vote.
B) Guaranteed all men the right to vote.
C) Prohibited disfranchisement on account of race, gender, or religion.
D) Prohibited disfranchisement on account of race, color, or creed.

Question 57

Why did supporters of women's suffrage oppose ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment?

A) It was proposed by men.
B) They believed women had suffered enough and deserved emancipation.
C) They thought the Fourteenth Amendment provisions were adequate.
D) It would subject elite, educated women to the rule of base and illiterate males, especially immigrants and blacks.

Question 58

What was the purpose of the Homestead Act?

A) To get as much of the public domain on the tax rolls as possible.
B) To have white settlers take over land controlled by Indians.
C) To settle the West with independent small farmers.
D) To use western land as a "safety valve" to keep eastern workers from forming labor unions.

Question 59

What is meant by the term "redemption"?

A) Accepting former Confederate states back into the Union.
B) Cleansing the Republican Party of the taint of corruption and scandal.
C) Restoration of local, white control in former Confederate states.
D) Return of "that old-time religion" in the South.

Question 60

What group finally decided the presidential race in 1876 in favor of the Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes?

A) An appointed electoral commission composed of a majority of Republicans.
B) The Electoral College, although all members did not vote as had voters in their states.
C) Military officers in charge of voting in the South.
D) Supreme Court justices.

Question 61

What efforts were made to begin Reconstruction while the Civil War still raged?

Question 62

How did presidential Reconstruction and congressional Reconstruction differ?

Question 63

How did southern blacks practice their new freedom after the end of the Civil War?

Question 64

Was Reconstruction successful?