CHAPTER 15

Which adjective accurately describes Republican state governments in the Reconstruction South?

Ambitious in goals

How do scholars now view Freedmen's Bureau officials?

As dedicated and idealistic

How was Reconstruction taught in American children schools at least until the 1960s?

As the illegitimate regime of lazy blacks

Why did the freedmen insist that they needed to receive grants of land?

As the only way to guarantee their freedom

What triggered the 1873 depression in the United States?

Bankruptcy of the Northern Pacific Railroad

How did the Supreme Court ruling in U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876) weaken the Fourteenth Amendment?

By saying it did not apply to the actions of private citizens

How did sharecropping develop as an agricultural system in the post-Civil War South?

By way of strained, need-based negotiations between landlords and freedmen

Republicans in April 1866 successfully gathered two-thirds majorities to override President Johnson's vetoes and pass what act?

Civil Rights Act

Why did Congress pass the Civil Rights Act of 1875 after the bill had remained on Capitol Hill for five years?

Congress passed the law to honor Charles Sumner, who had died the year before.

Why did Congress believe it was important for military commanders in the occupied South to supervise new state constitutional conventions?

Congress wanted to ensure that new constitutions guaranteed black suffrage.

What position did Frederick Douglass assume on the issue of women's voting rights during Reconstruction?

Douglass asked women to allow black male suffrage to take priority.

Why was the outcome of the 1876 election given to an electoral commission to determine?

Electoral votes from three states were disputed.

With what was President Andrew Johnson charged when he was impeached in 1868?

Engaging in misconduct and infringing on the powers of Congress

What was the primary reason Republican governments across the South fell one by one to Democrats in the mid-1870s?

Ex-Confederate politicians, using terrorism, silenced the black and Republican vote.

Why did some African Americans in the Reconstruction South resist the idea of desegregated schools?

Fear for children's safety

What incident proved to be the final outrage for Republicans in Congress that convinced them that they had to tighten the rules of Reconstruction under Andrew Johnson in 1866?

Georgians elected Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens to Congress.

What were the "Redemption" governments of the South in the late 1800s?

Governments formed of ex-Confederates

Which of the following best assesses the role of Ulysses S. Grant in the impeachment crisis of 1868?

Grant had stepped down as secretary of war in favor of Edwin Stanton, precipitating the crisis.

Why did Republicans nominate Rutherford B. Hayes for the presidential election of 1876?

He came from the important swing state of Ohio.

What did President Andrew Johnson's opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment succeeded in achieving?

Helping Republicans win an overwhelming majority in Congress in 1866

Where did American women first win the right to vote?

In Wyoming through territorial law

By the late 1870s, how did the majority of freedmen and freedwomen in the South live?

In poverty with uncertain political rights

What was radical about the Fourteenth Amendment?

It defined citizenship in national rather than state terms.

What statement describes Abraham Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan for Reconstruction?

It included general amnesty to all but high-ranking Confederates willing to pledge loyalty to the Union.

Which of the following best assesses the significance of the election of 1876 for the South?

It made little immediate difference in the South, where Redeemers had already assumed power.

Why did the Grant administration's reaction to the depression that began in 1873 deepen resentment toward Washington Republicans?

It rejected calls for providing relief for debt and unemployment.

Who assassinated Abraham Lincoln in April 1865?

John Wilkes Booth

Why did wage labor not become common in cotton-producing areas of the South?

Landowners did not have the cash to pay wages.

The Black Codes instituted by southern state governments created under Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plan aimed to achieve what goal?

Place African Americans in a situation as close to slavery as possible

Why did the Democratic loser of the contested 1876 election, Samuel Tilden, urge Democratic House members to go along with the decision of the electoral commission?

Republican candidate Hayes had indicated his willingness to offer substantial patronage to the South.

What was significant about the results of the 1866 congressional elections?

Republicans won enough seats to override President Andrew Johnson's vetoes.

What did American women's rights leaders hope to gain from Reconstruction?

Suffrage

Republican Radicals in the House followed the lead of which congressman from Pennsylvania?

Thaddeus Stevens

Which statement best describes the constitutional revolution associated with Reconstruction?

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments laid the foundation for the civil rights movement of the twentieth century.

According to the Fourteenth Amendment, which of the following granted U.S. citizenship?

The federal government

Why did the economic troubles brought on by the panic of 1873 hit southern governments particularly hard?

The southern economy had already been growing slowly before the downturn.

In the election of 1876, on what grounds did Republican officials certify the states of Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina for Rutherford B. Hayes?

There was ample evidence of Democratic voter fraud.

Why were the odds stacked against freedmen who became sharecroppers?

They could not escape debt.

Why are the Republican Reconstruction governments of the South categorized as reforming governments?

They expanded education and health care.

Why did many Republicans believe after 1874 that Reconstruction needed to end?

They had suffered a stunning defeat in the 1874 midterm elections.

Why did some Republicans begin to revolt against the Grant administration in the early 1870s?

They lost faith in their party because of the economic depression.

What did Republicans in Congress do in 1865 to block implementation of President Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plan?

They refused to admit southern delegates to Congress.

Why were Supreme Court decisions of the 1870s and 1880s regarding the Civil War amendments and civil rights acts significant?

They restricted the impact of these amendments and rulings.

What service, in addition to religious services, did churches provide African Americans after the Civil War?

They served as social centers.

Why did some Republicans in the Senate vote to acquit President Andrew Johnson of criminal misconduct at the end of his impeachment trial?

They thought that removing a president over a policy dispute would be a dangerous precedent.

What made the failure of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company (FSTC) in 1874 so tragic?

This bank was predominantly used by black farmers, charities, and small businesses.

Which provision was part of the Wade-Davis Bill of July 1864, the first congressional plan for Reconstruction?

Those who had fought against the United States could not form new governments.

In the South of the late 1800s, sharecroppers found themselves tied to the land and in debt to landlords and merchants in a system of forced labor known as

peonage.